We must cut ourselves off completely from our old life and our old habits, and patiently wait in peace and silence aspiring after a new birth in a new life; only then will the higher force descend into us and carry out our transformation.
As long as we keep up a sort of compromise with our old self and our old life, we raise a great obstacle to the working of the higher force in us. Currents and influences constantly enter into us from the life of the race, which tend to keep us bound to the average level of humanity. We must give up all our attachments, cast off our old nature as a worn-out garment or shell, and raise a wall of protection around us, so that nothing from the outside world may touch or affect us; only under these conditions a new nature, a new life will begin to form in us.
As the caterpillar runs away from its familiar fields of branches and leaves, giving up all its old habitual movements, finds out a secluded corner in some high place far above the ground, and casting a web of protection round itself waits in perfect calm and silence to be turned into a butterfly, even so we must completely retire into ourselves, cut off from the outside world, and in perfect calm and silence seek a new birth, a new life in Thee, other; only then shall we cast off our humanity and realise the divine life for which we are destined.
