The Divine Within: Selected Writings on Enlightenment

by Aldous Huxley

that we as we think of ourselves are a very small part even of the physiological and subconscious life immediately available to us; that we do not control our bodies and we do not even control our thoughts. After all, the popular language is very clear on that subject. We say, “A thought came to me; this flashed upon me.” We do not say, “I invented this thought.” We accept what comes to us. And we have to learn how to take what is given by something which is not ourselves in any sense that we think of ourselves. And this, as I say, applies to every level of activity from the simplest physiological acts to acts of psychophysical skill, going up to the most complicated ones like playing the violin, playing the piano, and so on. And finally, it is exactly the same principle which holds good in the religious life, where the aim is somehow to get out of the light—what the Quakers call the Inner Light. We have to get out of the light and let it shine. (And most of our lives, of course, are spent in eclipsing this light with all possible means at our disposal.)