Do not allow the words that have been imprisoned on the page to distract you from the words that I speak within your soul.
The printed word has this virtue, that it is constant, it can be perceived whether you are open in soul or not. But can it be understood? There is a sense in which the more “conscious” you are, awake in the body and aware of knowing with your senses, the less you can understand the language of the spirit. And yet it is often difficult to remember and carry those words back with you into the waking world.
Read, therefore, the words that have been set down here, but not as an end, a finished product, in themselves. Read as if you were the fertile soil and the words seeds to be planted within. Let them sink from waking consciousness into that dark subsoil of the mind where they can take root and grow. The words, even my words, are not important in themselves, but only as they become part of you. Read a little at a time, take this mead in small sips, lest you become drunken and unable to work in the waking world. Let one thought follow another until it becomes your own.
Meaning does not live on the page. It is begotten by words, but it must be born in the heart.