How does anyone achieve such a holding together of opposites—things like inner acceptance and outer resistance, intense suffering and perfect freedom, my little self and an infinite God, sensuality and intense spirituality, the need to blame somebody and the freedom to blame nobody? Etty Hillesum demonstrated this ability like few people I have ever studied. Either such people are the cutting edge of human consciousness and civilization, or they are mentally deranged. They surely far transcend any formal religion.
