What is written on the walls of the human temple?

One whom I loved made war on me, and the nations of the earth made war on one another. 

The green fields were stained with blood, and the hum of the harvest crickets was drowned, with cries of pain and rage, as men rushed on to wreak their hate upon their human kindred. 

My heart was sadder than the skies of the London winter. 

No joy there seemed, in all the earth, for love was dying, and peace was dead, and men were going everywhere to death. 

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN was written on the walls of the human temple.

And I said to my heart—

Where have we drifted in the midday of our life? 

And why do we wait for the sunset? 

For love has failed, and the world has failed, and have we not failed, too?

Then, as I sat gazing into the nothingness of my own faith, I heard a voice that seemed to come from the centre of all things, and the voice said—

Take your pen and write, for to him who has lost everything, the treasures of the self are opened.

I am that Self that you had forgotten when you looked inside for love. 

I am the Self that the nations had forgotten when they went out to destroy one another. 

I am the One Self, and my house is in all these hearts that throb with hate and love. 

When they wound each other, they wound me—

When they doubt each other, they doubt me—

When they love each other, they love me. 

There is no other way of realising me save by love and hate, and faith and doubt. 

For love and hate are two poles of the one magnet, and doubt and faith are my twinborn children.

He who has never doubted all knows not the meaning of faith, and he who has never been hated knows not the meaning of love.

When the heart is empty of joy, I fill it with myself. 

When my own destroy each other on earth, they rush together in heaven. 

Freed from the blindness of the body, they see each other true.

Two soldiers went forth to war and the bullet of each pierced the heart of the other. 

Their hate was hot as love. 

Then, in the sudden darkness of death, they reached out for each other's hand—

Their hate had found its other pole, and they melted together in love.

Two friends went forth to war against each other, and with every wound, they drew nearer together—

The soul of each grieved for the other's pain, and neither in death, nor life, can one escape the other.

Would you avoid a loved one, then never dare to hate him?

The soul has pity when the brain is pitiless—

The faith of the soul may be strongest when the mind is weak with doubt.

The soul of the brain that hates you keeps watch when it is still—

It wipes with its vapoury hand the teardrops from your eyes.

When you weep in dreams, know that your soul is weeping, for the tears you have caused your enemy. 

When you wake with wet eyes, you are paying the debt of love.

Be kind to him who hates you, for his waif is wandering alone.

When you go to sleep, send love to the one who wounds you by day. 

If you go to sleep in hate, you will wake with wet eyes.

I am the go-between. 

I am the Self whose house is in every heart. 

I take messages in the darkness. 

I am too great to be proud. 

I run errands for my own.

How well you have tried to hate I know by your heart's sadness. 

That you have failed to hate is because your soul is sleepless.

I am the go-between, and I keep my lantern lit.

—The Beautiful Being