Psycho-analysis has taught us the danger of keeping skeletons in the
cupboards of the soul, the importance of tracking down our real motives,
of facing reality, of being candid and fearless in self-knowledge. But
the emotional colour of this process when it is undertaken in the full
conviction of the power and holiness of that life-force which we have
not used as well as we might, and with a humble and loving consciousness
of our deficiency, our falling short, will be totally different from the
feeling state of those who conceive themselves to be searching for the
merely animal sources of their mental and spiritual life. "Meekness in
itself," says "The Cloud of Unknowing," "is naught else but a true
knowing and feeling of a man's self as he is. For surely whoso might
verily see and feel himself as he is, he should verily be meek.
Therefore swink and sweat all that thou canst and mayst for to get thee
a true knowing and feeling of thyself as thou art; and then I trow that
soon after that thou shalt have a true knowing and feeling of God as he
is."[84]

The essence, then, of repentance and purification of character consists
first in the identification, and next in the sublimation of our
instinctive powers and tendencies; their detachment from egoistic
desires and dedication to new purposes. We should not starve or repress
the abounding life within us; but, relieving it of its concentration on
the here-and-now, give its attention and its passion a wider circle of
interest over which to range, a greater love to which it can consecrate
its growing powers. We do not yet know what the limit of such
sublimation may be. But we do know that it is the true path of life's
advancement, that already we owe to it our purest loves, our loveliest
visions, and our noblest deeds. When such feeling, such vision and such
act are united and transfigured in God, and find in contact with His
living Spirit the veritable sources of their power; then, man will have