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is negation, standing as if it were something, while it is nothing.
Thus, between your mind and the attainment of its supreme bliss is the everlasting "ni," or the very bold assumption of nothing that it is something. By dropping the claims of misery, you step through the valley of the shadow of the apparent reality of misery, into the reality of blessedness divine.
Now this "ni," which lies between you and the presence of your Good, is as apt to be one of your virtues as one of your vices. If you are one who takes pride in never speaking or acting from impulse, and who feels a sort of contempt for people who act impulsively, your virtue is the claim to be something when it is nothing.
Does God take pride in never speaking nor acting from impulse? Let that pride in your virtue be eliminated from your character. Here the apostle Paul on the subject: "Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." It is "as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." It is well to act with discretion, but your virtue becomes as sounding brass if you take pride in your discretion.
Suppose you are very prompt in paying your debts and take pride in it, speaking scornfully of people who do not pay promptly; this pride in your virtue hides the virtue. One good day you may believe yourself unable to pay your debts, and if it causes you to be more lenient with people who are careless you will pass the shadow "ni" that stands between your mind and its satisfaction present, so near, yet with the distance of a personal trait between.
In our last lesson we named these "ideas of absence." We called our protests against them "denials." We spoke of the two particular traits of each human being. These are not innocent traits. They are the habits of thinking which belong to our manner of believing in the absence of our particular
