Enter Into The Spirit
Letters To My Son #1
To enter into the spirit of something means to take part in the thing with enthusiasm.
The Spirit is what gives life and movement to something.
It is what causes the thing to exist at all.
The thought of an author is the Spirit of her book.
The impression of the painter is the Spirit of her picture.
The feeling of the musician is the Spirit of her music.
Without the thought, the impression, or the feeling, their work will not exist.
So before you can enjoy the benefits of their work,
you must enter into the Idea behind the work.
If you cannot enter into the Spirit of it,
the book, the picture, the music are meaningless to you.
To appreciate them, you must share the mental attitude of their creator.
This is a universal principle and it says:
If you do not enter into the Spirit of something,
the thing is dead to you.
But if you enter into it, you reproduce in yourself, the same quality of life which created the thing.
Since this is a general principle, you can apply it to anything.
You can apply it to Life.
You can enter into the spirit of Life
and reproduce it in yourself as an endless spring of livingness.
But before you can enter into the Spirit of Life,
You need to know what the Spirit of Life is.
So, what is the Spirit of Life?
See next letter…