I am more famed in Heaven for my works than I could well conceive. In my brain are studies & chambers filled with books & pictures of old, which I wrote and painted in ages of Eternity before my mortal life; and whose works are the delight & study of Archangels. Why, then, should I be anxious about the riches or fame of mortality?
Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and you know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you now Heaven and you know Earth, you may make your victory complete.
Not in Utopia, -- subterranean fields, --Or some secreted island, Heaven knows whereBut in the very world, which is the worldOf all of us, -- the place where in the endWe find our happiness, or not at all
Without going outside, you may know the whole world, without looking through the window, you may see the ways of heaven. The farther you go, the less you know. Thus the sage knows without traveling; he sees without looking; he works without doing.
The crows maintain that a single crow could destroy the heavens. There is no doubt of that, but it proves nothing against the heavens, for heaven simply means: the impossibility of crows.
The Kingdom of Heaven is within us. God is within us. He is the Soul of our souls. See Him in your own soul. That is practical religion. That is freedom.