There are two truths
the first of these is that joy does not come from outside
for whatever happens to us it is within
the second truth is that light does not come to us from without
light is in us
even if we have no eyes
without my eyes light was much more stable than it had been with them
as I remember it they were no longer the same differences between things lighted brightly
less brightly or not at all
I saw the whole world in light existing through it and because of it
inside me every sound every scent and every shape was forever changing into light
and light itself changing into color to make a kaleidoscope of my blindness
a light so continuous and so intense
was so far beyond my comprehension that sometimes I doubted it
still there was light and light cast a spell over me
colors all the colors of the rainbow also survived
for me the child who loved to draw and paint
colors made a celebration so unexpected that I spent hours playing with them
and all the more easily now they were more docile than they used to be
light through its color on things and on people
my father and mother the people I met or ran into in the street
all had their characteristic color which I had never seen before I went blind
yet now this special attribute impressed itself on me as part of them
as definitely is any impression created by a face
still the colors were only a game
while light was my whole reason for living
I let it rise in me like water in a well and I rejoiced
I could no longer afford to be jealous or unfriendly
because as soon as I was a bandage came down over my eyes
and I was bound hand and foot and cast aside
all at once a black hole opened and I was helpless inside it
but when I was happy and Serene approached people with confidence and thought well of them
I was rewarded with light
before I was 10 years old I knew with absolute certainty that everything in
the world was a sign of something else ready to take its place if it should fall by the way
and this continuing miracle of healing I heard expressed in the Lord's Prayer
I repeated at night before going to sleep
I was not afraid
some people would say I had faith
and how should I not have it in the presence of the marvel which kept renewing itself
I felt sure that nothing was unfriendly that the branches I used to swing on would hold firm
and at the paths no matter how winding would take me to a place where I would not be afraid
that all paths eventually would lead me back to my family
you might say that I had no story except the most important of all story of life
I began to look more closely
not at things but at a world closer to myself
looking from an inner place to one further within
instead of clinging to the movement of sight toward the world outside
immediately the substance of the universe drew together redefined and repeopled themself anew
I was aware of a radiance emanating from a place I knew nothing about
a place which might have well been outside me as Within
but radiance was there all to put it more precisely light
it was a fact for light was there
I felt indescribable relief and happiness so great it almost made me laugh
confidence and gratitude came as if a prayer had been answered
I found light and joy at the same moment
and I can say without hesitation
that from that time on light and joy have never been separated in my experience
I have them all lost them all together
the amazing thing was that this was not magic for me at all but reality
I could no more have denied it than people with eyes can deny that they see
I was not light myself I knew that
I bathed in it as an element which blindness had suddenly brought much closer
I could feel light rising, spreading, resting on objects giving them form
then leaving them
withdrawing or diminishing is what I mean for the opposite of light was never present
sighted people always talk about the night of blindness and that seems to them quite natural
but there is no such night
for at every waking hour and even in my dreams I lived in a stream of light
inside me there was everything I had believed was outside
there was in particular sun light and all colors
there were even the shapes of objects and the distance between objects
everything was there and movement as well
light is an element that we carry inside us
and which can grow there with as much abundance variety and intensity as it can outside of us
I could light myself
that is I could create a light inside of me so alive so large and so near that my eyes
my physical eyes or what remained of them vibrated almost to the point of hurting
God is there under a form that has the good luck to be neither religious
nor intellectual nor sentimental but quite simply alive
I am certain that children always know this more than they are able to tell
and that makes the big difference between them and adults
who at best know only a fraction of what they say
the reason is simply that children know everything with their whole being
while we know it only with our heads
unhappiness comes to each of us because we think ourselves at the center of the world
because we have the miserable conviction that we alone suffer to the point of unbearable intensity
unhappiness is always to feel oneself imprisoned in one's own skin in one's own brain
sight is a miraculous instrument offering us all the riches of physical life
but we get nothing in this world without paying for it
and in return for all the benefits that sight brings
we are forced to give up others whose existence we don't even suspect
these were the gifts I received in such abundance