Yes, my work is of pathetically unequal value. Some parts of it were written under the authentic guidance of the Overself and will consequently carry oasis-water to desert travellers. But alas! it is also true that other parts of it were written under the baneful illusions of the underself and may consequently bring them what is worse than nothing. The remembrance of this half-failure is one of the crosses I am doomed to carry until I can lay it down with my body in the ever receptive earth. It has brought me enduring humiliation and taught me a caution which makes me shrink from printing anything again. Humbled by the discovery of these errors, I did not take up the pen again for several years. Nevertheless, those who derived much help from the truths in which the errors were inlaid pressed and pressed me to do so. I had at last to put aside my reluctance, I had to yield and consent to write for them. However, if I made mistakes then there is the consolation that most pioneers inevitably make them. If I abandoned previously held positions, then there is the comfort that all search for truth is dynamic, not static. After all, so many years spent in teaching so many people such greater truths of life cannot be wasted ones. On the contrary, they are worthwhile and fruitful.
Saint Francis of Assisi felt that he was a great sinner, yet he did not allow that feeling to impede or prevent his work for the spiritual service of his fellows. Francis Le Sales, who ranked high among the French mystics, remarked that it was precisely because the mystics felt they were so human and so simple that they turned towards the devotional life and tried the ascetic existence.
-- Notebooks Category 12: Reflections > Chapter 5 : The Literary Work > # 117
