The Practice of the Presence of God · 22 of 22

Fifteenth Letter

God knows best what we need. All that He does is for our good. If we knew how much He loves us, we would always be ready to receive both the bitter and the sweet from His Hand. It would make no difference. All that came from Him would be pleasing. The worst afflictions only appear intolerable if we see them in the wrong light. When we see them as coming from the hand of God and know that it is our loving Father who humbles and distresses us, our sufferings lose their bitterness and can even become a source of consolation.

Let all our efforts be to know God. The more one knows Him, the greater one desires to know Him. Knowledge is commonly the measure of love. The deeper and more extensive our knowledge, the greater is our love. If our love of God were great we would love Him equally in pain and pleasure.

We only deceive ourselves by seeking or loving God for any favors which He has or may grant us. Such favors, no matter how great, can never bring us as near to God as can one simple act of faith. Let us seek Him often by faith. He is within us. Seek Him not elsewhere.

Insight · 2

“We only deceive ourselves by seeking or loving God for any favors which He has or may grant us.” This is Lawrence at his most Advaita-adjacent. The warning is against spiritual consumerism — loving God for what God gives rather than for God. The Sufi poet Rabi’a of Basra, four centuries earlier, famously said she would run through the streets with a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other, to burn heaven and quench hell, so that people might love God for God’s sake alone. Different tradition, same surgery. The ego is very willing to love God if there’s a reward in it, and that willingness has to be seen through.Rabi’a al-Adawiyya of Basra, attributed saying; in Attar’s Memorial of the Saints.

“Let us seek Him often by faith. He is within us. Seek Him not elsewhere.” Lawrence’s last word in the letters, essentially — and it is a Christian restatement of what the Upanishads kept saying a thousand years earlier. The Chandogya: tat tvam asi, that thou art. Augustine in the Confessions: “You were within me, and I was outside.” Ramana Maharshi in the twentieth century would reduce the whole question to one: who is seeking? The inward turn is the oldest instruction in contemplative literature, and Lawrence ends on it not as mysticism but as kitchen-brother common sense. God is already here. Stop looking further.Augustine, Confessions 10.27; Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7; Ramana Maharshi, Who Am I?

Are we not rude and deserve blame if we leave Him alone to busy ourselves with trifles which do not please Him and perhaps even offend Him? These trifles may one day cost us dearly. Let us begin earnestly to be devoted to Him. Let us cast everything else out of our hearts. He wants to possess the heart alone. Beg this favor of Him. If we do all we can, we will soon see that change wrought in us which we so greatly desire.

I cannot thank Him enough for the relief He has given you. I hope to see Him within a few days. Let us pray for one another.

Fifteenth Letter

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