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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: to be just ready to open into flower, "hands off" is the only
word for us, it must burst forth unaided!
We have used the vague and abstract language of psychology. But
since, in any terms, the crisis described is the throwing of our
conscious selves upon the mercy of powers which, whatever they
may be, are more ideal than we are actually, and make for our
redemption, you see why self-surrender has been and always must
be regarded as the vital turning-point of the religious life, so
far as the religious life is spiritual and no affair of outer
works and ritual and sacraments. One may say that the whole
development of Christianity in inwardness has consisted in little
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