The circle is a most pecu­li­ar plane fig­ure: the smal­lest cir­cum­fer­ence that encloses the greatest area. This it owes to the radi­us, the ray. Radi­us, ray, radi­ance… The radi­us is an expanse, a field.

Every­one has such an expanse. It is what is yours, what is famil­i­ar. The vil­lage or the coun­try where you live, and a little bey­ond. As far as this expanse reaches, you are at home, you feel safe.

So many people, so many expanses, one per­son's smal­ler, anoth­er's wider, but every­one's expanse has its limit. If you go bey­ond your radi­us, you grow uncer­tain. This is easy to exper­i­ence first-hand. It is enough to travel to a strange city where you know no one and noth­ing: you feel ill at ease. Then slowly you grow used to your sur­round­ings and begin to find your way. And this is true not only of the phys­ic­al dimen­sion, but in a subtler sense as well.

Much like the phys­ic­al radi­us, we also pos­sess an intel­lec­tu­al expanse. Cer­tain things lie with­in the lim­its of our under­stand­ing, and these we grasp eas­ily. What falls out­side this radi­us we under­stand only with the greatest dif­fi­culty, and it is hard even to accept that any­thing at all exists bey­ond our power to grasp… And yet there is in man a thirst for know­ledge. This inner thirst for know­ing proves the exist­ence of per­fect know­ledge.

Bey­ond the phys­ic­al and the intel­lec­tu­al radi­us there is also a spir­itu­al radi­us. In most people the spir­itu­al radi­us approaches zero, and the hori­zon of their soul is not only nar­row but uncer­tain, amount­ing to noth­ing more than the hunch that there is some­thing… But what it might be is not clear. The infin­itely wide spir­itu­al per­spect­ive seems unknown to them. Have you ever thought about what spir­itu­al vis­tas await you? What is your future in etern­ity? In etern­ity only etern­ity exists, there is no past and no future, only the unbroken present and a delight­ful pres­ence.

When man com­mits him­self to his spir­itu­al prac­tices, he is in fact com­mit­ting him­self to enlar­ging his radi­us. The great­er part of spir­itu­al real­ity stretches bey­ond the lim­its of our present grasp. For­tu­nately for us, the enlightened saints speak of this spir­itu­al real­ity, and even call to us: ‘Come, join, join us! Bey­ond the lim­its of your body, your mind and your faith, a far fuller world awaits you. Why do you not come?’

Push against your lim­its! Extend your radi­us! If you man­age to take even one step on the path of spir­itu­al devel­op­ment, you thereby enlarge your radi­us, and your reach grows wider. Then you may expect what you never hoped for.

At first you see only a very thin slice of spir­itu­al real­ity, but as the radi­us grows, you have unima­gin­ably more exal­ted, deep­er and lofti­er exper­i­ences of that real­ity. Widen your lim­its, come to exper­i­ence feel­ings of ardour for the Uni­verse, for God, unknown to you until now! What you feel almost embar­rasses you: ‘Strange, I feel free! How unusu­al! I do not know this feel­ing: hap­pi­ness?! I had grown so used to bit­ter­ness! Some­thing is hap­pen­ing to me, I can­not explain it, but it is full of joy.’

Even a single step brings con­vin­cing res­ults, so what might fur­ther steps bring? What is the limit of man's spir­itu­al radi­us? How far does man's reach extend? Per­haps as far as a per­son­al meet­ing with the good Lord…?

The woman who gathered brush­wood kept her hut warm by col­lect­ing branches, small and large. She was car­ry­ing a huge bundle of brush­wood on her shoulder, and she grew weary. She set the bundle down to rest and sighed: ‘My God, how heavy it is!’ Her pray­er rang with sin­cer­ity, and God appeared to her. ‘You called me sin­cerely, and I have come. Let me grant your wish.’ The woman did not think twice, but blur­ted out at once: ‘Won't you help me get the brush­wood back onto my shoulder?’ ‘Noth­ing could be easi­er! I give you back your bur­dens!’ – and with that the good Lord van­ished.

Widen your lim­its, do not cling to your brush­wood, it soon flares up and is gone. If God embraces you, that warms you through, and then it is easi­er to fling the bundle of brush­wood away. Push against your lim­its and do not be of little faith! Even if the bright star of the east­ern sky departs from you, you can always remain with it. Real­ise your ideals, find your inner springs! What you have gained do not squander, but rather make it grow!

Radi­us – the thought may still be unfa­mil­i­ar today, but tomor­row you will rise with it and lie down with it. For the radi­us is not only dis­tance, cir­cum­fer­ence and centre, not only expanse, but radi­ance too. And one day the light will come to you. The divine radi­ance con­nects you to the divine cur­rent. Infin­itely long waves are needed for you to con­nect with etern­ity. But if you answer the call, then your own bril­liance, too, will begin to gleam. For it is not only we who have a radi­us. God too has a radi­us. If the Uni­verse steps closer to you, you come with­in its reach. Remain always in the light…