thought for today

I knew young people who had always lived in cities - in a city and in those little rooms one has in the big cities in which everyone is huddled. Now, they had come to spend their holidays in the countryside, in the south of France, and there the sun is hot, naturally not as here but all the same it is very hot (when we compare the sun of the Mediterranean coasts with that of Paris, for example, it truly makes a difference), and so, when they walked around the countryside the first few days they really began to get a terrible headache and to feel absolutely uneasy because of the sun; but they suddenly thought: "Why, if we make friends with the sun it won't harm us any more!" And they began to make a kind of inner effort of friendship and trust in the sun, and when they were out in the sun, instead of trying to bend double and tell themselves, "Oh! How hot it is, how it burns!", they said, "Oh, how full of force and joy and love the sun is!" etc., they opened themselves. . . and not only did they not suffer any longer but they felt so strong afterwards that they went round telling everyone who said "It is hot" - telling them "Do as we do, you will see how good it is." And they could remain for hours in the full sun, bare-headed and without feeling any discomfort.
. . .They linked themselves to the universal vital force which is in the sun and received this force which took away all that was unpleasant to them.


- The Mother [CWMCE, 7:138]