RT consists in deeds, not words.” This is a proverbial remark A is also quite true if one reasonably excludes the accidental circumstance where the art really consists in “saying it.” For it would certainly be strange were anyone to deny that the poet’s art consists precisely in “saying it,” since truly not everyone can say that which the poet says in such a way that he thereby proves himself to be a poet. This is also partly true about the art of speaking.
But in relation to love, it is neither wholly nor partly true that the art consists in saying it, or that to be able to say it in any essential way, is conditioned by the accidental endowment. That is why it is so edifying to speak about love, because one must constantly think and say to one’s self: “Everyone can love,” or, “Everyone ought to be able to love” —while it would be a strange way of speaking to say that everyone was or could become a poet. Love which overcomes all differences, which loosens all bonds, in order to bind everything together in the bond of love, must naturally take loving heed that here a certain kind of difference does not suddenly and contentiously assert itself.
Because the matter stands thus, because there is no “art” in recommending love, just therefore does loving constitute a work; for “art” is related to the accidental endowment; the work is related to the universal. So the proverb may find its application in a peculiar manner. Thus if one should in a hasty, casual remark, in a hasty proposition (which seems especially acceptable to these times), say, “It would be a good thing if someone were to undertake to recommend love,” one would have to answer that, “Saying it is no art, but doing it”“—and that although “doing it” in this connection would indicate that saying it, as has been proved with reference to love, is no art, and so consequently it is art and yet not art, but a deed. The proof then consists in working out such a recommendation of love as to require both time and diligence. If it were an art to recommend love, the relationship would not be such. For with respect to a certain kind of art, it is truly not given to everyone to practice it, even if he is willing to spend both time and diligence in acquiring it. Love, on the other hand, oh, it is not like art, jealous of itself, and therefore poured out only on the few. Everyone who wishes to have love, to him it is given, and if he is willing to assume the task of recommending it, he will also succeed.
So let us now consider
It is a work, and naturally a work of love, for it can only be performed in love, more precisely defined, in love of the truth. We shall endeavor to be more explicit as to how this work may be accomplished. The work of recommending love must be done inwardly in selfdenial.
If the recommending of love is to be performed effectually, then one must for a long time stick to thinking one thought, to holding it, spiritually understood, in the strictest continence with respect to everything heterogeneous, alien, irrelevant and disturbing; must stick to it with the most punctilious and obediently exact renunciation of every other thought. But this is very exhausting. That way it is easy enough to disavow the meaning and, in this connection, the understanding of the thought; and that will also be the case if the single thought which occupies one is a particular finite conception, not one infinite thought. But if it is also the one thought which saves and preserves the understanding, it is still very exhausting. Consequently, to think a single thought in inwardness away from all distraction, to advance from month to month in making the hand stronger and stronger which stretches the thread of thought; and then, on the other side, in rising to learn always more obediently, more humbly to make the hand lighter and more supple in guidance, the hand which at any second, if necessary, must relax and ease the tension, consequently with mounting passion to grasp more and more firmly, more and more certainly, and in increasing humility be able, if the moment makes it necessary, to let go more and more easily: that is very exhausting. And yet we cannot conceal from one that this is the one thing needful, nor can we conceal it from one if one does it; for when one thinks but one thought, the direction is inward.
It is one thing to think in such a way that one’s attention is always directed outward toward the object, which is something external; it is another thing to have one’s thoughts so reversed that one is at every moment conscious of himself, conscious of the effect of the thought, or how the thought affects his own condition. But only the latter is essentially thinking, that is, clarity of thought. The first is unclear thinking, which suffers from the contradiction that the reflection which clarifies another thought is in the final analysis itself confused. Such a thinker explains another by his thinking, and, lo, he does not understand himself. As far as an external object of thought is concerned, he makes a very profound use of his natural abilities, but as regards inwardness, a very superficial use, and therefore all his thinking, however profound it may seem, is still at bottom superficial. But when the object of one’s reflection is externally complicated, or when one transforms that of which he is thinking into an erudite object of reflection, or when one leaps from one subject of thought to another, then one does not discover this last irregularity: that at the bottom of all the clarity there lies a lack of clarity, instead of the true clarity alone being brought to light. If, on the contrary, one has but one thought, then there is no external object, then one’s thoughts are directed inward in self-absorption, then one must discover his own inner condition; and at first this discovery is very humiliating. The forces of the human spirit do not behave in the same way as do physical forces. If one overstrains his physical strength he is injured, and thereby he gains nothing. But, if one, simply by choosing inwardness, does not exert his spiritual forces, as such, to the limit, he simply does not discover, at least not in the deeper sense, that God exists; and if this is so, then he has lost the thing of greatest importance, or the most important thing has essentially eluded him. In physical strength, as such, there is nothing selfish, but in the human spirit, as such, there lies a selfishness which must be humbled, if the God-relationship is to be gained in truth. This, then, is what the one must experience who concentrates upon a single thought; he must experience the intrusion of interruptions wherein it is as if everything were taken from him; he must encounter the perils of life where it holds good about losing one’s life in order to save it. He must go forward on this way, if he is to bring anything deeper to light. If he shies away from this difficulty, then his thought becomes superficial—although in these clever times men have certainly assumed between themselves, although without referring it to God or the eternal, that such an exertion is not necessary, moreover, that it is an eccentricity. Now of course it is not needed in order to lead a comfortable and irresponsible life, or to satisfy his own contemporaries with the admired perfection which to a T absolutely resembles that of everyone else. But nevertheless it is certain that without being tested in this difficulty and without this strenuous exertion, one’s thought becomes superficial. For spiritually understood it is true that not until a man has overexerted his spiritual strength as such, can he become an instrument; he will from that moment, if he endures in sincerity and faith, gain his greatest strength; but it is not his own strength, he acquires it in his self-abnegation