From a great height, our planet would first of all appear blue from the oxygen that envelops it; then green from the vegetation which covers it; then luminous and ever more luminous – from the thought that grows in intensity on its surface. But at the same time it would appear dark – and ever more dark – from a suffering that, throughout the ages, grows in quantity and poignancy in step with the rise of consciousness.
Consider the total suffering of the whole earth at every moment. If only we were able to gather up this formidable magnitude, to gauge its volume, to weight, count, analyze it – what an astronomic mass, what a terrifying total! And from physical torture to moral agonies, how subtle a range of shades of misery!
If only, through the medium of some conductivity suddenly established between bodies and souls, all the pain were mixed with all the joy of the world, who can say on which side the balance would settle, on that of pain or that of joy?
Within the vast process of arrangement from which life emerges, every success is paid for by a large percentage of failures. One cannot progress in being without paying a mysterious tribute of tears, blood, and sin. It is hardly surprising, then, if all around us some shadows grow more dense at the same time as the light grows brighter: for, when we see it from this angle, suffering in all its forms and all its degrees is no more than a natural consequence of the movement by which we were brought into being.
