The pathway of life

to calculate the size of the planets and stars, their distance from the earth, their movements and changes, this he severely criticized, because he saw no advantage in such occupation. He had so low an opinion of these things not because of ignorance, for he had studied all these sciences, but because he did not desire men to waste their time and powers upon superfluous occupations instead of expending them upon that which men need most of all: the perfecting of their morals. Xenophon.

VII.

On Reading Books

1. See that the reading of many authors and all sorts of books do not produce confusion and uncertainty in your mind. It is meet to nourish your mind only on writers of undoubted merit. Excessive reading distracts the mind and weans it from independent work. Therefore read only old and thoroughly good books. If you conceive at any time a desire to turn to works of a different character never forget to return to the former. Seneca.

2. Read first of all the best books, otherwise you may never find time to read them at all. Thoreau,

3. It is better never to read a book than to read many books and to believe all that is contained in them. One may be wise without reading a single book; but believe all that is written in books and you are botmd to be a fool.

4. In authorship the same thing is repeated as in real life. The majority of people are foolish and deluded. For this reason there are so many evil books, there is so much literary rubbish among the good grain. Such books only purloin people's time, money and attention.

Bad books are not only useless, but harmful. Nine-

tenths of all books are printed to coax people's money out of their pockets.

It is therefore better not even to read the books of which much is said or written. People ought first of all to become acquainted with and read the best authors of all ages and nations. These books must be read first of all. Otherwise you will hardly have a chance to read them all. Only such authors can instruct and educate us.

We can never read too few bad books nor too many good books. Bad books are a moral poison stupef)ring the people. Schopenhauer,

5. Superstitions and delusions trouble the people. There is but one deliverance from them: the truth. We know the truth both in ourselves and through the wise and holy men who lived before us. Therefore in order to live well and righteously we must seek the truth ourselves and make use of the directions which have reached us from the wise and holy men of old.

6. One of the most powerful means of learning the truth that delivers from superstition is in studying all that mankind has done in the past towards the recognition of the eternal truth, common to all mankind, and towards expressing it.

VIII.

Of Independent Thinking

1. Every man may and should make use of everything that the aggregate reason of mankind has evolved, but at the same time he must let his reason examine the data worked out by all mankind.

2. Knowledge is only then knowledge when it has been acquired by an effort of a man's own thinking rather than by memory alone.

Only when we have forgotten everything that has been tatight us do we begin to know truly. I shall not come a hair's breadth closer to the knowledge of things as long as I look upon them as I have been taught to do. In order to know an object I must approach it as something entirely mnknown to me. Thoreau.

3. We expect from a teacher that he first make his pupil a reasoning person, then a rational one and finally a learned one.

This method has the advantage that though the pupil may never attain the final stage, which is usually the case, he still may profit from instruction and will become more experienced and wiser—if not for the purposes of the school, then at least for those of life.

But if this method is inverted, then the pupils are apt to catch something of cleverness before their reasoning faculties have been developed and to take away from school a borrowed knowledge, like something that is glued to them but has not been assimilated by them, and their spiritual faculties remain sterile as before, but at the same time much vitiated by a spurious leamedness. Therein is the cause why we Irequently meet men of learning (or rather of instruction) who show so little reason, and why so many more blockheads come into the world out of coU^es than from any other social class. Kant.

4. Science is not in schools. In schools we find the finical ignorance of dunces. Science is in books and in the individual and independent labor of acquiring knowledge from books, but it is by no means in the schools, where since the days of the inventttm of the art of printing nothing has ever remained of science but a musty trace.

The character of school instruction is dry, mind-killing

302 THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

pedantry. This is inevitable. Who will not tire of saying the same thing over and over again for ten or twenty years? The instructor nearly always engages in his profession with loathing, and to relieve his tedium exchanges science for mere formalism. And in addition the stupid monotony of his trade makes of him a plain fool.

N. G. Tchemyshevsky.

5. In all classes we meet people of mental superiority though frequently not possessed of any learning. The natural mind may replace almost any degfree of learning, but no amount of learning may replace the natural mind, and though the latter as compared with the former has the advantage of a wealth of knowledge of cases and facts (historical information) and definition of causality (natural sciences)—^in methodical and easily surveyed arrangement, this does not yet give a more accurate or a deeper view of the real substance of all these facts, cases and causalities. The man without learning, by sagacity and quick judgment of all things, can easily do without these riches. One instance out of his own experience can teach him more than a thousand instances, which another may know without having fully grasped their significance, will teach a man of learning, and the knowledge of the untutored man is a living knowledge.

But on the contrary much that an ordinary man of learning knows is dead knowledge, which if it does not entirely consist of empty words, frequently consists of abstract ideas attaining significance only to the extent that the possessor thereof exhibits judgment and a lofty understanding of the questions under discussion. But if this understanding be scant, such discussion is bound to lead to bankruptcy, just as a bank that issues obligations exceeding tenfold its cash assets. Schopenhauer.

.'rJiifiiiii

comuoHT, 111*

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WOODROW WILSON—THE PEACEMAKER

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

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34247;^

CONTENTS VOL. II.

PAGE

Effort 9

Living in the Present 23

Doing Good and Kindness 37

On Refraining 53

The Spoken Word 65

Thought 77

Self-Renunciation 93

Humility 115

Truthfulness 129

The Ills of Life 147

Death 165

After Death 185

Life is Blessedness 203

Doing His Will 223

i

EFFORT

EFFORT

Sins, errors and superstitions obstruct a man's soul and hide it from himself. In order to reveal his soul to himself, man must make an effort of consciousness, and therefore in such efforts of consciousness is the principal task of a man's life.

I.

Deliverance From Sins, Errors and Superstition

is in Effort

1. Self-renunciation delivers men from sins, humility from errors, truthfulness from superstitions. But in order to renounce the passions of the body, to humble himself before the errors of pride, and in order to examine in the light of reason the superstitions which enmesh him, man must make efforts. Only by efforts of his consciousness can man be delivered from sins, errors and superstitions which deprive him of happiness.

2. The Kingdom of God is taken by effort. The Kingdom of Gk)d is within you (Luke, XVI, 16; XVII, 21). These two sayings of the Gospel signify that only by effort of the consciousness within himself can man overcome the sins, errors and superstitions which would retard the coming of the Kingdom of God.

3. Here on earth there can be, there must be, no rest, because life is progress towards a goal that cannot be reached. Rest is immoral. I cannot say what this goal is. But whatever it be, we are moving toward it. Without this progress life would be folly and delusion. And we move toward this goal only by our own efforts.

4. To become ever better herein is the whole concern of life, and one can become better only by effort.

We all know that we cannot achieve anything in the material world without effort. We must realize that likewise in the life of the soul—which is the paramount concern of life—nothing can be achieved without effort.

5. True strength is not in being able to tie a steel rod into a knot, nor in possessing boundless wealth, nor yet in ruling over millions of people—true strei^h is in having mastery over self,

6. Never think of a good deed: "it is not worth the trouble, it is so difficult that I shall be unable to accomplish it," nor "it is so easy, I can do it any time at my pleasure." Neither think nor speak in this manner: every effort, though its purpose be unattainable, though its purpose be ever so unimportant, every effort, we repeat, strengthens the soul.

7. Some think that in order to be a Christian we must perform peculiar and extraordinary deeds. This is not so. No such peculiar and extraordinary deeds are required of a Christian, but a constant effort of consciousness to rid the soul of sins, errors and superstitions.

8. Our evil deeds, the sources of our misfortunes, are easy to perform. But what is good and beneficial to us requires an effort. Buddhist wisdom,

9. If a man makes it his rule to do only what he pleases, he will not be pleased for long with what he is doing. Real tasks are those which require an effort to be accomplished.

10. The path to good knowledge never leads over velvety lawns strewn with blossoms: man must always make his way towards it over bare rocks. Rusktn.

11. The search for truth is not entered upon in a merry mood, but always with agitation and emotion; and still this search must go on, for if you do not find truth and learn to love it, you must perish. But, you might say, if truth cared to be found and loved by me, it would manifest itself to me. Truth does manifest itself to you, but you fail to see it. Seek it, truth wills it so. Pascal,

II.

It Requires Effort to Live for the Soul

1. I am an instrument with* which God performs His work. My true happiness is to share in this work. I can share in this woric only by those efforts of my consciousness which I make so as to keep in good order, clean, sharp and accurate the divine tool that has been intrusted to me— myself, my soul.

2. The most precious thing for man is to be free, to live according to his own will and not according to that of another. In order to be so free, man must live for his soul. In order to live for his soul man must subdue the passions of his body.

3. The life of man is a gradual passing from the k>wer animal nature to an ever increasing consciousness of spiritual life.

4. We make an effort to awake and we wake up indeed when a dream becomes so horrible that we have no more strength to bear it. Even so with life when it becomes unbearable. At such times we must make mental efforts to awaken to a new, a superior spiritual life.

5. We must make efforts to overcome sins, errors and superstition; otherwise, as soon as we cease to battle against them, our body will attain mastery over us.

6. We imagine that real work must have something to do with things visible: building houses, ^lowvw^ ^ч5А%^

feeding the cattle, and that work on our soul, being something invisible, is of no importance, is something that we can do or let alone; whereas every other kind of work is trifling, save the work on your own soul, the work of daily growth in spirit and in love. This is the only true work, and all other work is useful only as long as this chief work of hfe is performed.

7. He who realizes that his life is bad and longs to lead a better life must not think that he cannot begin to live better until he has changed the circumstances of his life. Life can be and must be corrected not through external changes, but through a change within, a change in the soul. This can be done anywhere and at any time. And this is enough of a task for any man. Only when such a change enters your soul that you are unable to continue your former life,4)nly then alter your mode of life, but not when you think that you could reform yourself more easily by changing your mode of life.

8. There is only one important life task for all people. This consists in improving your soul. This is the one ■ task to which all men are called. Everything else is trifling in comparison. The truth of this is evidenced by the fact that it is the one task in which you can engage without hindrance, and that it is the one task which always yields joy to man.

9. Take a silk worm for a pattern. He toils until he has strength to fly. You are clinging to earth. Toil over your soul and you wilt receive wii^. Angelus.

ni.

The Striving .After Perfection Requires Mental Effort

1. "Be ye perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is

perfect," says the Gospel. This does not signify that Christ

Mi

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE 13

commands man to be as perfect as God, but that every man must make efforts of mind to strive after perfection, and in this striving is the life of man.

2. Every creature grows up gradually and not all at once. A science can not be mastered all at once. Neither can sin be overcome all at once. There is only one way to grow better: by wise judgment and constant patient effort.

Channing.

3. Lessing said that it is not the truth which gives joy, but the effort which a man must make in order to attain it. The same may be said of virtue: the joy of virtue is in the efforts made to attain it.

4. The following admonition is engraved on the bathtub of Emperor Ching-Chang: "Daily renew thyself completely; do so again and again from the beginning."

Chinese wisdom,

5. If a man is not engaged in research, or if he is engaged in research and fails therein, let him not despair or cease; if a man does not question enlightened persons rq^arding doubtful matters, or questioning them fails to attain enlightenment himself, let him not despair; if a man docs not meditate, or meditating fails to comprehend clearly the essence of good, let him not despair; if a man does not distinguish good from evil, or in distinguishing lacks a clear conception, let him not despair; if a man does not perform good deeds, or in performing them does not devote his whole strength to them, let him not despair; whatever others have acccnnplished with one bound, he may be able to accomplish after ten trials; whatever others have accomplished after a hundred trials, he may be able to accomplish after a thousand.

He who truly shall follow this rule of constant effort,

W THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

no matter how ignorant he be, will attain enli^tenment; no matter how weak he be, he will attain strength; no matter how depraved he be, he will surely acquire virtue.

Chinese wisdom.

6. If a man performs good deeds merely because he has acquired the habit of doing good, his is not yet the truly good life. Good life ccmunences when man makes efforts in order to be good,

7. You say that it is not worth while to make efforts, for, strive as you may, you can never attain perfection. But your business is not in attaining perfection, it is in the constant striving after it.

8. Let not man think lightly of evil in his heart: "I am so far from evil that it can not touch me." Little drops fill a vessel with water. Little by little the madman who does evil deeds is filled with evil.

Let not man think lightly of goodness, saying in his heart: "I have no strength to receive goodness." As the vessel is filled drop by drop, even so the heart of the man who performs good deeds is filled with goodness as he strives towards blessedness. Buddhist wisdom.

9. To make life continuous joy instead of sorrow be always good to all, men and animals alike. In order to be always good, you must train yourself to be good. In order to train yourself to be good, you must not commit a single unkind action without reproving yourself.

If you do this, you will soon acquire the habit of being kind to all, men and animals alike. And if you become accustomed to kindness, joy will ever reign in your heart.

10. The virtue of man is not measured by prodigious feats, but by his daily effort, Pascal.

IV.

In Striving After Perfection Man Must Rely on His

Own Strength Alone

1. What a mistake to ask God or even people to rescue us out of an undesirable condition. Man requires no one's help, nor need he be rescued out of any condition, he has need of one thing only: to make an effort of his own mind in order to free himself from sins, errors and superstitions. Only to the extent that a man delivers himself from sins, errors and superstitions, can his condition change or improve.

2. Nothing so weakens the strength of a man as the hope of finding salvation and happiness in anything outside of his own efforts.

3. We must rid ourselves of the idea that Heaven can correct our errors. If you prepare food carelessly you do not expect that Providence will intervene to make it tasty; even so if after a series of senseless actions you have misdirected the course of life, you must not think that divine intervention will set everything right. Ruskin.

4. There is within you the knowledge of what constitutes supreme perfection. There are likewise within your own self obstacles to its attainment. Your condition is what you must work over in order to approach perfection. Carlyle,

5. You sin yourself, you encompass evil yourself, you flee from sin yourself, you purify your thoughts yourself, you are evil or you are pure in your own self—^another can not save you. Jampada.

6. To say that I cannot refrain from an evil deed is to say that I am not a man but an animal. Men often think

m

SO, but no matter how strongly they may affirm this, they know within their own hearts that as long as they have life they can cease from evil and commence to do good.

7. There is no moral law if I cannot obey it. Some say we are bom selfish, covetous, lustful and we cannot be otherwise. Yes we can. First we must feel in our hearts what we are and what we should be, and then we must make an effort to strive towards that which we ought to be.

Voltaire,

8. Man must develop his good inclinations. Providence did not implant them in man fully developed; they are embryonic. To make himself better, to improve himself by labor, therein is the principal task of a man's life.

Kant

V.

There is Only One Way to Improve the Life of Human

Society—by the Individual Efforts of Men Striving

After a Righteous and Moral Life

1. Men draw nearer to the Kingdom of God, that is to a righteous and blessed existence, only through the efforts of each individual striving to live a righteous life.

2. If you see that the social order is evil and you would improve it, know that there is only one way to accomplish it, and that is for all people to become better. And in order that all people may become better, there is only one means in your power: to become better yourself.

3. We frequently hear men argue that all efforts to improve life, to eradicate evil, to enthrone righteousness are fruitless, that all these things come about of their own accord. Men travel in a boat, the rowers go ashore, but those remaining on board fail to take up the oars and to row and imagine that the boat will move as before.

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE \7

4. **Ye8, very true, if only everybody understood it and realized that it is evil and unnecessary," thus argue some people on the subject of human ills. "Suppose one man cease from evil, refusing to participate in it, what will this amount to in the life of all people? Improvements in human life are brought about by the concerted action of the whole society and not by individual effort."

True enough, one swallow does not make springtime. But just because one swallow does not make springtime, should that one swallow that senses the spring refrain from flying, sit still and wait? If every bud, every blade of grass did so, springtime would never come. Even so in the coming of the Kingdom of God I must not stop to think whether I am the first or the one thousandth swallow, but sensing the coming of the Kingdom of God, I must right now, though I be alone, do all I can towards its realization.

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you :

For everyone that asketh, receiveth; and he that seek-eth, findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened."

Matthew VII, 7-8.

5. "I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?" Luke XII, 49.

And why is this fire so slowly kindled? If so many centuries could pass and Christianity still has failed to alter the social order of life, how dare we think that these things come about of their own accord? The majority of people, though led to recognize the imperative truth of Christianity, still refrain from making this truth the basis of their actions. Why? Because people await a change from external conditions and refuse to comprehend that

this change is attained by the efforts of eadi individual in his own soul and not by any external mutaticms.

6. Our life is evil, why?

Because men lead evil lives. And men lead evil lives because they are evil themselves. Therefore, in order to stop life from bein^ evil, we must transform evil men into good men. How can we do this? No one can change all others, but every one can change himself. At first, it would seem, this will not mend matters. .What is one man against all others? But everybody complains that life is evil. And if everybody realizes that the evil of life is due to people being evil, and that no one can change all others, but everybody can change himself, and transform himself into a good man out of an evil man, and everybody begins to correct himself, then immediately all lives will improve.

Therefore it is our fault that life is evil, and it depends on us to make it good.

VI.

The Effort of Striving After Perfection Yields True Happiness to Man

1. Moral effort and the joy of the consciousness of life follow one another as the joy of rest follows the weariness of physical labor. Without physical labor there can be no joy of resting; without moral effort there can be no joy of the consciousness of life.

2. The reward of virtue is in the very effort of a good action. Cicero.

3. Man would cry out with pain if while refraining from labor he suddenly experienced the muscular ache which is the effect of manual toil. Even so the man who Ь a stranger to spiritual labor with his inner self experi-

ences an agonizing pain from vicissitudes which are borne unflincingly by him who sees the chief task of life in the effort of delivering himself from sins, errors and superstitions, that is in striving after moral perfection.

4. Look for no speedy or visible success from your strivings after good. You will not see the fruit of your efforts, for to the extent that you have advanced, so has also advanced the ideal of perfection after which you are striving. The effort of the mind is not a means for attaining a blessing, but the effort of the mind in itself is a blessing.

5. God gave to animals all that they need, but He did not give to man all that he needs; man must attain himself all that he needs. The highest wisdom of man was not bom within him; he must labor to attain it, and the greater his labor, the greater his reward. Babidic tables,

6. The Kingdom of God is taken by force. This means that in order to be delivered from evil and to become good, we require effort.

Effort is needed to refrain from evil. Refrain from evil and you will do good because the soul of man loves that which is good, and will do good if it be free from evil.

7. You 'are free agents, you feel that it is so. All specious arguments that fate or a law of nature, dominates all things, will never silence the two incorruptible witnesses of human freedom: the reproaches of the conscience and the majesty of martyrdom. Beginning with Socrates and down to Christ, and beginning with Christ down to those martyrs of all times who from generation to generation have died for the truth, all martyrs of the faith prove the error of this doctrine of slaves, loudly proclaiming: "We too have loved life and loved those dear ones who made our life worth while and who implored us to give up our

fight. Every heart-beat loudly appealed to us—livel and yet in obedience to the law of life we preferred death I"

And beginning with Cain, down to the meanest wretch of our own day, all those who have chosen the path of evil hear in the depths of their heart the voice of condemnation and of reproach, the voice that gives them no rest, which constantly asks; "Why did you turn from the path of goodness? You could, you can make an effort. You are free agents. It is within your power to remain steeped in sins or be delivered from them." Massini.

People imagine that the course of their life is in time— in the past or in the future. But this is a delusion: the true life of men is not in time, but always IS in that timeless spot where the past and the future meet and which we inexactly call the present time.

In this timeless point of the present, and therein alone, man is free, and therefore the true life of man is in the present, and in the present alone.

The True Life is in the Present

1. The past is no more, the future has not yet come. What is then? Only that point where the past and the future meet. This is seemingly nothing, yet in that point is the whole of our life.

2. We only imagine that there is time. Time is not. Time is merely a device by means of which we gradually see that which is in reality and which is ever the same. The eye does not see all of a globe at once, yet the globe exists all at once. In order that the eye may see the entire globe, the latter must be turned before the observing eye. Even the world revolves before the eyes of men in time. For the supreme reason there is no time: that which will be, is. Time and space is the disintegration of the infinite for the convenience of finite creatures. Amiel.

3. There is no before nor after. That which will happen to-morrow already really exists in eternity.

Angelas.

4. There is neither time nor space: both are necessary to us only for the understanding of things. And therefore it is an error to think that speculations re^tdvcv'^ %\ax^

whose light has not yet reached us or regarding the state of the sun for millions of years are of any consequence. There is nothing important, nothing worth while in such speculatipns. All these things are idle mental diversions.

5. If life is something beyond time, why is it manifested in time and space? Because it is only in time and space that there can be motion, that is striving towards expansion, illumination, perfection. If there were no space or time, there would be no motion, and therefore no life.

II.

The Spiritual Life of Man is Beyond Time and Space

1. Time exists for the physical life alone. But the spiritual being of man is beyond time. It is beyond time because the activity of the spiritual being of man is only in efforts of the mind. But the effort of the mind is always beyond time, for it is always in the present, and the present is not in time.

2. We cannot picture to ourselves a life after death, nor can we remember a life before birth, because we cannot picture to ourselves anything that is beyond time. Yet we know best of all our life beyond time—^namely our present life.

3. Our soul is thrown into our body where it finds numbers, time and space. Meditating upon these things it calls them nature or necessity, and indeed it cannot think otherwise. Pascal.

4. We say that time is passing. This is wrong. We are passing and not time. As we sail on a river it seems to us as though the shores of the river were moving instead of our boat. Even so it is with time.

5. It is well to remember frequently that our true life

is not the outward physical life which we live here on earth, before our eyes, but that alongside of this life there is within us another life, an inner and spiritual life which has no beginning and no end.

III.

True Life is Only in the Present

1. The ability to remember the past and to imagine the future is given us only in order to enable us, guided by this or that consideration, to decide more correctly our actions in the present, and not to regret the past or build for the future.

2. Man lives only in the present instant. Everything else is either gone or is uncertain of occurring.

Marcus Aurelitis,

3. We worry over the past and spoil our future merely because we pay too little attention to the present. The past is gone, the future is not yet, only the present exists.

4. Our future state will always seem a dream of our present state.

Not the length of life, but its depth is of consequence. The important thing is not the duration of life, but how to live beyond time. And we live beyond time only by an effort towards righteousness. If we live in this manner we raise no question of time. Emerson.

5. "Live for a day—live for an age"—the meaning of this adage is to live as though any moment you await the last hour of your life, and have time to attend only to the most important matters, and at the same time so to live as though you could continue to do without end that which you are doing.

6. Time is back of us, time is ahead of us, but it is not with us. If you dwell on that which had been or on that which will be you will lose sight of the most important thing: living in the present.

7. "A moment is only a moment," man so lightly regards the moment as to let it slip, and yet his whole life is solely in that moment, only in the moment of the present can we make that effort which will take the Kingdom of God by force both within us and beyond us.

8. Not to-morrow, but to-day alone can you overcome evil habits. Confucius.

9. Nothing is of consequence excepting that which we are doing in the present moment.

10. It is well not to give thought to the morrow. To avoid doing so there is only one means: to think unceasingly whether I am fulfilling the task of the present day, hour and moment.

11. When associating with others or when carried away by the thoughts of the past or of the future, it is difficult to realize that your life is right now, in the present moment. But how important and precious it is to remember this. Try to train yourself to do so. Man will avoid much evil if he but train himself to remember that only the present is important in life, that the present alone exists. All else is a dream.

12. The moment you delve tn the past or in the future you have left the present life, and you feel orphaned, hampered and lonely.

13. "How much moral suffering—and all that to die after a few moments. Is it worth while to worry?"

This is untrue. Your life is now. There is no time, the present moment is worth many centuries if in this present moment you live with God. Amiel.

14. They say man is not free because everything he does has its own cause preceding it in time. But man always acts in the present, and the present is beyond time, it is merely the point of contact between the past and the future. Therefore in the moment of the present man is always free.

15. The divine force of life manifests itself only in the present; therefore the activities of the present must have divine characteristics, that is, must be rational and good.

16. A wise man was asked: what is the most important thing? Who is the most important man? And what time of life is the most important?

And the wise man replied: The most important thing in life is to love all people, for therein is the concern of every man's life.

"The most important man is the one with whom you have dealings at the present moment, for you cannot know whether you will ever have dealings with any one else.

"But the most important time is the present, for in that alone a man has power over himself."

IV.

Love is Manifested in the Present Only

1. The paramount thing in life is love. And you cannot love in the past or in the future. You can love only in the present, now, this instant.

2. Only when you are not guided in your actions by the past or by the future, but by the commands of your soul in the present, can you act in full harmony with love.

3. Love is the manifestation of the divine principle for which there can be no time, and therefore love manifests itself only in the present, now, this instaut.

4. Do not think of the future, but endeavor right now to make life joyful to yourself and to others. "Let the morrow take care of itself." This is a great truth. It makes life worth while not to know what is needful for the future. Only one thing is surely needful and is always worth while—to love others at the present moment.

5. To love in general means to do good. This is how we all understand love and cannot understand it otherwise.

And love is not a mere word, but that which we do for the good of others.

If a man decides that he must abstain from the demands of the slightest love manifestation in the present for the sake of some greater love in the future, he only deceives himself and others and loves no one but himself.

There is no love in the future, love can be only in the present. If a man does not do the works of love in the present, there is no love in him.

6. You seek that which is good. But that which is good can be only now. There can be no good in the future, for there is no future. There is only the present.

7. Never postpone a good deed if you can do it today, for death cannot stop to examine whether you have or have not done what you ought. Death waits for no man, waits for nothing. Therefore the most important thing for man is that which he is doing at the present moment.

8. If we only remembered more frequently that lost time cannot be returned, that evil once committed cannot be undone,we would do more good and commit less evil.

9. Do not let us delay being just and compassionate. Do not let us wait, for some extraordinary suffering— either our own or that of other people. Life is short, let us therefore make haste to rejoice the hearts of our сснп-

panions on this short journey. Let us make haste to be good. Amiel

10. If you can do a good deed or show love to someone take heed to do so at once, otherwise the opportunity may pass never to return

11. Grood men forget the good they have done; they are so busy about that which they do at the present moment that they can give no thought to what they did in the P^st. Chinese proverb.

12. Life now, at the present moment, this is the state in which God dwells within us. And therefore the present moment is the most precious of all. Make use of all the forces of your soul so that this moment pass not in vain, so that you may not miss God who can be manifested in you.

V.

The Error of Preparing for Life Instead of Living It

1. "I may depart for a season from the things which my conscience demands of me, because I am not quite ready," says one. "But I will get ready when the time comes and will then live in perfe t accord with the dictates of my conscience."

The error of such reasoning is in the fact that the man departs from the life in the present, which is the only real life, and puts it off to some future, whereas the future does not belong to him.

In order not to fall into this error man must remember and realize that he has no time to make preparations, that he must lead the best life he can right now, just as he is, that the only improvement he needs is improvement in love, and this improvement is effected only in the present. Th«.\:^-

fore, without putting things off, man must live every moment endeavoring with all his might to fulfill that calling for which he came into the world and which alone can give him true happiness. Man must live thus because he knows that any moment he may be deprived of the possibility of the fulfillment of that calling.

2. "I will do this when I grow up." "I will live so when I finish college, or when I get married." "And I will do so when I raise children, or marry off my son, or when I acquire wealth, when I move to another city, or when I reach old age."

Thus speak children, adults and old people, yet no man knows whether he will survive until evening. We cannot know about any of these things whether we succeed in accomplishing them or not, as death may interfere.

Death cannot interfere with one thing only; death cannot prevent us from fulfilling the will of God at any moment of our life—^and that is to love all people.

3. We frequently think and say that we cannot do all the things which we ought to do because of the condition in which we now find ourselves. How unfair this is. That inner labor wherein consists life is always possible. You are in prison, you are ill, you are restrained from any kind of outward activity, you are humiliated, tortured—but your inner life is in your power. In your thoughts you can reproach, condemn, envy, hate, or on the other hand still in your thoughts you can crush all these feelings and replace them with good feelings. Thus every moment of your life is yours, nor can anyone take it away from you.

4. When I say: "I cannot do so" I use a wrong expression. I should say: "Formerly I could not do so." I know full well that at any instant in the present I can do

with myself what I will. And it is well for man to know this.

5. The consciousness of illness, worry about curing it, and particularly this thought: "I am ill now and cannot, but when I recover I will do so and so"—this is a great error. It is like saying: I do not want that which is given me, I desire that which I have not. We can always rejoice in what we have now, and we can always do all possible things through that which is—that is through the forces which we have.

6. Every present hour is a critical and decisive hour. Note in your heart that every day is the best day of the year, every hour the best hour, every instant the best instant. The best, because it is the only one you have.

Emerson.

7. In order to live your life in the best manner possible, you must remember that all of your life is in the present and endeavor to act in the best way possible every present instant.

8. It is not well with you, and you imagine that it is because you cannot live as you would, and that you could more easily accomplish the things you ought if your life had been cast differently. This is wrong. You have all that you so much desire. Every instant you can do the very best that is possible to you.

9. In life, in real life there can be nothing better than what IS. To wish for anything better than what is is blasphemy.

10. Important deeds, g^eat deeds, deeds which can be finished in the future only are not truly deeds performed for God. If you believe in God you will believe in living in the present, and you will do the things that are completed in the present.

11, The closest approach to God is the greatest concentration on the present, and on the contrary the more you are taken up with the past or the future, the further you get away from God.

12. Memento mori, remember death! This is a great saying. If we only bore in mind that we should inevitabl)' die and that very soon, our life would be entirely different. If a man knows that he will die inside of thirty minutes, he will not do anything trifling or foolish in these last thirty minutes, surely not anything evil. But is the half century or so that separates you from death essentially different from a half hour?

VI.

The Consequences of Our Acts are God's Business, Not Oure

1. AH the consequences of our acts cannot ever be subject to us, because alt the consequences of our acts are inEnite in an infinite world and time.

2. If you can see all the consequences of your activity know thereby that your activity is trifling.

3. People say we cannot live if we do not know what awaits us. We must prepare ourselves for that which will be. This is wrong. The genuinely good life is when we take no concern in what will happen to our body, but in what we now need for our soul. And we need for our soul but one thing: to do that which brings our soul into union with all people and with God.

4. Our present acts this instant, now, are our own, but what will become of them, that is God's business.

St. Francis d'Assisi.

5. When living the life of the spirit, that is in harmony with God, man may not know the consequences of his

acts, but he will assuredly know that these consequences will be blessed.

6. An act performed without any speculations as to its consequences, and solely in obedience to the will of Grod is the best act that a man can perform.

7. When you give thought to the consequences of your activity you feel your weakness and nothingness. But the moment you realize that your business is now to do the will of Him who sent you here, you feel free, joyful and strong.

8. If a man gives thought to what will come of what he is doing, he is surely doing something for his own self.

9. The reward of a good life is nowise in the future, It is in the present. Do well now, and it will now be well with you. And if you do good works, the consequences cannot be otherwise but good.

VII.

Men Realizing the Meaning of Life in the Present Do Not Concern Themselves with the Problem of

Life After Death

1. Thoughts of a future life confuse us. We ask ourselves what will be after death? But we cannot ask this; we cannot ask this because life and future are contradictory terms; life can be in the present only. It seems to us that life was and will be, but life only is. It is not for us to decide the problems of the future, but how to live now, in the present

2. We are always in ignorance of the physical life, because the physical life has its entire course in time, and we cannot know the future. But in the domain of the spiritual there is no future. Thus the uncertainty of our life diminishes to the extent that out \\ie ^ъ%^% Vc^tcl ^^

I^ysical to the spiritual, to the extent that we live in the present.

3. We must honestly and scrupulously perfonn the task set before us, no matter whether we hope some day to be angels or believe that we once were molluscs.

Ruski».

4. The principal problem of our life is whether in the brief span of life granted us we do the will of Him who sent us into life. Are we doing it?

5. In the course of life, particulariy in the course of a good life, the importance of time and the interest in the future gradually fade away. The older we become, the more quickly the time passes, and the less importance is attached to what will be, but increasingly more to that which is.

6. If you can soar in spirit above space and time you find yourself every mwneot in eternity. Atiaelus.

V^^

DOING GOOD AND KINDNESS

DOING GOOD AND KINDNESS

I.

To render Good for evil is more natural, agreeable and rational than to render evil for evil.

1. And when they came to the place called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

Then said Jesus, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." And they parted his raiment, and cast lots. Luke XXIII, 33-34.

2. No one has ever wearied of obtaining for himself all kinds of blessings. But the greatest blessing which a man could obtain for himself is to act in harmony with his reason, and this law commands him to do good to others unceasingly as the highest blessings attainable.

Marcus Aurelius.

3. Render good for evil.

4. How to take revenge on your enemy? Try to do him as much good as you can.

5. Overcome wrath with meekness, evil with good» miserliness with gifts, falsehoods with truth.

Giampada,

6. Treating our neighbors as they deserve, we only make them worse. But treating them as though they were better than they really are we force them to become better.

Goethe.

7. Render good for evil, and you destroy all the pleasure in the evil man which he derives from his evil doing.

He who but once has experienced tVve ^V^idisox^ ^\ t^tw-

dering good for evil will never miss an opportunity of experiencing this joy.

II.

In Order to Believe in That Wliich is Good, It ta NecesBary to Commetice to Do Good

1. Adorn each passing day with a kindly deed.

2. It is best of all to commence a day like this; think on awaking whether you cannot give pleasure this day, though it be to only one person. Nietzsche.

3. Kindness is our duty. He who frequently fulfills this duty and sees how his good intentions are materialized will ultimately really tove him to whom he has been kind. The words "love thy neighbor as thyself" do not mean that you must first love him, and then, as the result of your love, do good unto him. No, you must do good to your neighbor, and your kindness will kindle the love of humanity in your heart, which will be the result of your readiness to do good. Kant.

4. Good will is not good because of that which it efFects or accomplishes, not because of its usefulness in attaining some determined aim, but solely because of its volition, that is strictly per se: considered by itself, without any comparison, it has a far higher value than anything that could be accomplished by it in favor of any inclination, if you will in favor of all inclinations taken together. If through some adversity of fate, or by reason of too scant an equipment of abilities allotted by a stepmotherly nature, such goodwill were utterly deprived of the possibility of realzing its intentions, if in spite of its greatest effort it achieved nothing, but just remained

jagnXy goodwill (of course, not the mere bare desire on

our part, but with the employment of every means within our power), even in this case it would sparkle of itself as a precious diamond—something that contains its fullest value in itself. Kant.

5.. What shall it profit him who lives a virtuous domestic life if he withdraws into a desert? Among all those who work for future bliss, he will gain most of all who lives well with his family. Hindu wisdom.

6. No one can have any idea of what is good until he begins to do good. Nor can anyone truly love that which is good until he learns to do it frequently and at a sacrifice. Nor can anyone find peace in doing good until he does it constantly. Martineau.

7. If you can not train yourself to seek out opportunities for doing good, even as a huntsman pursues his prey, at least do not omit an opportunity to do good.

III.

The doing of good cannot be measured either by the need of the recipient or by the sacrifice of the giver, but merely by that communion in God which is established between the recipient and the giver.

1. Life is not always a blessing. Only good life is a blessing.

2. Nature has so arranged it that offences are remembered longer than good actions. The good is forgotten, but offences stubbornly persist in memory.

3. It is not virtue, but a spurifous counterfeit and imitation of it, if we are led to do our duty by the promise of a reward. cicero.

A wise man questioned the spirit of wisdom how to attain bodily well-being and happiness without imperiling the soul, and how to save the soul without imperiling the body.

The spirit replied: Do not slander, lest slander and backbiting fall back upon yourself, for it is said that every other evil spirit attacks face to face, but slander alone attacks from the rear.

Do not yield to wrath, because the man who has yielded to wrath forgets his obligations and omits to do good.

Beware of timidity, for the timid loses the pleasures of the world and of the soul and destroys both the body and the soul.

Beware of lustfulness, for the fruits of it are disease and renrarse. Hold no envy in your heart, lest you poison your life. Do not commit sin out of a feeling of shame.

Be industrious and taciturn, live by your daily earnings and save for others and for God. This practice will be the most worthy manifestation of your activities.

Do not steal the goods of others, nor neglect your own work, for it is said that he who compels others to feed him is a man-eater.

Do not enter into an argument with a man of cunnir^, but rather leave him entirely alone.

Do not enter into partnership with a man of greed, nor trust his leadership.

Do not associate with the ignorant. Do not enter into explanations before fools, take no money from an evildoer, nor enter the king's palace in the company of slanderer. Oriental wisdom.

5. When the question is asked what is really that pure morality, the touchstone by which we must test the moral purport of our every act, I am constrained to confess that only philosoi^iers could make the solution of this question

a matter of doubt, for sound human reason considers this question definitely settled a long time back, not in abstract and generalizing formulas, it is true, but by differentiating the accomplished acts which we differentiate as positively as we distinguish our right hand from our left. Kant,

6. Do good to your friends so that they may love you still more; do good to your enemies so that they may some day become your friends.

When you speak of your enemy, remember there may come a day when he will become your friend. Cleobulos.

7. All men more or less closely approach one of the two opposite boundaries: life for self alone, and life for God alone.

8. Know firmly and feel profoundly that you must devote each day of your life to the welfare of others, doing for them all that you can. Doing it, not talking about it

Ruskin.

9. To follow one good deed with another so that there be no interspace between them, this is what I call a happy

life. Marcus Aurelius.

10. The more a man gives to others, and the less he demands for himself, the better he is. The less he gives to others and the more he demands for himself, the worse he is.

11. If you have done wrong to your neighbor, though the wrong be trifling, regard it as great; and if you have done good to your neighbor, though this good be g^eat, regard it as trifling; but even a slight good done to you regard as great.

The blessing of God will descend on him who gives to the poor; a double blessing will rest upon him who in giv-

ing to the poor receives them and lets them depart with kindness.

12. When doing good, be grateful for being able to do it.

True good is done by us only when we do it without noticing it; when we come out of our own self in order to live in others.

IV.

Goodness Overcomes All Things, But is Insuperable

Itself

1. All things can be resisted, excepting goodness alone.

2. Not the condemnation of evil, but the elevation of good is the means of establishing harmony in the life of the individual and of the world. An improperly disposed man condemns evil, but this condemnation is in itself the worst of evils, as it merely aids its growth, while paying no attention to it, but caring for that which is good will lead to the destruction of evil. Lucy Mallory.

3. He who loves to exert his mind in order to search out the law of his duty is close to the science of morality.

He who endeavors to do his duty is close to the love of humanity, that is to the desire to do good to all people.

He who blushes for his inefficiency in doing his duty is close to that strength of soul which is necessary to the proper fulfilment of duty. Chinese wisdom,

4. Morality cannot be independent of religion, for it is not only one of the effects of religion, that is of that relationship of man to the world of which he is conscious, but is already included in that relationship.

5. If there is a motive back of a good deed it is no

longer good, any more than if it has a reward as an effect. Good is beyond the chain of cause and effect.

6. Even as torches and fireworks pale and fade from sight in the radiance of the sun, so wisdom and even genius as well as beauty pale and fade before the goodness of beart. Schopenhauer.

7. Infinite tenderness is the greatest gift and possession of ail truly great. Ruskin.

8. The tenderest plants break their way through the toughest soil and through rocky fissures. Even so goodness. What wedge, what hammer, what battering ram can compare with the force of a good and sincere man ? Nothing can resist it. Thoreau.

9. Where there is a man there is an opportunity to do him good. Seneca.

To answer an evil word with a good one, to render favor in return for an injury, to turn the other cheek when your cheek is struck, this is the only means of taming Qialice.

V.

Kindness in Relations Between Men is Obligatory. If You are Not Good to a Man, You are Evil and Provoke lUwill in Him

1. Be not hard of heart towards him who is subjected to temptation, but try to comfort him even as you would desire to be comforted.

2. Do not put off until to-morrow what you can do today. Do not compel another to do that which you can do yourself. Pride costs more than all things needed for food, drink, shelter and raiment taken together.

3. To have done too little is rarely a cause (or regret What a lot of trouble do we go through on account of things that never happen, merely worrying that they might happen. If ai^ry count ten; if very angry count up to one hundred. Jefferson.

4. Despise no man, stifle in your heart all presumptuous judgment and insulting suspicions against your neighbor, strive to account for the actions and for the words of others with a guileless heart. Give others preference before yourself in all sincerity.

Goodness beautifies life and solves its contradictions, it clears up that which is perplexing, renders easy that which is difficult and turns glcxHn into joy.

VI.

GoodnesB is to the Soul What Healdi is to the Body; If

You Possess It You Do Not Notice It, and It Gives

You Success in Every Undertaking

1. People of highest virtue do not account themselves virtuous, and that is why they are virtuous. People of minor virtuous attainments never forget their virtues, and that is why they are not virtuous. Highest virtue does not assert itself nor proclaim itself. Virtue of lowest order asserts and proclaims itself.

Ktndheartedness of the highest order acts, but does not try to proclaim itself. Kindheartedness of the lowest order asserts itself and tries to proclaim itself.

Justice of the highest order acts, but does not try to proclaim itself. Justice of the lowest order acts and tries to proclaim itself.

Propriety of the highest order acts hut does not try to proclaim itself. Pn^riety of the lowest order acts, but

when it fails to evoke a response, it enforces obedience to its dictates.

Thus when virtue of the highest order is lost, kind-heartedness supplants it; when kindheartedness is lost, justice supplants it; but when justice is lost propriety supplants it.

The rules of propriety are only the semblance of truth and the origin of all disorder. Wit is a blossom of reason, but the origin of ignorance.

For this reason the man of holy life clings to the fruit and not to the blossom, he rejects the latter and clings to the former. Lao-Tse,

2. The man of highest virtues strives to walk upon the path of rectitude to the end. To go half-way and weaken, this is the thing to be afraid of. Chinese wisdom.

. 3. Virtue in man must have the property of a precious stone which unalterably preserves its natural beauty no matter what happens to it. Marcus Aurelius.

4. The consciousness of a good life is its ample reward. Learn the joy of doing good. 'Do good secretly and blush if it is made known.

5. Man increases his happiness to the extent that he brings it into the lives of others. Bentham.

6. It is the will of God that we live by mutual happiness, and not by mutual unhappiness and the death of others. People help one another with their joys and not with sorrow. Ruskin.

7. The well-being of a plant is in the light; therefore a plant which is grown in the open can not question, nor does indeed question, in which direction it must grow,

whether the light is good or not, or if it should not rather wait for some other or better light, but accepts the one light that there is in the world and strives towards it; even so the man who has renoimced selfish well-being does not argue what portion of the things taken from others he might give away; and to what favored creatures, or whether there is some higher love than the one which has proclaimed its demands, which is accessible to him and is immediately before him. And there is no other love than to lay down your soul for your neighbor; love is

Nothing so beautifies life as an established habit of being good.

VII.

Goodness is Not Only Virtue and Joy, But is Also a

Weapon of Combat

1. It is difficult to be kind to a vicious and lying man, particularly to one who insults us, but it is just the kind of a man to whom we must be good, both for his sake and for our own.

2. "Then came Peter to him, and said. Lord, how oft shall my father sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?

"Jesus saith unto him, 'I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but Until seventy times seven.'"

Matthew, XVIII. 21-22.

Ml

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE 47

3. If you truly believe in the correctness of your understanding of life and (lesire to do good to people, you will, if the occasion calls for it, endeavor to lay your opinions before others, in order to assure those with whom you converse of the justice of your understanding of life. And in such instances, the more your companion is in error, the more important it is and the more desirable it is that he should understand and appreciate that which you would prove to him.

And yet frequently we act in a manner entirely contrary to this. We converse well with the man who is agreed 0Г' almost agreed with us; but when we see that our companion does not believe in the truth which we accept, or even does not tmderstand it, we, indeed, try to explain the truth to him, but if he persists in disagreeing with us, or assumes as we think a stubborn attitude, or perverts the meaning of our words, how easily do we become irritated and lose our serenity. We either grow angry and say mean things to our companion, or stop the conversation, thinking that it is not worth while to argue with this dull or stub-bom man.

If you mean to show the man with*whom you converse some particular truth, the main thing is not to be irritated, not to make use of a single unkind or offensive expression.

Epictetus,

4. If you discover a fault in any man, correct him meekly, and show him wherein he is at fault. If your attempt is fruitless, blame only yourself, or better still blame

^ ^^^' Marcus Aurelius.

5. If you fall out with a man, if he is dissatisfied with you, if he disagrees with you though you are in the right— the guilt is not his, but it is in your \acV. ol VatAx^^s's.,

THE PATHWAY OF ЫЕЕ

Without Truthfulness No Good Deed Can Be Perfonned. No Truth Can Be Uttered

1. Goodness and truth are one and the same.

Giusti.

2. A stalk springs up at times and fails to bring forth blossoms. Or it blossoms at times and fails to bring forth fruit.

Those who know the truth are not equal to those w;ho love it; and those who love it are unequal to those who lovingly do the works of truth. Confncius.

3. "And why cart ye me. Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

"Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like:

"He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was found upon a rock.

"But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great."

Luke, VI. 46-49.

4. Answer hatred with love. Examine a difficulty while it is yet easy of solution. Take up great matters, while they are still small. The most difficult enterprises in the world have their inception while they are still easy. The greatest enterprises in the world have thdr inception while they are still small. Lao-Tse.

5. There are two paths leading to perfect virtue: to be just and to refrain from harming any living creature.

The Book of ManUr.

There is nothing worse than pretension to goodness. Pretension to goodness is more repulsive than out and out malice.

IX.

What a Necessary Condiment to Everything is Kindness. The Best of Qualities are Worthless Without Kindness, and the Greatest Vices May Be Forgiven

Because of It

1. There is a natural kindness, depending on external and bodily causes—inheritance, good digestion or success. This kindness is very agreeable both to him who manifests it and to others. And there is a kindness proceeding from inner spiritual labor. This sort of kindness is less attractive, but whereas the first may not only disappear but even turn into malice, the second not only can not disappear, but constantly g^ows stronger.

2. If when doing a good deed you experience a pang of hostility or cause others to experience hostility towards yourself, stop immediately. It is a proof that you do not know how to do that which you undertook to do. Do you feel a physical or a spiritual pain, do you feel bitterness? stop, and on the one hand learn to do good without experiencing a feeling of pain, and on the other hand eliminate that which has caused the pain.

3. We must value even the appearance of goodness in others, because from this game of pretence whereby they secure respect for themselves which may be possibly undeserved, something more serious may ultimately develop.

It is only the mere appearance of good in our own self

so THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

which we must relentlessly extirpate, tearing down that veO with which our egotism would cover up our defects.

Kant

4. A good deed accomplished gratifies, but does not satisfy. We have always the feeling that we ought to have done much more.

5. No matter how much good you do, there will remain something more to be desired.

6. There is no spontaneous inclination towards morally evil actions, but there is indubitably such a spontaneous inclination to good actions. Kant.

7. A holy man has no relentless heart. He attunes his heart to the hearts of all people. He acts towards a virtuous man as towards a man possessing virtue, towards a vicious man as towards a man capable of virtue.

Eastern wisdom.

8. The wiser and kindlier a man is, the more good he observes in others. Pascal.

9. To stimulate goodness is an important part of life.

Johnson.

10. In order to find joy in serving human beings and all the creatures endowed with life in general, you must first learn to do no evil to human beings and other living creatures, nor to build your life upon the sufferings and the life of others.

Goodness is a basic characteristic of the soul. If a man is not good, he was yielded to some delusion, error or passion which violates this natural characteristic.

ON REFRAINING

«■

ON REFRAINING

Men spoil their lives not so much by failing to do what they ought to do, as by doing that which they ought not to do. Therefore the greatest effort man requires in the attainment of a good life is to refrain from doing that which he ought not to do.

I.

A Good Life Requires Restraint Above All Else

1. There is one thing which is most essential to all men. It is to live a good life. To live a good life, however, means not so much to do the good things which we can do as to refrain from doing the evil things which we can leave undone.

2. All men of our present age know our life is evil, and they not only condemn the order of our life but do things which in their opinion should make life better. But life instead of improving g^rows thereby steadily worse. Why is it so? Because men adopt the most intricate and ingenious expedients, but fail to do the simplest and easiest thing; they do not abstain from participation in those things which make our life evil.

3. A man can only then know what he ought to do when he clearly understands what he ought not to do. Refraining from doing that which he ought not to do, he will inevitably do the things which he ought to do, though he may not realize why he is doing that which he does.

4. Question: what is best to do when you are in a hurry?

Answer: nothing.

5. When courage fails you act towards yourself as towards an invalid; but in particular undertake nothin^«

6. If you are m doubt how to act, whether to do a thing or not to do it, know in advance that it is always better to forbear than to do. If you are not able to restrain yourself, or if you know for a certainty that the deed is good, you will not debate with yourself whether to do it or not to do it; but if you debate with yourself then, in the first instance, you know you can refrain from doing it, and further you may be sure that the thing is not wholly good. If it were wholly good you would not debate with yourself.

7. If you desire something so much that you feel you can not restrain yourself, do not trust yourself. It is untrue that a man can not restrain himself from anything. Only he can not restrain himself who has in advance convinced himself that he can not restrain himself.

8. Let every man, even a mere youth, examine his life; and if you regret but once having refrained from doing even that which is good and which you ought to do, there will be hundreds of instances causing you to regret having done that which is not good and which you oi^ht not to have done.

II. Consequences of Unrestraint

1. Less harm results from not doing that which we ought to do than from failing to forbear doing that which we ought not to do.

2. Lack of restraint in one action weakens our power of restraint in another. The habit of unrestraint is a secret current beneath the foundation of a house. Such a structure is bound to collapse.

3. It is worse to overdo than not to do enough. It is worse to be hasty than to be tardy.

The pangs of conscience are keener for what you have done than for what you have failed to do.

4. The more difficult is a situation the less action it calls for. It is by activity that we generally spoil that which is commencing to mend.

5. The majority of men known as mean have become so through accepting their evil temper as something lawful and through yielding to it without making an effort to restrain themselves.

6. If you feel that you have not the strength to restrain yourself from a physical craving, the cause will be found in the fact that you failed to restrain yourself when you could and the craving has become a habit.

III.

Not All Activity is Worthy of Respect

1. It is a great error to think that activity as such, without taking into consideration what it consists of, is something honorable and worthy of esteem. The question is wherein does this activity consist and under what conditions does the person concerned refrain from action.

2. People frequently proudly abstain from innocent amusements saying that they have no time for them, that they are busy. Yet apart from the fact that a goodnatured and merry game is more needful and important than many kinds of business, the very business for the sake of which they forego pleasure is frequently of such nature that it were better left undone.

3. Fussy superficial activity is not only unnecessary, but is directly harmful to the genuine progress of life. Without the distractions afforded by the labors of others, doing nothing is a most painful condition (if it be not filled with inner labors), and therefore if a man lives outside*of a state of luxury which is furnished by the labor of others,

he will not be idle. The principal harm does not come from idleness but from doing that which is unnecessary and is injuriouB.

IV.

Man Can Only Then Restrain Himself From Evil Habits When He Realizes That He is a Spiritual and

Not a Physical Being

1. In order to learn restraint man must learn to divide himself into a physical and a spiritual man and to compel the physical man to do not that he desires but that which the spiritual man desires.

2. When the soul is asleep and inactive, the body irresistibly obeys the manifestation of those feelings which are evoked in it by the actions of the people around. When these people yawn, it yawns also; when they are excited, it also becomes excited; when they are angry, it also is stngry; when they are moved and weep, it also sheds tears.

This involuntary subjection to outward stimulations is the cause of many evil actions which are out of harmony with the dictates of the conscience. Watch out against these external influences and refuse to yield to them.

3. Only if you have trained the physical man from childhood to obey the spiritual man will you find it easy to restrain yourself from your desires. The man who has learned to restrain himself from his desires will find life in this world joyful and easy.

V.

The More You Combat Unrestraint the Easier the

Struggle Becomes

1. Between man's reason and his passions there exists a state of civil war. Man could have a little rest if he had

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THE PATHWAY OF LIFE 57

reason without passions or even passion without reason. But having both, he can not escape a struggle, he can not be at peace with the one without fighting against the other. He is always at war within himself. And this war is a necessity: it is life. Pascal

2. In order to esteem others as ourselves, and to do unto them as we would that they do unto us (and herein is the principal concern in life) we must be master of our own self, and in order to be master of our own self, we must train ourselves for it.

3. Every time that you greatly desire to do anything, stop and think: is that which you so greatly desire truly good?

4. In order not to commit any evil act, it is not enough to abstain from the act itself; learn to abstain from evil conversation, and especially refrain from evil thoughts. As soon as you observe that a conversation is evil—^if you ridicule, condemn or abuse another—stop, be silent, don't listen. Do the same when evil thoughts enter your head: are you thinking evil of your neighbor (it is all the same whether your neighbor is deserving of criticism or not), stop and try to think of something else.

Only when you learn to abstain from evil words and evil thoughts will you have strength to abstain from evil deeds.

5. No matter how often you fall without attaining victory over your passions, do not lose courage. Each effort of the struggle lessens the power of passion and facilitates victory over it.

6. The driver does not abandon his reins because he fails to stop his horses at once, but continues to hold them— and the horses halt. Even so with our passions: if yoii i^\V

once, keep on struggling, and finally you will be the master and not your passions.

7. Every passion in the heart of man is first a suppliant, then a guest and finally the master of the house. Try and repel such a suppliant, do not open before him the doors of your heart.

VI.

Tfie Value of Restraint to Individuals and to the

Human Race

1. If you would be free, teach yourself to restrain your desires.

2. Who is wise? He who learns a little from everybody. Who is rich ? He who is content with his lot. Who is strong? He who restrains himself. Talmud.

3. Some say that Christianity is the doctrine of weakness because it does not prescribe acts but mainly the refraining from acts. Christianity a doctrine of weakness! A fine doctrine of weakness, the founder of which died a martyr on the cross rather than be untrue to himself, and among whose followers there are numbered thousands of martyrs, the only people who boldly faced the evil and withstood it. The tyrants of old who put Christ to death, and the present day tyrants know full well what sort of a doctrine of weakness it is, and they dread this doctrine above all things. They feel instinctively that this doctrine alone will most surely destroy and uproot that order of things which they maintain. Much more strength is required to abstain from evil than to perform the most difficult act which we account good.

4. All distinctions of our wordly estate are as nothing compared with the dominion of man over self. If a man fall into the sea, it does not matter whence he fell or into

what sea. The only essential thing is can he swim or not. Strength is not in external conditions but in the art of self-mastery.

5. True strength is not in him who overcomes others but in him who overcomes himself, who does not let the animal in him have mastery over his soul.

6. He who yields himself up to passionate desires, he who seeks gratification, his passions gather ever new strength and ultimately bind him with chains. He who succeeds in overcoming his passions bursts his chains.

Buddhist wisdom,

7. Young man! Deny yourself the gratification of your desires (for amusements, luxuries, etc.), if not from an inclination to give up all these things altogether then at least in order to retain an undiminished capacity of enjoyment. Such economy by postponing enjoyment will make vou all the richer.

The consciousness that enjoyment is within your power is пюге fruitful and vast (as are all ideals) than the feeling resulting from that enjoyment because enjoyment ceases with satisfaction. Kant.

8. Do not strive so much to do good as to be good; do not strive so much to illuminate as to be pure. The soul of man dwells as though in a glass vessel, and it is within the power of man to keep this vessel soiled or clean. In the degree that the vessel is clean, the light of truth shines through it, being a light to the man himself and to others. Therefore the principal task of man is of an inner nature.— to keep his vessel pure. Do not soil yourself, and you will have light and give light to others.

9. Refrain only from doing that which you ought not to do, and you will do all that you ought.

10. In order to do that which we would it is frequently necessary merely to refrain from doing that which we are doing.

11. Gaze upon the life which the people in our world are leading; took at Chicago, Paris, London, the various cities, the factories, railways, machines, armaments, cannons, fortresses, printing establishments, museums, skyscrapers, and ask yourself the question: what is the first thing to do so that the people might lead a good life? There can be only one sure answer: cease doing all the superfluous things that the people are doing. And the superfluous in our world to-day takes in ninety-nine per cent, of the activities of men.

12. Thin and transparent though the falsehood be which has for its source the contrast between our life and our consciousness, it becomes thinner and distends, but does not rend. And it binds together the present order of things and prevents the new order from making its appearance.

The majority of people in the Qiristian world no longer believe in the principles of paganism, but accept the prin-cii^es of Christianity, acknowledging the same in their consciousness, but their life continues the same as heretofore. In order to dissipate all the calamities and contradictions which afHict the people physically and morally, in other words in order to bring to earth the Kingdom of God which was foretold to humanity nineteen hundred years ago, men of our day need only one thing: moral effort. Just as a mere push is needed to give a liquid that has been cooled below its freezing point its proper crystal form, so just a moral effort is needed to lead humanity into that form of life which is proper to it, and this moral effort is that force which lays hold on the Kingdom of God.

This e£Fort is not the effort of a movement, the effort o£

THE PATnWAY OF LIFE

61

the discovery of a new world philosophy and of new thoughts or the performance of somt peculiar new deeds. The effort needed to enter the Kingdom of God or a new form of life is a negative effort, the effort not to follow the stream, the effort not to do the things that are not in harmony with the inner consciousness.

Thus men are brought to face the necessity of such an effort both in the cruelty of life and by the clearness and spread of the Christian teaching.

13. The minutest motion of matter affects all nature. The whole ocean is set in motion by a pebble. Even so with spiritual life, the minutest movement creates infinite results. Everything is of consequence. Pascal

-м

THE SPOKEN WORD

THE SPOKEN WORD

Words are expressions of thought and may serve to unite people or to separate them; therefore they must be handled cautiously.

I.

Gfreat is the Word

1. By a word we can bring people into union, by a word we can sever their union; by a word we can serve love, and likewise by a word we can serve enmity and hatred. Beware of the word that separates people or serves enmity and hatred.

2. Words are expressions of thought and thought is a manifestation of divine power, therefore the word must correspond with that which it expresses. It can be indifferent, but it cannot, it must not be an expression of evil.

3. Man is the carrier of God. He can express the consciousness of his divinity by a word. How then should he not be careful in the use of a word?

4. Time passes, but the spoken word remains.

5. If you have time to think before beginning to speak, think is it worth while to speak, is it necessary to speak, will you not injure someone by speaking that which you would speak. And mostly it will happen that if you first think you will not commence to speak.

6. First think, then speak. But stop before someone says: "Enough!'' Man is higher than an animal in his capacity of speech, but he is lower than the animal when gabbling at haphazard. Saadi,

7. After a lengthy conversation try to remember all that has been said and you will wonder how banal, futile and frequently evil was much that was said.

8. Listen and be attentive, but say little.

Never si>eak unless asked, but if asked, answer briefly, nor be ashamed if you must admit that you do not know the thing you are questioned about. Sufi,

9. If you would pass as wellinformed—learn to question rationally, to listen attentively, to answer calmly and to cease speaking when there is nothing left to say.

Lavater.

10. Praise not, judge not and dispute not.

11. Listen to the speech of the learned man with attention, though his actions may not be in accord with his teaching. Man must have instruction, though the instruction be an inscription on the wall. Saadi,

12. There is a useful brief phrase: I know not. Teach your tongue to use it frequently. Oriental wisdom,

13. There is an ancient saying: say nothing evil of the dead. How unfair it is. It ought to be instead: Say nothing evil of the living. How much sorrow would not this rule remove from the world! Why say nothing evil of the dead? In our world it is a custom to render only exaggerated praise, in other words to tell only falsehoods, about the dead in obituaries and memorial observances. Such

^ specious praise is harmful because it wipes out in the minds of the реорГе the distinction between good and evil.

14. With what shall we compare the tongue in the mouth of man ? It is the key to the treasure house; when the door is locked no one can tell whether behind it are precious stones or heaps of useless rubbish. Saadi.

15. While wise men teach us that silence is useful, free speech is likewise needful, only at the proper time,

We sin by words both if we are silent when we ought to speak, and if we speak when we ought to be silent.

Saadl

When You are Angry, Be Silent

1. If you know how people should live and mean well with them, you will tell them. And you will do so in such a manner that they trust your words. In order that they may trust you and understand you, you must express your thoughts without irritation or anger, but calmly and kindly.

2. If you would convey some truth to your listener, the main thing is not to be irritated and not to use an unkind or an offensive word. Epictetus.

3. The unspoken word is golden.

4. Not to think first before speaking is advisable only when you feel yourself to be calm, kindly and loving. But if you are restless and irritated, take care that you do not sin in word.

5. If you can not instantly still your wrath, restrain your tongue. Be silent, and you will regain your calmness.

Baxter.

6. Take care that in a discussion your words be gentle, your arguments firm. Endeavor not to irritate your adversary, but to convince him. Wilkins,

7. As soon as we feel anger in an argument, we are arguing not for the sake of truth, but for our own sake.

Carlyle, III.

Do Not Quarrel

1. The beginning of a quarrel is like water seeping through the d^m, the moment it breaks through it cannot be

restrained. And every quarrel is provoked and kept alive by words. Talmud.

2. Quarrel convinces nobody, it merely separates and exasperates. What a nail is to a hammer, even so the quarrel is to human opinions. Opinions that had been a little shaky are driven firmly into a man's head after a quarrel, as nails are driven in down to their head by a hammer.

Juvenat.

3. Truth is lost sight of in quarrels. He who is wiser stops the quarrel.

4. You may listen to quarrels, but do not participate therein. May the I-ord preserve you from quick temper and hotheadedness even in their slightest manifestation. Ai^r is always out of place, and most of all in a righteous matter, because it obscures it and clouds it, Gogol.

5. The best answer to a madman is silence. Every word of retort will rebound from the madman upon your own head. To reply to insult with insult is like throwing fagots into a fire.

IV. Thou Shalt Not Judge

1. "Judge not, that ye be not judged.

"For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

"Or how wilt thou say to thy brother. Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

"Thou hypocrite, first cast the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." Matthew VU, 1-5.

2. Almost invariably, if we search within, we find the same sin that we condemn in others. And if we do not know in ourselves the very sin which we condemn in others, with a little search we shall find a worse sin.

3. The moment you begin to judge a man, bear in mind not to say anything evil even if you know this evil thing for a certainty, but particularly if you are not certain of it and merely repeat the words of another.

4. Judging others is always inaccurate, because no one knows what has occurred and is occurring in the soul of him who is being judged.

5. It is well to ag^ee with a friend to stop one another as soon as either commences to judge his neighbor. And if you have no such friend, make such an agreement with yourself.

6. To condemn people to their face is evil because it offends them, and to condemn them behind their back is dishonest because it deceives them. The best thing is not to seek anything evil in people and to forget it, but to seek the evil in our own self and to remember it.

7. A witty condemnation is offal disguised with a savory sauce. The sauce conceals the offal, and without noticing it you are apt to fill yourself with loathsome things.

8. The less people know of the evil acts of others, the stricter they are with themselves.

9. Never listen to a man who speaks evil of others and well of yourself.

10. He who traduces me behind my back fears me, he who praises me to my own face despises me.

Chinese proverb.

-_'*■

70 THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

11. People are so fond of backbiting that it is hard to abstain from condemning those who are absent in the desire to please one's listeners. But if men must be pleased, try to set before them a different sort of a treat rather than something so harmful both to yourself and to those whom you would please.

12. Cover up another's sin, and God will forgive two of yours.

V.

Harmful Effects of Unrestraint in Words

1. We know that a loaded gun must be handled carefully, but we refuse to realize that a word must t)e handled with as much care. A word may not only kill but also cause evil that is worse than death.

2. Offences of the body arouse our indignation; gluttony, fighting, adultery and murder, but we regard lightly the offences by words: censure, insult, gossip, the printing or writing of harmful and corrupting words; yet the consequences of the offences with words are much graver and more far-reaching than the offences of the body. The difference is only this: the effects of an offence of the body are instantly noticeable. But the evil of word crimes we cannot observe because their effects are removed from us by distance and time.

3. There was once a large gathering of over a thousand people in a theatre. In the midst of the performance a silly fellow bethought himself of a practical joke and shouted the one word: fire. The people rushed to the doors. A panic occurred, many were crushed, and when quiet was restored, twenty persons were found dead and more than fifty injured.

Such is the evil that one foolish word may cause. Here

y\

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE 71

in a theatre you could see an exhibition of the evil effects of one foolish word, but it frequently happens that the effects of a foolish word may not be as noticeable as in this theatre, but none the less cause still more evil, though gradually and unnoticed.

4. Nothing so encourages idleness as small talk. If people only observed silence without resorting to the idle trifles with which they seek to banish the tediousness of idleness, they would find idleness intolerable and go to work.

5. To speak evil of others harms three people in one: him of whom evil is spoken; him to whom evil is spoken; but most of all him who speaks evil of others.

Basil the Great.

6. Judging people behind their back is harmful especially for the reason that the criticism of the defects of a man, which related to him face to face might be useful to him, is hidden from him to whom it might do good, and is communicated to those to whom it can only do harm by arousing a feeling of ill will towards him who is judged.

7. You will seldom regret to have kept silence, but how often do you not regret to have spoken, and how much oftener would you regret if you but knew all the consequences of your words.

8. The more anxious you are to speak, the greater the risk that you will say something evil.

9. Great is the strength of the man who preserves silence though he be right. Cato.

VI.

The Value of Silence

1. Give more rest to your tongue than to your hands.

3. Turn your tongue seven times before saying a word.

4. One must either be silent or utter words that are better than silence.

5. He who says much does little. The wise man is always afraid lest his words promise more than he can perform, and therefore he remains silent more often, and speaks only then wjien it is needful for others and not for himself.

6. I have passed my life among wise men and I have never found anything better for man than silence.

Talmud.

7. If out of a hundred occasions you once regret that you failed to speak what you ought to have spoken, surely out of a hundred occasions you will find ninety-nine to regret that you spoke when you should have remained silent.

8. The fact alone that a good intention has been expressed in words weakens the desire to carry it into effect. But how to restrain from expressing the lofty though self-satisfied enthusiasms of youth? Only in later years, remembering them, you regret them as you regret a flower that you plucked before its time and later found in the mire —faded and trodden under foot.

9. The word is the key to the heart. If conversation leads to nothing, even one word is superfluous.

10. When you are alone think of your sins, when you are in company, forget the sins of the others.

Chinese proverb.

11. If you very much desire to speak, ask yourself: why are you so anxious to speak? is it for your own gain, or for the gain, for the good of others? If for your own, tiy and keep silence.

12. It is best for the foolish man to be silent, but if he knew this, he would not be foolish. Saadi,

•

13. People learn how to speak, but the principal science is how and when to keep silent.

14. When you speak, your words should be better than silence. Arabic proverb.

15. The man of many words cannot avoid sin. If a word be worth a coin, silence is worth two.

If silence is meet for the wise, how much more so for the foolish. Talmud.

VII.

The Value of Restraint in Words

1. The less you say, the more work will you accomplish.

2. Wean yourself from judging others, and you will feel in your soul an increased capacity for love, you will realize a growth in life and blessedness.

3. Mohammed and Ali met once a man who thinking that Ali had injured him commenced to abuse him. For a time Ali bore this abuse patiently and in silence, but finally he could not restrain himself and gave abuse for abuse. Then Mohammed left them. When Ali rejoined Mohammed, he reproached him: "Why did you leave me alone to bear the insults of this insolent fellow?" "When this man abused you," replied Mohammed, "and you bore it in silence I saw ten angels around you and the angels reproved him. But when you began to pay him back in abuse, the angels left you, and I also walked away."

Mohammedan tradition.

4. To conceal the defect? of others and to mention

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

that which is good in them, is a sign of love and the best means to draw to yourself the love of your neighbor.

Pious Thoughts.

S. The blessedness of the life of people is their love one for another. And an unkind word may violate love.

THOUGHT

1

L*^

THOUGHT

Even as a man can restrain himself from committing an act, if he realizes that it is evil, so can a man restrain himself from a thought which attracts him if he acknowledges it to be evil. This restraint in thought is the chief source of the strength of man, because all acts have their inception in thoughts.

I.

The Purpose of Thought

1. You can not deliver yourself from sins, errors and superstitions by a physical effort. Deliverence is possible only through an effort of thought. Only by thought can you teach yourself to be unselfish, humble and truthful. Only when a man strives in his thoughts after self-abnegation, humility and truthfulness, will he have strength to fight with sin, errors and superstitions in his deeds.

2. Though thought did not reveal to us the necessity of love—^thought could not reveal this—thought plays an important part in pointing out that which obstructs love. This very effort of thought against that which obstructs love, this very effort of thought, I repeat, is more significant, needful and precious than all other things.

3. If man did not think, he could not comprehend why he lives. And if he did not comprehend why he lives, he could not know what is good and what is evil. Therefore nothing is more precious to man than right thinking.

4. People speak of moral and religious teaching and of science as though they were two distinct guides of man. In reality, however, there is only one guide—conscience, that is the consciousness of the voice of God who dwells in us. This voice decides beyond doubt for each man what

he ought and what he ought not to do. And this voice may be sumnwned at all times from within by any man through an effort of thought.

5. If a man did not know that he could see with his eyes and for that reason refrained from opening them, he would be very pitiable indeed. Even so, nay even more is to be pitied he who does not reahze that the power to think was granted him for the purpose of calmly bearing all misfortunes. If a man is sensible, he can easily bear misfor* tunes; first because his reason tells him that all misfortunes pass away and frequently are transformed into blessings, and seccmd because with a rational man all misfortunes redound to his benefit. Yet people instead of fadng misfortunes boldly endeavor to avert them.

Is it not better to rejoice that God has given us power not to grieve over what occurs independent of our will, and to thank him that he has put our soul under subjection only to that which is in our own power, namely to our rea-90IL For he did not put our soul under subjection to our parents, nor to our brothers, nor to wealth, nor to our body, nor to death. In His mercy he put it under subjection only to that which depends on us—to our thoughts.

And we must observe these thoughts and their purity with all our strength. Epictetus.

6. When we recognize a new thought and find that it is true, it seems to us as thou^ we had known it for a lot^ time and merely remember what we already knew. All truth is already implanted in the soul of every man. Only do not choke it with falsehood, and sooner or later it will reveal itself to you.

7. It may frequently happen that a thou^t visits you which seems both true and strange and you dare not trust it. But after a while, having carefully thought over the

matter, you will see that the thought which had seemed passing strange is the simplest kind of truth, so that the moment you recognize you can never cease believing it.

8. All great truths before passing into the consciousness of man niust inevitably go through three phases; the first: "This is so absurd, it is not worth considering"; second: "This is against all morals and religion"; third: "This is so obvious it is not worth talking about."

9. When you live together with others do not forget the things which you have learned in solitude. And in solitude consider those things which you learned from companionship with others.

10. We can attain wisdom by three ways: first, by way of experience, this is the most difficult way; second, by way of imitation, this is the easiest way; and third by way of meditation, and this is the noblest way. Confucius.

U. The Life of Man и Petermined by His Thoughts

1. The fate of man, whatever it be, depends solely upon his manner of understanding bis life through his thoughts.

2. All great changes in the life of the individual and of the human race have their inception and completion in thought. A change of feelings and actions requires first of all a preceding change of thought.

3. In order to transform an evil life into a good life, it is needful first of all to try and understand why the life became so evil, and what must be done in order to make it good. Therefore in order to make life better, it is necessary first to think and then to act.

4. It would be wett if wisdom could be poured out of one man who has much into another who has little, even as

water is poured from one vessel into another until there is an equal quantity in both. But in order to be able to receive wisdcHn from another a man must first think for himself.

5. All that is truly needful to man must be obtained with laborious and constant toil. Thus do we acquire crafts and all sorts of knowledge, and even thus is acquired that which is the most needful thing in life, the art of living a good life.

In order to learn how to live right, you must first teach yourself how to think right.

6. The transition of our life from one stage to another is determined not by visible acts which we commit by our will: marriage, removal to another place of residence, change of profession, but by the thoughts which come to us as we walk, or in the dead of night, or as we eat, particularly by such thoughts as embrace the whole of our past, saying: "You acted wrongly, you ought to have acted differently." And all of our following acts, like slaves, serve these thou^its and obey their will, Thoreau.

7. Our habits of thought lend their peculiar hue to all things with which we come in contact. If these thoughts are false they will render false the most exalted truths. Our habits of thought form something far more substantial for us than the house we dwell in. We carry them about with us even as the snail carries the shell in which it lives.

Lucy Mallory.

8. Our desires will not become good until we correct our habits of thought. Habits of thought determine desires. And habits of thought are formed by communing with the results of the wisdom of the best men of the worid.

Seneca.

9. That which is at rest may be kept at rest. That which has not yet appeared may be easily prevented. That which is yet weak may be easily broken. That which is yet little may be easily scattered.

The big Iree started as a small twig. The nine-storied tower commenced with the laying of single bricks. Journeys of thousands of miles commence with the first step. Take care of your thoughts—they are the origin of acts. Lao-Tse.

10. Our thoughts, good or evil, send us to paradise or to hell—not in the heavens or under ground, but right here in this life. Lucy Mallory.

11. Some say that reason can not be the guide of our life, but they are people whose reason is so corrupt that they can not trust it.

12. Even as the life and the fate of an individual are determined by that to which he pays less heed than to his acts, namely by his thoughts, so the life of communities and nations is not determined by the events occurring among them, but by the thoughts which unite the majority of the ре<ф1е in these communities and nations.

13. Do not think that to be wise is the prerogative of some special people only. Wisdom is needful to all men, and therefore all men can be wise. Wisdom is to know wherein is the business of hfe and how to perform it. And in order to know this only one thing is needful: remember that thought is a great thing, and therefore think.

14. A thought entered my mind and then I forgot ft. Well, never mind, it was only a thought. If it had been money I should have turned everything upside down until I found it. But a mere thought! Yet gigantic oaks grow from acorns. Thought determines tiv\5 от 'Лач. ■ьк.ч. Л -«v

individual and of millions of men, and yet we dare to think that mere thought is a trifle.

III.

The Chief Source of Human Ills it Not in Men's Acts But in Their ThoughU

1. When misfortunes befall you know that they are not due to what you have done, but to what you have thought.

2. If we cannot restrain ourselves from committing a deed which we know is evil, it is due to the fact only that we first permitted ourselves to think of this evil act and failed to restrain our thoughts.

3. Strive not to think of the things which you believe to be evil.

4. More injurious than evil acts are those thoughts which lead to evil acts. An evil act need not be repeated and it can be repented. But evil thoughts give birth to evil deeds. An evil act points the path to other evil acta. Evil thoughts drag you along upon the path to evil deeds.

5. Fruit is born of a seed. Even so deeds are bom of thoughts.

Even as evil fruit is bom of evil seed, so evil acts are born of evil thoughts. As a farmer separates good and true seed from the seed of weeds, and selects from among the good seed the choicest and guards and sorts it; even so a prudent man treats his thoughts: he repels vain and foolish thoughts, and preserves the good thoughts, cherishing and assorting them. If you do not repel evil thoughts, nor cherish good thoughts, you can not avoid evil acts. Good deeds come from good thoughts only. Cherish good thoughts, searching for them in the books of wisdom, in sensible conversations and above all in your inner self.

6. So that a lamp may ^ve steady light it must be placed where it is protected from the wind. But if a lamp be in a windy place, the light will flicker and cast strange and dark shadows. Even so uncontrolled, foolish and ill assorted thoughts cast strange and dark shadows upon the soul of man. Brahminic wisdom.

IV.

Man Has Power Over His Thoughts

1. Our life is good or evil depending on our thoughts. But we can direct our thoughts. Therefore in order to live a good life man must labor over his thoughts, nor yield to evil thoughts.

2. Take care to purify your thoughts. If you have no evil thoughts you will commit no evil deeds.

Confucius.

3. Guard your thoughts, guard your words, guard У your actions from evil. Observe these three paths in purity,

and you will enter the path designed by the All-Wise one. Buddhist wisdom.

4. All things are in the power of Heaven exceptii^ our desire to serve God or self. We can not hinder the birds from flying over our head, but we can prevent them from building a nest on our head. Even so we can not stc^ evil thoughts from flashing through our mind, but it is within our power to prevent them from nesting therein and raising a brood of evil acts. Luther.

5. We can not repel an evil thought «ice h enters our mind, but we can recognize the thought as evil. And if we know that it is evil, we can refuse to yield to it. The thought comes to us that this or that man is bad. I could not pre-

vent this thought, but if I realize that it is evil, I can remember that it is wrong to judge people and that I am bad myself, and remembering all this I can restrain myself from judging even in thought.

6. If you would have benefit from your thou^ts try to think entirely independently of your feelings and your condition, without twisting your thoughts into justifying the feelings which you experience or the acts which you commit.

V.

Live the Life of the Spirit in Order to Have Strength

to Rule Your Thoughts

1, We frequently think that physical strength is the most important thing. We think so because our body willy-nilly always appreciates physical strength. But spiritual strength, the power of thought, appears so insignificant that we refuse to acknowledge it as strength. And yet true power capable of changing our life and the life of all men is in the strength of the spirit alone.

2, The spiritual directs the physical, not the physical the spiritual. Therefore, in order to change his condition, man must labor on himself in the domain of the spiritual— in the domain of thought,

3, Our life improves or deteriorates in accordance with our consciousness of ourselves as spiritual or material creatures. If we are conscious of being a material creature we weaken our true life, we strengthen and arouse passions, greed, conflicts, hatred and fear of de^th. If we are conscious of being spiritual beings we stimulate and elevate life, deliver it from passions, conflicts and hatred, we release love. And the passage from the consciousness of being a material creature into that of a-spiritual being is effected by an effort of thought.

4. This is what Seneca wrote to a friend:

"You do well, friend Lucinius, to endeavor with all your strength to maintain yourself in a good and kindly spirit. Every man can at all times attain the same disposition. In order to attain it, it is not necessary to lift up your hands to heaven and to beg the temple watchman to let you come closer to God, so that He may hear you better: God is always close to you. He is within your own self. The Holy Spirit dwells in us, witness and guardian of what is good and what is evil. He acts towards us as we act towards him. If we guard him—he guards us also."

5. When you are in doubt, when you do not know which is good and which is evil, you must withdraw from the world; only worry about the judgment of the world prevents you from seeing what is good and what is evil. Withdraw frwn the world, in other words, enter within yourself, and all doubt will vanish.

VI.

The Oiqwrtunity of Communing in Thought with the

Living and the Dead is One of the Choicest

Blesungs of Man

1. Young people frequently say: "I do not wish to live as others think—I must think out thii^ for myself." This is quite right. Your own thoughts are more valuable to you than anybody else's. But why give thought to that which has already been thought out? Take that which is ready and go further. In being able to benefit by the thoughts of others lies the strength of the human race.

2. The efforts which deliver man from sins, errors, and superstitions have their inception in thoughts. One of the principal aids of man in this stru^le is his ability to commune with the reasoning activity of the sages and

saints who have gone before. Such communion vrith the thoughts of the saints and sages of old is ргаует, that is, repetition of those words wherein these men expressed their relation to their soul, to other people, to the worid and to its beginning.

3. It has been accepted since of old that prayer is necessary to man.

With men of olden days, and still with the majority of men to-day, prayer is an a[^al under certain conditions, in certain locations, accompanied by certain acts and words, addressed to God or to other divinities, and intended to appease them.

Christian doctrine knows no such prayers. It teaches that prayer is needful not as an instrument of deliverance from worldly ills, nor as a means of securing worldly blessings, but as a means of strengthening man in good thoughts.

4. True prayer is important and needful for the soul because in such prayer, being alone with God, our thought reaches the highest irinnacle attainable to it.

5. Christ said: When thou prayest, pray in secret (Matthew VI, 5-6). Only then will God hear you, God who is within you, and in order that He may hear you, you must only dispel all that conceals Him from you.

6. Despondence is that state of the soul in which a man fails to see any purpose either in his own life or in the life of the whole world. There is only one way to be rid of this condition: to summon from within yourself the best thoughts that you are conscious of, either your own thoughts or the thoughts of others, and this process may illuminate to you the meaning of your own life. The summoning of these thoughts may be effected by the repetition of those supreme truths that you know and that you can express to yourself—aud this is prayer.

7. Pray unceasingly. The most needful and the nwst difficult of prayers is to remember amid the activities of life your duties before God and His law. Have you been frightened, angered, confused, tempted—make an effort, remember who you are and what you ought to do. Herein is prayer. This is difHculi at first, but the habit may be developed.

8. From time to time it is well to modify your prayer, that is the expression of your relation to God. Man changes constantly, grows constantly, and therefore his relation to God must change and become more manifest. And even so must his prayer be modified.

VII. Good Ufe is Impossible Without Effort of Thought

1. Appreciate good thoughts, your own and those of others, as soon as you recognize them. Nothing will aid you as much as good thoughts in the accomplishment of the true task of your life.

2. Be master of your thot^hts if you would attain у^шг purpose. Fix the glance of your soul upon that one pure light which is free from passions.

Brahminic wisdom.

3. Meditation is the path to immorality; frivolity is the path to death. Those who are watchful in meditation never die, but the frivolous and unbelievers are even as the dead.

Arouse thyself, then protected by thyself and penetrat-ing into thyself, thou wilt be immutable.

Buddhist wisdom.

4. The true strength of man is not in impulse, but in the uninterrupted steady striving after good which he de

termines in his thoughts, expresses in his words and realizes in his actions.

5. If looking back over your life you observe that your life has grown better and freer from sins, errors and superstitions, know that you owe this success only to the labor of your thoughts.

6. Thought activity is precious not only because it corrects our life, but also because it is helpful in the life of other people as well. This is what makes the effort of thought so valuable.

7. This is what the Chinese philosopher Confucius says about the signiBcance of thought:

True learning teaches men the highest good—to be reformed and to abide in that state. In order to attain supreme good it is necessary that wellheing reign throughout the nation. In order to have wellheing throughout the nation it is necessary to have wellbeing in the family. In order to have wellbeing in the family it is necessary to have wellbeing within oneself. In order to attain wellbeing within oneself the heart must be corrected. In order to have your heart corrected you must have clear and truthful thoughts.

VIII.

Man la Distinguished from an Animal Only by Having the Capacity of Thinking

1. Man is distinguished from an animal only by his capacity of thinking. Some people increase this capacity in themselves, others pay no heed to it. These latter people act as though they would surrender that which distinguishes them from the beast. Eastern wisdom.

2. A cow, a horse, or any other animal, no matter how hungry it may he, will never leave the court if the gates

open inwards. It will starve to death if the gate be stout and there be none to open it, for it will never think of walking away from the gate pulling it along. Man alone understands that he must suffer awhile, laboi", and do those things which he may not desire at the moment, in order to brii^ about a desired result. Man may restrain himself from eating, sleeping or drinking, because he knows what is good and what he ought to do or what is evil and what he ought not to do. Man learns these things through his capacity of thinking.

This capacity is the most valuable possession of man and he should guard it and cultivate it with all his strength.

3. Compared with the world surrounding him, man is but a feeble reed, but a reed endowed with the capacity of thinking.

The merest trifle suffices to kill a man. And yet man is higher than any other creature, higher than anything earthly, because even when dying he is conscious of the fact that he is dying.

Man may be conscious of his insignificance before nature, but nature itself is not conscious of anything.

Our whole advantage is in the capacity of thinking. Our thought elevates us above the rest of the world. Let us prize and sustain our power of thought and it will illumine our whole life, showing us wherein is good and wherein is evil. Pascal,

4. A man may leam to read and write, but this knowledge will not enlighten him whether he should write a letter to a friend or a complaint against someone who has injured him or leave it alone. A man may leam to use musical instruments, but music will not tell him when he should sing or play and when he should leave singing and

playing alone. Eve so in all things. Only reason suggests to us what to do, when to do it, or what not to do and when.

Having endowed us with reason, God put at our disposal that which is most needful. Giving us reason it is as though He said: In order that you may avoid evil and lay hold on the blessings of life, I have implanted within you a divine particle of Myself. I have given you reason. If you apply it to all that happens to you, nothing in the world will be an obstacle or impediment to you on the road which I have designed for you, and you will never complain of your fate or against people, you will never judge them or cringe before them. Do not reproach me for not having given you more. Is it not enough for you to be able to live your life reasonably, peacefully and happily?

^ Epictetus.

5. A wise proverb says that God visits us without ringing the bell. This means that there is no partition between us and the infinite, that there is no wall between man —^the effect, and God, the cause. The walls have been removed, we are open to all the profound effects of divine characteristics. Only the labor of thought keeps open the hole through which we commune with God. Emerson,

6. Man is created that he may think; therein is his entire merit and worth. The duty of man is only in thinking right. The proper order of thinking is to commence with self, with the Creator and one's purpose in life. But what do the people of the world think about instead? Not at all of these things, but merely of having a good time—of becoming rich, of glory, of gaining a throne, without thinking what it means to be a king and what it means to be a man.

Pascal,

SELF-RENUNCIATION

SELF-RENUNCIATION

The happiness of a man's life is in communion with God and with his fellow-beings through love. Sins prevent this communion. The cause of sins is in that the man seeks to build his happiness upon the gratification of the passions of his body and not the love of God and of his fellow-man. Therefore the happiness of man lies in the deliverance from sins. The deliverance from sins is in the effort to renounce the life of the flesh.

I.

The Law of Life Is In the Renunciation of the

Flesh

1. All the sins of the body: adultery, luxury, sloth, covetousness and malice, are due to the acknowledgment of the body as one's real "I," that is, due to the subjection of the soul to the body. The deliverance from sins is only in the acknowledgment of the soul as one's "I," in the subjection of the body to the soul.

2. "Then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Matthew XVI, 24-26.

3. "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.

"No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to

take it up again. This OHninandment have I received of my Father." John X, 17-18.

The mere fact that a man can renounce the life of his body dearly shows that there is something in man for the sake of which he renounces.

5. The more you yield to that which is of the body, the more you lose of the spiritual.

The more you surrender of the things that are of the body, the more you will gain of the things that are of the spirit. Judge which of the two is more needful to you.

6. Self-renunciation is not the renunciation of self, but the removal of your "I" from the animal being into the spiritual. To renounce self is not to renounce life. On the contrary, to renounce carnal life is to increase your true spiritual life.

7. Reason demonstrates to man that the gratification of the demands of his body can not be his true happiness, therefore reason irresistibly draws man to that happiness which is his prerogative, but for which there is no room in his bodily life.

It is commonly said and believed that renunciation of physical life is a heroic act: this is untrue. The renunciation of the physical life is not a heroic deed, but an inevitable condition of human life. In the case of the animal the wellbeing of the physical life and the continuity of species resulting therefrom is the supreme purpose of life. But with man the life of the body and the continuity of species are only a phase of existence in which the true blessedness of his life is revealed to him, and this does not coincide , with his bodily wellbeing. For man the life of the body is not all of life, but merely a necessary prerequisite of the true life which consists in the ever-increasing union with the spiritual principle of the world.

II.

The Inevitableness of Death Nece&aarily Leads Man to

the ConwtousnesB of Spiritual Life Which is

Not Subject to Death

\. When an infant is bora it seems to him that he is the only thing in the world. He yields to no one, to nothing, he does not care to know anyone: only give him that which he craves. He even does not know his mother, but knows her breast only. Days, months and years pass, and the child begins to understand that there are other beings like him, and what he craves for himself, others crave for themselves also. And the longer he lives, the more he realizes that he is not alone in the world, and that he must— if he be strong—fight with others for that which he craves, or if he be weak, he mmt submit to that which is. And moreover the longer a man lives, the more he realizes that his life is but for a season and may terminate at any moment in death. He observes death seizing now this one, now that one before his very eyes and knows that any moment the same may happen to him, as sooner or later it most surely will. And he can not escape the realization that there is no true life in his body, and whatever he may do for his body in this life, it is to no purpose.

And when man has clearly realized this, he will also realize that the spirit which dwells in him does not dwell in him alone, but dwells in all, in the whole world, and that this spirit is the spirit of God. And having realized this, man will cease to ascribe any significance to his bodily life, but will divert his purpose to the attainment of a tmion with the spirit of God, with that which is eternal.

2. Death, death, death waits for you every instant. Your life is passing in the sight of death. It you labor for the future of your bodily life, you know in your own heart

that the future has only one thing in store for you: death. And this death destroys all that you labor for. You may say that you labor for the good of generations to come, but they also will vanish and no trace will remain of them. Therefore life for the sake of material things has no sense. Death destroys all life of this kind. In order that your life may have a meaning, you must live so that death could not destroy the work of your life. Such is the life that Christ reveals to men. He reveals to men that alongside of that bodily life which is a mere shadow of life there is also another, a true life which gives true blessedness to man, and that every man knows this life in his heart. The teaching of Christ is the teaching of the unreality of personal life, of the necessity of renouncing it and of transferring the meaning and the purpose of life into divine Hfe, the life of humanity as a whole, the life of the Son of Man.

3. In order to understand the teaching of Christ as to the salvation of life, it is necessary to understand clearly what Solomon, and Buddha, and all the wise men said of the personal life of man. It is possible, as Pascal says, to ignore all these things, to carry with us little screens that would hide from our eyes the abyss of death towards which we are rushing; but it suffices to think for a moment what is the bodily life of an individual man, in order to realize that this life, if it be the life of the body merely, has no sense, that it be a cruel mockery of the heart, of the reason of man and of all that is good within him. And therefore in order to understand the teaching of Christ it is necessary first of all to bethink yourself and to take heed, it is necessary to experience that in your inner self which Christ's precursor John preached to men who were beset with perplexities even as we. He said: "First of all repent, then come to your senses or you will all perish." And

Christ commencing his sermon said the same: "Take heed, or you will perish." Speaking of the Galileans whom Pilate had slain, Christ said: "Did you think that these Galileans were more sinful than any other Galileans that they suffered so much? No, I say unto you, but if you do not repent, you will all likewise perish." Death, the inevitable, is before us all. We strive in vain to forget about it, but this will not save us; on the contrary, when it comes unexpectedly it will be all the more dreadful. There is but one salvation: renounce the life which dieth, and live the life for which there is no death.

4. It suffices to renounce for a moment our customary life and to look at it from the outside, as it were, in order to see that all the things we undertake for the supposed security of our life, we do not undertake to make our life more secure, but merely to busy our mind with this fictitious security and to forget that nothing can ever make our life secure. Not content with deceiving ourselves and imperiling our true life for the sake of the imaginary hfe, this striving for security more often than not ruins the very things we would make secure. The rich man seeks the security of his life in money, and this money tempts a robber to slay him. The nervous man tries to secure his life with medicines, and these medicines slowly kill him, or if they do not kill him, they surely deprive him of true life. It is the same with nations which arm themselves to secure their life and liberty, and yet this same striving for security leads to wars and to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of men on battlefields, and to the loss of the liberty of the nations as well.

The teaching of Christ that you can not make this life

secure but must be ready to die at any moment gives more happiness than the teaching of the world that life must be made secure, if for no other reason at least because the inevitableness of death and the insecurity of life remain the same whether you follow the teachings of the world or the teaching of Christ; in the latter case, however, our life is not wholly swallowed up by the idle labor for the attainment of a false security, but is liberated and may be devoted to the one purpose proper to it: the perfecting of our soul and the increase of love to others.

5. He who in his dying body does not see himself, has comprehended the truth of life. Buddhist wisdom.

6. Therefore I say unto you. Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment ?

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father f eedeth them. Are ye not much better than they ?

Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

Therefore take no thought, saying. What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or. Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness ; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Matthew VI. 25-27, 31, 33, 34.

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

The Renunciation of the Aninul "I" Reveals God in the Soul of Man

1. The more man renounces his bodily "I," the more God reveals himself in him. The body hides the God in man.

2. Would you attain the consciousness of the all-embracing "I," then you must first know yourself. In order to know yourself you must sacrifice your "I" to the universal 'I. Brahminic visdom.

3. He who renounces his personality is powerful, for his personality has been concealing God within him. As soon as he has thrown off his personality, it is God who acts in him and no longer his own personality.

4. If you despise the world, there is small merit therein. To him who lives in God, both his own self and the world will be always as nought. Angelus.

5. The renunciation of the bodily life is valuable, necessary and blessed only if it is a religious renunciation, that is if man renounces self, his body, in order to do the will of God who dwells in him. But when man renounces his bodily life not to do the will of God, but to do his own will or the will of men like himself, such renunciation is neither valuable nor useful nor blessed, but on the contrary harmful to himself and to others.

6. If you seek to please others so that they may be grateful to you, your endeavors will be in vain. But if you do good to people without thinking of them, but for God, you will not only do good to yourself, but people will also be grateful to you.

He who foists himself is remembered of God, he who is mindful of himself is forgotten of God.

7. Only when we die to self in our body are we resurrected in God.

8. If you expect nothing nor seek to receive anything from other people,- people will not terrify you, any more than one bee terrifies another or one horse terrifies another. But if your happiness is in the power of other people you will always fear people.

We must begin with this: renounce all that does not belong to us, renounce it to such degree that it has no mastery over us, renounce all that the body needs, renounce iove of wealth, of glory, of positions, of honors, renounce wife, children, brothers. We must say to ourselves that none of these things belong to us.

But how to attain this ? Subject your will to that of God: does he will that I have a fever? I will so likewise. Does He will that I do this instead of that? I will so likewise. Does He will that something happen to me which I do not expect? I will so likewise. Epicietus,

9. Our own will never satisfies, though all of its demands may be met But the moment we renounce it, we feel complete contentment. Living for our own will, we are always discontented; renouncing it we are bound to be contented. The only true virtue is hating ourselves, because every man deserves hatred for his passions. But hating self, man seeks a being worthy of love. Being, however, unable to love anything that is outside of us, we are bound to love that being which is within us, but is not our own self, and there can be only one such being—the universal Being. The Kingdom of God is within us; universal blessing is within u-siwt we are not it. Pascal.

IV.

Renunciation of Self Alone Makes It Poseible to Love Others

1. Only that does not perish which does not live for self. But he who does not hve for self, for what shall he live ? Only when living for All can you live without living for self. Only living for All man can be and is at peace.

Lao-Tse.

2. Even if you so desired, you cannot cut off your life from that of humanity. You live in it, by it, and for it. Living among people you can not escape self-renunciation, because we are created for reciprocity, even as the feet, the hands and the eyes, and reciprocity is impossible without self-renunciation. Marcus Aurelius.

3. You cannot compel yourself to love others. You can only cast aside that which hinders love. And the love of your animal "I" hinders love.

4. Love your neighbor as yourself does not mean that you should try to love your neighbor. You can not compel yourself to love. Love your neighbor means to cease loving yourself above all things. And the moment you cease loving yourself above all things you will involuntarily love your neighbor as yourself.

5. In order to love others in deed and not in word, you must also cease loving yourself in deed and not in word. But it usually happens like this: we say that we love others, but love them in word only, yet we love ourselves not in word but in deed. We may forget to clothe, to feed or to shelter others, but we never forget ourselves. And therefore in order that we may love others in deed we must leant to forget to clothe, to feed and to shelter ourselves as we forget to do these things for others.

6. We must train ourselves to say within our soul when meeting another person: I will think of this person only, and not of myself.

7. It sufficesp to remember self in the midst of a speech, and you lose the thread of your thought. Only when we completely forget ourselves do we cmne out of ourselves, and only then i» our association with others fruitful and we can serve them and exert a beneficial influence upon tbem.

8. The richer a man is in external things, the better off he is in worldly life, the more difficult, the more remote from him is the joy of self-renunciation. Rich people are almost entirely deprived of it. But in the case of the poor man every time he interrupts his work to assist another, every crumlrof bread he gives to a be^;ar is a joy of self-renunciation.

And if a rich man give two out of his three millions to his neighbor he cannot experience the joy of self-renunciation.

9. There was once a destructive drouth on earth: all the rivers, brooks and wells dried up, trees, bushes and pastures were dry, people and animals were dying of thirst

And one night a little girl came out of her hut, with a cup in her hand, seeking water for her ailing mother. The girl, failing to find water anywhere, lay down on the grass in the field and fell asleep. When she woke up and tried to |Hck up her cup she almost spilled it. It was filled with fresh and pure water. The little girl rejoiced and was about to drink when she remembered her mother, and fearing that there might not be enough for her, she ran home with her cup of water. She hurried so that she failed to notice a little dog at her feet, and she stumbled and dropped her cup. The little dog moaned piteously. And the girl stooped to \'7bdck up the cup.

She was afraid that she had sfHlt all the water out of it, but found the cup standing upright on its bottom and it was still full of water. The little girl poured some water into the palm of her hand and the dog licked it up and was happy. When the little girl finally lifted the cup it had turned into silver. The child took the cup home and gave it to her mother. But the mother said to her: "I must die anyway, drink it yourself." And in that instant the cup turned into gold. And the little girl, no longer able to resist, was about to put her lips to the cup, when a pilgrim entered and begged for water. The child immediately offered the cup to the pilgrim. And suddenly there appeared on it seven wondrous diamonds and a current of fresh and pure water issued out of it.

But the seven diamonds rose higher and higher till they reached heaven and became a constellation of seven stars known as Ursa Major

10. That which you give to others is yours, that which you have withheld belongs to others.

If you have given anything to another person depriving yourself, you have done good to yourself and this good is eternally yours, no one can rob you of it.

But if you have kept that which another desires, you have withheld it for a season only, or until you will be compelled to part with it. For you will surely have to part with it when death comes.

11. Will the time never come when people will learn that it is as easy to live for others as they find it to die for others while participating in wars the cause of which may be unknown to them? Only the elevation and the illumination of the spirit in man will bring this about.

Broum.

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

He Who Employs AH His StreagA in the Gratification

of His Animal Desires Exclusively Destroys His

True Life

1. If a man thinks of himself atone and seeks his own gain in everything he cannot be happy. If you would truly live for yourself live for others. Seneca.

2. In order to understand how needful it is to renounce the life of the flesh for the life of the spirit it suffices only to picture to oneself how repulsive would be the life of man if it were given up completely to Ws animal desires. The true life of man commences only with his renunciation of animalism.

3. In the parahle of the vineyard Christ explains the error of men who accept the imaginary life—their own personal animal life—as the true life.

Men living in a master's vineyard conceived the idea that they owned it. As the result of this error they were led to commit a series of mad and cruel acts leading to their expulsion and exclusion from life. Even so have we conceived the idea that the life of each one of us is our personal property, that we have a right to it, that we may use it as we see fit, and that we have no obligations to anyone. And the same series of mad and cruel acts and misfortunes, followed by exclusion from life, for a certainty awaits us who have conceived such errors. Just as the dwellers in the vineyard either forgot or refused to realize that the vineyard had been turned over to them planted, fenced in and provided with a well, in other words, that someone had labored in it before them, and therefore expected that they also should labor therein, even so men who live a personal life forget all that has been dpne for them before their

coming into the world, and all that is being done for them while they live, which shows that something is expected of them.

According to the teaching of Christ just as the workers dwelling in the vineyard which was prepared for them by their master must realize their eternal indebtedness to their master, even so must men realize that from the day of their birth until their death they are irretrievably indebted to some who lived before them, who still are living and will live, as well as to that which was, is and ever will be the principle of all things. They must realize that every hour of their life confirms this obligation, so that he who lives for himself and denies this obligation which binds him to life and to the principle thereof, deprives himself of life.

4. People imagine that self-renunciation is a violation of freedom. Such people do not know that self-renunciation gives us true freedom, liberating us from our own self and from servitude to our own corruption. Our passions are our most cruel tyrants; renounce them and you will realize freedom. РЫИоп.

5. If a man realizes his calling but does not renounce his personality, he is like to a man who has the keys to inner apartments—but has no key to the outer door.

6. The realization of one's calling which includes the law of self-abnegation has nothing in common with the enjoyment of life. If we cared to mix the consciousness of our calling with enjoyment and offered this mixture like a medicine to the ailing soul, the two principles would separate themselves of their own accord. But if they failed to do so. and the consciousness of the high calling of man exercised no effect, and the life of the body had from a striving after enjoyment acquired some strength supposedly

proportionate to that calling, moral life would vanish beyond recall. Kant. VI.

Deliverance from Situ is Possible Only Through

Self-Renunciation

1. Renouncing animal happiness for the sake of spr-itual blessedness is a consequence of a change of consciousness, that is the man who has previously considered himself an animal cmly, begins to recognize himself as a spiritual being. If this change of consciousness has been accomplished, that which previously was considered privation and suffering no longer appears as privation and suffering, but as a natural preference of that which is better to that which is worse.

2. They are wrong who think and say that in order to fulfill the calling of life and to attain happiness we require health, comfort and outwardly favorable conditions in general. This is untrue. Health, comfort and outwardly favorable conditions are not necessary for the fulfillment of our calling and for our happiness. We have the possibility of the happiness of spiritual life which nothing can violate, the happiness of increasing love within. But we must have faith in this spiritual life and concentrate all our efforts upon it.

You may live the life of the body and labor in it, but the moment obstacles appear in this bodily life betake yourself from the bodily life into the spiritual life. And spiritual life is always free. It is like the wings to a bird. A bird may walk on his feet, but no sooner is an obstacle or peril encountered than the bird having faith in his wings tmfolds them and soars upward.

3. There is nothing more important than inner labor in solitude with God. This inner labor consists in с

to seek the happiness of your animal personality, in reminding yourself of the senselessness of bodily life. You can do this only when you are alone with God. When you are in the company of other people it is too late. When you are in the company of other people your actions will be good only if you have prepared in yourself the capacity of self-renunciation through solitary communion with God.

4. Every man sooner or later will more or less clearly experience an inner contradiction: I would live for myself and I would live rationally, but to live for myself is irrational. This seems to be contradictory, but is it? If it be so, then there is contradiction in the decaying seed which as it decays puts forth a sprout. It is a contradiction only if I refuse to listen to the voice of reason. Reason shows the necessity of removing the consciousness of life from personal life into the germinating life of the spirit. It shows me the needlessness, the senselessness of personal life, and makes me a promise of new life, just as the seed grows by breaking through the cherry pit. A contradiction is only then to be seen when we seize the outward discarded form of life, refusing to part with it, as thou^ the outward envelope of the seed after the seed had burst through insisted on asserting its life. That which appears to us a contradiction is merely the pangs of being bom into a new life. We need only cease resisting this inevitable superseding of the bodily life by the spiritual life and yield ourselves up to the spiritual life, and a new, a better, life—the true life—will reveal itself to us.

5. The one tme and joyful work of life is to attend to the growth of our soul, and self-abn^ation is necessary for this growth. Leam self-abn^^tion in small things. Having acquired the art of self-abnegation in small things, you will be able to deny yourself also in greater things.

lOS THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

6. When the light of your spiritual hfe is being extinguished, the dark shadows of your bodily desires fall across your path—beware of these dreadful shadows: the l^ht of your spirit can not dissipate their darkness until you expel the desires of the body from your soul.

Brahminic wisdom.

7. The difficulty of delivering yourself from self-love is due mainly to the fact that self-love is a necessary condition of life. It is necessary and natural in infancy, but must grow weaker and disappear in accordance with the growth of reason.

An infant feels no pangs of conscience because of self-love, but in proportion to the increasing light of reason self-love becomes a burden; as life advances self-love decreases and with the approach of death it disappears completely.

8. To renounce self altogether is to become God; to live entirely for self is to become a beast. The life of man is an increasing movement away from the brutish life and approach to the divine Hfe.

9. I loathe my life, I feel that I am all in sins, no sooner I emerge out of one sin than I fall into another. How can I, though in a measure, correct my life? There is only one effective means: to realize that my life is in the spirit and not in the body and to refuse to participate in the evil deeds of bodily life. Only will so with all your soul and you will see how your life will commence to improve. It was evil only because you served your bodily life with your spiritual life.

10. Vainly will a man strive to deliver himself from sins if he does not renounce his body, if he does not cease placing the demands of his body above the demands of his soul.

I!. Without sacri6ce there is no life. Whether you

will it or not, life is altogether a sacrifice of the material to ^ the spiritual.

VII.

The Renrniciation of the Animal Personality Gives Man a True and Inalienable Spiritual Blessedness

1. There is but one law for the life of each individual and for the сотпюп life of all men: in order to make life better, you must be ready to yield it up,

2. Man can not know the effects of his life of self-renunciation. But let him try it though for a season, and I am convinced that every honest man will admit the beneficial effect upon his soul and body even of those occasional moments when he forgets himself and denies his physical personality. Ruskin.

3. The more man renounces his animal "I" the freer is his life, the more valuable it is to others and the more joyful it is to himself.

4. It is said in the New Testament that he who would lose his life shall find it. This means that true life is g^ven only to him who renounces the good things of animal life.

The true life of man commences only when the man seeks the good of the soul and not of the body.

5. The life of man is like the cloud dropping in the form of rain upon meadows, fields, forests, gardens, brooks and rivers. The cloud pours itself out, refreshes and gives life to countless blades of grass, bushes, trees, and becomes luminous and transparent—and lo' it soon vanishes. Even so is the material life of a good man: he helps many, many people, he makes their lives easier, he sets their feet in the paths of righteousness, he comforts them, and now having spent himself he dies and journeys where dwelleth the Eternal, Invisible and Spiritual,

no THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

6, Trees yield up their fruit and even their bark, their leaves and their juices to all who need them. Happy the man who does likewise. But few there be who know this and act accordingly. Krishna.

7. There can be no happiness while you think of self. But this can not be altogether avoided. If there remains the least care of self all is ruined. I know that this is hard, but I also know that there is no other means of attaining happiness. Carpenter.

S. Many imagine that if we eliminate personality and the love of it out of our life nothing will remain. They imagine that there is no life without personality. But this seems so only to people who have never experienced the joys of self-renunciation. Eliminate personality from life, renounce it and that will remain which forms the substance of life—love which yields positive happiness.

9. The more man rec<^izes his spiritual "I," and the more he renounces his material perstmality, the more truly he understands himself. Brakminic wisdom.

10. The more a man removes his life from the animal existence into the spiritual plane, the more his life becomes free and joyous. But in order that man-may be able to remove his life from the animal existence into spiritual plane he must recognize himself as a spiritual being. And in order that he may recc^ize himself as a spiritual being he must renounce material life. Faith requires self-renunciation, self-renunciation requires consciousness. One helps the other.

11. From the point of view of happiness the problem of life is imsolvable, as our highest aims prevent us from

being happy. From the point of view of duty there is also a difficulty, for duty fulfilled gives peace and not happiness.

Only divine and holy love and fusion with God destroy these difficulties, because sacrifice then becomes a constant, increasing and inviolable joy. Atniel.

12. The idea of duty in all its purity is not only incomparably simpler, clearer and more intelligible to every man in practice and more natural than the impulse which has its beginning in happiness and is either connected with it or designed in relation to it (and which always demands a great deal of artificiality and delicate considerations), but is indeed more powerful, insistent and promising of success before the judgment of ordinary sound reason than all impulses proceeding from selfishness, if only the idea of duty is appropriated by sound sense entirely independently of selfish impulses.

The realization that / can because / ought opens up in man a treasure house of divine gifts which cause him to feel as an inspired prophet the majesty and loftiness of his true calling. And if man only paid more heed to it and learned to separate virtue entirely from those gains which are the reward of duty fulfilled, if the constant exercise of virtue were made the chief object of private and public education, the moral condition of men would speedily improve. If the experience of history has not yet yielded better results for the teaching of virtue, the fault lies in the erroneous idea that the impulse evolved from the recognition of duty is supposed to be feeble and remote, and that the soul is more strongly influenced by the more proximate impulse having as its source the calculation of gains which may be expected in part in this world, and in part in the world to come as the reward of the fulfillment of the law. Yet the

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

recc^itton by a man of the spiritual principle within him, evoking the renunciation of his personality, moves man much more potently than any rewards to the fulfiUmeot of (be law of good Kant.

HUMILITY

I

г

HUMILITY

The paramount blessing of man in this world is association with his kind. Proud people, setting themselves apart from others, deprive themselves of this blessing. But the humble man eliminates all inner obstacles to the attainment of this blessing. And therefore humility is a necessary prerequisite of true happiness.

I.

A Man Can Not Be Proud of His Deeds Because All the

Good that He Does is Not Done by Himself But by

the Divine Principle Which Dwells in Him

1. Only he can be humble who knows that God dwell-eth in his soul. It is all the same to such a man how other people judge him.

2. He who considers himself master of his own life can not be humble because he thinks he is under no obligation to any one for anything. But the man who sees his calling in the service of God can not be otherwise than humble because he always feels that he has fallen far short of fulfilling all his obligations.

3. We frequently feel proud because we have done well, forgetting that God dwelleth in each of us, and that in doing well we are mere instruments by means of which He performs His works.

God does through me what He wills, and I dare to feel proud! It is as though a rock impeding the course of a freshet boasted that it brings forth water and that men and beasts drink thereof. But it may be said that the rock may feel proud because it is pure and does not spoil the water. This also is an error. If it is putt, \1 \^ Ы^^лмйл ^^ ^-^^^

П6 THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

has cleansed it and still cleanseth it. We have nothing of our own, all is of God.

4. We are the instruments of God. We know what we ought to do, but why it is not given to us to know. He who understands this can not be otherwise than humble.

5. The principal concern in the life of every man is to become ever better. But how can we become better if we account ourselves good?

6. Only then will the laborer perform his task well when he realizes his condition. Only when a man understands the teaching of Qirist will he clearly understand that his life is not his own, but God's, who gave it to him—and that the purpose of life is not in man but in the will of Him who gave him life, and therefore man can only hinder the manifestation of God within himself, but can not do any good of himself.

7. You need only recognize yourself as servant instead of master, and immediately doubt, worry and discontent give way to certainty, peace and joy.

II.

All EiTOTB Come From Pride

1. If a man strives after God he can never be satisfied with himself. No matter how far he may advance, he will still feel his remoteness from perfection, because perfection is infinite. '

2. Self-assurance is a characteristic of the animal, humility is a characteristic of man.

3. He who knows himself best esteems himself least.

4. He who is satisfied with himself is dissatisfied with others.

He who is always dissatisfied with himself, is always satisfied with others.

5. A wise man was told that some men condemned him as being wicked. He replied; "It is well that they do not know all about me, or they would consider me still worse."

6. There is nothing more useful to the soul than to be mindful that you are an insignificant gnat both in time and in space, and that your strength lies in your ability to realize your insignificance and therefore to be humble.

7. In spite of lack of attention to his defects, which is common to all men, there is not a man living who does not know more evil things of himself than he does of his nei^-bors.

Therefore it should be easy for any man to be humble. Wolseley.

8. We need only give it з little thought and we shall always find ourselves guilty of something before humanity (let it be even the guilt arising from the existing inequality of people, whereby some enjoy certain advantages for the sake of which others must experience still greater privations) , and this will keep us from accounting ourselves above other people on the strength of selfish delusions as to our merits. Kant.

9. Our defects may be seen only throi^h the eyes of others. Chinese proverb.

10. Every man may be to us a mirror in which we can see our vices and defects, and all that is evil within us. But we most frequently act like the dog barking at its own reflection in the mirror in the belief that it sees another dog instead of itself. Schopenhauer.

11. Self-reliant, stupid and immoral people frequently inspire respect in humble, clever and татЛ ^ea^t.4i«a.\is*.

a. humble man, judging by his own inner worth, cannot imagine that an evil person could so esteem himself.

12. A man who is in love with himself has few rivals.

Lichtenberg.

13. Frequently people without learning and education very clearly, consciously and easily receive the true teachings of Christianity, while the most learned people continue steeped in the mire of crassest paganism. It is because plain people are frequently humble, whereas learned people are mostly self-confident.

14. For a rational understanding of life and death, and in order to await the latter calmly, it is needful to realize one's insignificance.

You are an infinitely small particle of something, and you would be nothing if you did not have a definite calling or task. Only this gives a meaning and a significance to your life. And your calling is to make use of the instruments given to you and to all that is living; to spend your body in the fulfillment of the task prescribed to you. Therefore all tasks are equal and you can do nothing more than what is prescribed to you. You can be only a hinderer of God or a doer of His will. Therefore man cannot ascribe to himself anything important or great. It suffices for you to attribute to yourself some great or exceptional task, and there is no end to disappointments, contentions, envy and all sorts of suffering. It suffices that you attribute to yourself the importance of some great plant that bears fruit and you are lost.

Peace, liberty, joy of life and freedom from fear of death are granted to him only who knows that in this life he /5 only a servant of his Master,

III.

Humility Unites Men in Love

1. To be unknown to men, or to be misunderstood by them, and not to grieve because of it—herein is the characteristic of a truly virtuous man who loves his fellow-men.

Chinese wisdom,

2. Just as water can not remain on a height, even so goodness and wisdom are strangers to the proud. The one and the other seek lowly places. Persian wisdom.

3. He is a good man who remembers his sins and forgets his goodness, and he is an evil man who remembers his goodness and forgets his sins.

Do not forgive yourself, and you will easily forgive others.

4. You can recognize a good and a wise man in that he regards other people as better and wiser than himself.

The most agreeable people are the saints who consider themselves sinners; the most disagreeable people are the sinners who consider themselves saints. Pascal.

6. How hard it is to love or to pity self-confident, proud and boastful people. This alone shows not only how good, but how valuable is humility. More than an3rthing else on earth it arouses the most precious sentiment in life— love.

7. Everybody loves a humble man. We all strive so much to be loved, why should we not try to be humble?

8. So that people may live well, peace must reign among them. But where each man strives to be higher than the next, there can be no peace. The humbler men are, the more readily will they live a life oi v^^t^*

IV. Humility Unites Man With God

1. There is nothing stronger than an humble man, because an humble man, renouncing self, yields to God.

2. Beautiful are the words of the prayer: "Come and dwell in us." All is comprised in these words. Man has all that he requires if God comes to dwell in him. So that God may dwell in us, we must do only one thing: diminish ourselves in order to give place to God. As soon as man has diminished himself, God enters and dwells in him. Therefore in order to have all that is needful to him, man must first humble himself.

3. The more deeply man penetrates into self, and the more insignificant he appears to himself, the higher he rises towards God. Brahmintc tvisdom.

4. He who worships the All-Highest, pride flees from his heart even as the light of a camp fire before the rays of the sun. He whose heart is pure and in whom there is no pride, he who is humble, constant and simple, who 1оЫс8 upon every creature as upon his friend and loves every soul as his own, he who treats every creature with equal tenderness and love, he who would do good and has abandoned vanity—in his heart dwelleth the Lord of life.

Even as the earth is adorned with beautiful plants which she brings forth, even so is he adorned in whose soul dwelleth the Lord of life. Vishnu Purana.

' How to Combat Pride 1. True humility is difficult. Our heart revolts at the thought of scorn and humiliation. We strive to hide all

things that could humiliate us before the eyes of others, we strive to hide them before ourselves. If we are evil we do not desire to see ourselves as we are. But no matter how difficult true humility may be, it is possible. Let us strive to rid ourselves of all things that impede it.

Pious thoughts.

2. The very defects which are so annoying and intolerable in others seem as nothing and impalpable in our own self. We do not feel them. It frequently happens that people speaking of others and judging them harshly fail to notice that they accurately describe themselves.

Nothing would help us more to correct our faults than if we could see ourselves in others. If we clearly saw our faults in others we should hate our faults just as they deserve. La Bruyhre.

3. Nothing IS so harmful in striving after moral perfection as self-satisfaction.

Happily, if we grow better, the improvement is so imperceptible that we can not observe our success excepting after a long lapse of time.

But if we note our improvement it is a sign that we have either stopped advancing or are retrogressing.

4. Avoid the thought that you are better than others, and that you have virtues which others lack. Whatever your virtues be, they are worthless if you regard yourself better than other people.

5. Endeavor not to think well of yourself. If you can not think ill of yourself, know that it is bad enough that you can not think ill of yourself.

6. Any comparison of yourself with others for the pur-

pose of self-justification is an error and an obstacle to good life and to its principal concern—striving after perfection. Compare yourself with supreme perfection only, and not with other people, who may be lower than you.

7. In order to learn humility, strive to detect yourself in proud thoughts when alone.

8. Are you abused or condemned—be glad; are you praised or approved—be on your guard.

9. Do not fear humiliations; if you can bear them in humility they will redeem themselves with the spiritual blessings that are associated with them.

10. Strive not to conceal in obscure nooks of your mind the humiliating remembrances of your sins, but on the contrary keep them always in readiness so that in judging the sins of others you may remember your own.

11. Always regard yourself as a scholar. Never think that you are too old to learn, that your soul is just as it should be and can not improve. For a rational man there is no graduation from school: he is a learner until his grave.

12. Only he who is humble in heart can know the truth. Humility does not evoke envy.

Big trees are borne away by the stream, small brushes remain.

A wise man said: "My child, do not grieve if you have not, been rightly esteemed, for no one can deprive you of what you have done, or render to you that which you have not done, A prudent man is content with the esteem that he has merited."

"Be good-natured, respectful, friendly, caring for the gain of others, and happiness will come to you as naturally as the vrater finds its level." Vishnu.

VI. Effects of Pride

1. He who lacks humility always condemns others. He sees the faults of other people, but hb own passions and vices grow more and more. Buddhist wisdom.

2. Л man who is not enlightened by Christianity loves only himself. And loving himself, he would be great, but he sees that he is small, he would be important, but he sees that he is insignificant, he would be good, but he sees that he is evil. And seeing these things man begins to dislike the truth and to invent such arguments as would prove to him that he is indeed such as he would be, and having invented such arguments he becomes in his own eyes great, important and good. Herein is the great twofold sin-pride and falsehood. Falsehood comes from pride, and pride from falsehood. Pascal.

3. He who fails to abhor that self-love which compels him to regard himself as above all else in the woHd is entirely blind, for nothing is so much out of harmony with justice and truth as such an opinion of self. It is false in itself, because one can not be higher than anything else in the world, and it is besides unfair, as everybody else seeks the same thing for himself. Pascal.

4. There is one dark spot on our sun: it is the shadow which is cast by the veneration we feel for our own person. Carlyle.

5. There is no hiunan superiority—beauty, strength, wealth, honors, learning, enlightenment, even goodness— which unassociated with humility would not degenerate from superiorities and good qualities into re^uUvvc c^».^%sl-

teristics. There is nothing more repulsive than з man boasting of his wealth, position, learning, mind, enlightenment and goodness. People crave to be beloved of others and know that pride is repulsive, and yet they cannot be humble. Why ? Because humility can not be acquired independently. Humility is the effect of removing your desires from the domain of the material into the domain of the spiritual.

VII.

Humility Off«n Man Spiritutl Happiness and Strength in Fighting Against Temptations

1. There is nothing more helpful to the soul than humiliation received with joy. Just as a warm rain after the glaring and searing sun of self-satisfaction, humiliation meekly received refreshes the soul of man.

2. The portal of the temple of truth and blessedness is low. Only they will enter the temple who approach it with head bowed down. And happy are they who enter. There is wide scope and freedom therein, and people love one another and help one another and know no sorrows.

This temple is the true life of man. The portal of the temple is the teaching of wisdom. And wisdom is granted unto the humble, unto those who do not lift themselves up but abase themselves.

3. Perfect joy, according to Francis of Assist, is in bearing unmerited reproach, and suffering even bodily harm without experiencing enmity against the cause of the reproach and of pain. This joy is perfect because no injuries, insults or attacks of people can violate it.

4. "For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."

Luke XIV, 2.

5. The feeblest thing on earth overcomes the strongest; < the lowly and humble overcomes the exalted and proud. Only few in this world realize the power of humility.

Lao-Tse.

6. The higher a man accounts himself, the weaker he is. The lower he accounts himself, the stronger he is— both before himself and before others.

7. There is nothing more gentle and yielding on earth than water, and yet when it encounters that which is hard and stubborn, nothing can compare with it in strength. The feeble conquers the strong. The gentle overcomes the cruel. The humble vanquishes the proud. Everybody in the world knows this, but no one will act thereon.

Lao-Tse.

8. The rivers and seas rule the valleys over which they flow: this is because they are lower than they.

Therefore if a saint would be above the people he must strive to be lower than they. If he would lead them, he must be behind them.

Therefore again, it a saint live above fte people, the people do not feel it. He is ahead of his people, but the people do not suffer because of it. And for this reason the world unceasingly praises him. The holy man quarrels with no one, and no one quarrels with him. Lao-Tse.

9. Water ts thin, light and yielding, but if it encounter something hard and stubborn, nothing can prevail against it. It tears down houses, it tosses great vessels like nutshells, it washes away embankments. Air is still thinner, softer and more yielding, and it is still more powerful when encountering that which is firm, hard and stubborn. It tears out big trees by the root, it also destroy?. Чвки!^,-»*.

it raises the water itself in mighty waves and drives it along in clouds. That which is gentle, soft and yielding overcomes that which is harsh, stem and unyielding.

Even so in the life of men. If you would conquer, be gentle, mild and yielding.

10. In order to be strong, be like water. If there are no obstacles it flows freely; if it encounters a dam, it stops; if the dam be broken, it flows again; in a square vessel it is square; in a round vessel it is round. Because it is so submissive it is at once gentlest and strongest

TRUTHFULNESS

TRUTHFULNESS

Superstitions are an obstacle to right living. Deliverance from superstitions is only in truthfulness—^not only before others but also before self.

I.

What Must Be Our Attitude to Established Convictions and Customs?

1. One of the most common methods of denying the existence of God is always and unconditionally to accept public opinion as correct and never to heed that voice of God which is constantly heard in our soul. Ruskin.

2. Though the whole world accepted a doctrine as true, though it be ever so ancient, man must examine it in the light of his reason and boldly reject it if it fails to be in accord with the demands of reason.

3. "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John VIII, 32.

4. The man who acknowledges the divinity of his soul must examine in the light of his reason all the teachings which are accepted by people as undoubted truths.

5. He who would become a true man must give up pleasing the world; he who would lead the true life must refuse to be guided by that which is accepted as good and must assiduously search where and what is the true good. There is nothing holier and more profitable than the independent inquisitiveness of the soul. Emerson.

6. If a thing be true let us believe it: whether we be poor or rich, men or women or children. If a thing be untrue, let none of us believe it: ueitKe.t xvOci тукл v^'^^

neither multitudes nor individual men, women and children. The truth should be proclaimed from the housetops.

Some always whisper that it is dangerous to expose certain things to the majority of the people. They say: we know these things to be untrue, but they are necessary for the people. It is well for the people to believe in them and much harm may ensue if their faith in them is shaken.

No, crooked paths will always remain crooked, though they be designed for the deception of the vast majority of people. Falsehood can never do any one any good. And therefore we acknowledge only one law for all people: to follow the truth, as we know it, no matter where it may lead us. Clifford.

7. Both good and evil mingle in our readiness to believe in that which is presented to us as the truth: it is this readiness which permits the progressive movement of society, and it is this very readiness which makes this prc^res-sive movement so painfully slow; thanks to it each generation receives without effort the knowledge' which is its heritage acquired by the toil of those who have gone before, and each generation thanks to it appears a slave to the errors and the superstitions of its predecessors.

Henry George.

8. The longer a man lives the freer he becomes of superstitions.

9. All superstitions are merely corruptions of thought, and therefore deliverance from them is possible only through applying to them the demands of truth as revealed by reason.

10. To believe in that which is profitable and genuinely agreeable to us in itself is a natural characteristic of children and of mankind in its infantile stage as well. The

longer man and mankind live, the more enlightened and certain the human reason becomes, the more man and mankind are released from the erroneous idea that all that is true which is profitable to man. Therefore every individual and humanity at large, as they progress in life, must examine in the light of their reason and of the wisdom of their predecessors all the statements regarding truth which are offered them as articles of faith.

11. All truths expressed in words form a force the effect of which is infinite.

II.

Falsehoods, Its Causes and Effects

1. Think not that it is necessary only in things of importance to speak and to act the truth. It is necessary to speak and to act the truth even in most trifling matters. It IS not the degree pf evil, greater or less, which may be the result of your untruth that is essential. The essential thing is that you shall never defile yourself with falsehood.

2. If life is out of harmony with truth, it is none the less better to acknowledge the truth than to hide it: we can change our life for the sake of truth; but we cannot alter truth at all, it will remain as it is and will not cease to convict us.

3. We all love truth more than falsehood, but in matters affecting our life we frequently prefer falsehood to truth because falsehood furnishes an excuse for our evil life, while truth exposes it.

4. In the case of every truth which passes into the consciousness of people and is clearly recognized, the truth which replaces it is obvious. Nevertheless those who either profit by or are accustomed to the delusion seek Ъ) -^

means to sustain it. At such a time it is peculiarly important to proclaim the truth boldly.

5. If people tell you that it is not worth while in all things to strive for truth, because you will never attain perfect truth, do not trust such men and beware of them. They are the bitterest foes of truth and your own foes as well.

They speak thus only because their own life is not in accordance with the truth, and they know it, but they would have others live like themselves.

6. If you would know the truth, first of all rid yourself though for a season of alt the considerations of your own gain from this or that decision.

7. It delights you to discover the untruth of others and to expose it, but how much more ought it to delight you if you detect yourself in an untruth and expose yourself. Endeavor to afford yourself this delight as frequently as possible.

8. Be falsehood with its temptations never so enticii^, a time comes when it overwhelms a man with such agonies that he turns to truth not because of a thirst for truth, but merely to escape falsehood and the inevitable tissue of suffering resulting from it, and in truth alone he finds his salvation.

9. What is the cloud that has enveloped the world? Why is there no light in it? What de61es it? Wherein is its great peril?

Its peril is in the fact that men do not live by the divine reason which has been given them, but by that common and corrupted reason which has been amassed among them for the j'ustification of their passions. Men suffer and seek salvation. What then will save them. Only respecting their reason and following after truth.

From Oriental sources.

10. Bitter experience shows that we cannot adhere to former conditions of life and must therefore find new conditions suitable to modem needs; but instead of using their reason for the determination and the establishment of these conditions they employ their reason to detain life in the condition which characterized it centuries back.

11. Falsehood hides from us the spirit of God that dwelleth in us and in others, and therefore there is nothing more precious than truth which brings us back to the love of God and of our neighbors.

12. There is no greater misfortune than when man begins to avoid truth for fear it will show him how bad he is. Pascal

13. The most certain mark of the truth is simplicity and clearness. Falsehood is always complex, fanciful and verbose.

14. It is possible to be lonely in one's private temporary environment, but our every thought and sentiment will finds its echo in humanity. In the case of a few men whom the greater part of mankind recognizes as its leaders, reformers and illuminators this echo is tremendous and reverberates with exceptional power. But there does not exist a man whose thoughts do not produce a similar though correspondingly weaker effect. Each genuine manifestation of the soul, each expression of personal conviction is helpful to someone or in some way, even if you are not aware of it yourself, even if your mouth is silenced or the strangling rope is tightened around your neck. A word spoken to another retains its indestructible effect; like all motion it is indestructible but is merely changed into another form.

Amiel,

III. On What Rests Superstition?

1. The greater veneration surrounds objects, customs or laws the more carefully must we examine their claims to veneration.

2. There are many ancient truths that appear to us credible merely because we have never gfiveti them any serious thought.

3. Reason is the greatest sanctuary in the world, and therefore it is the greatest sin to abuse it through employing it either to conceal or to corrupt the truth.

4. Surveying the history of manldnd we observe every now and then that the most obvious absurdities p^sed among men as indubitable truths, that entire nations fell victims to the most savage superstitions and humbled themselves before other mortals, frequently before idiots or libertines. And the cause of these absurdities and sufferings has always been the same: accepting as an article of faith things that even infants could recognize as irrational.

Henry George.

5. Our age is the true age of criticism. Everything accepted as an article of faith is subjected to criticism.

Reason respects only that which is capable of passing its free and public test. Kant.

6. Do not fear the destruction wrought by reason amcmg the traditions established by men. Reason can not destroy anything without replacing it by the truth. This is its characteristic.

IV.

Religious Superstitiohe

1. It is bad if people do not know God, but it is worse if they acknowledge as God that which is not God.

Lactantius.

2. We have no more religion. The eternal laws of God with their eternal paradise and hell have been transformed into rules of practical philosophy based on adroit calcula* tions of profit and loss, with a weak remainder of respect for the jojrs furnished by virtue and lofty morality. Using the language of our ancestors we have forgotten God, and making use of the modem method of expression we must say that we falsely interpret the life of the world. We calmly close our eyes and refuse to see the eternal substance of things and regard only their seeming and illusory appearance.

We calmly regard the universe as a gigantic unintelligible accident; judging by its external appearance it appears to us fairly plainly as an immense cattle pen or a workhouse with spacious kitchens and dining tables which have room only for prudent people.

No, we have no God. The laws of God have been replaced by the principle of maximum profit. Carlyle.

3. God gave us His reason that we might serve Him; but we use this reason to serve self.

4. "Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts;

"Which devour widows' houses, and for a shew make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation."

Luke XX. 46-47.

5. "But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven,

"Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ." Matthew XXH, 8-10.

6. Without purity o£ soul why worship God? Why say: I will go to Benares. How shall he reach the true Benares who has done evil ?

Holiness is not in the forests, nor in heaven, nor in earth, nor in sacred rivers. Purify yourself, and you shall see Him. Transform your body into a temple, cast oS evil thoughts and behold Him with your inner eye. When we recognize Him, we recognize ourselves. Without personal experience Scripture alone will not banish our fears, even as darkness is not dispelled by pictured fire. What ever your faith and your prayers, while there is no truth in you, you will not attain the path of blessedness. He who recog* oizes the truth is born again.

The source of true blessedness is the heart. He is a madman who seeks it elsewhere. He is like a shepherd who goes abroad to seek the lamb which is sheltered in his bosom.

Why do you gather stones and build great temples? Why torture yourselves while God dwelleth in you constantly ?

The dog in your courts is better than a lifeless idol in your house, and better than all the demigods is the great God of the universe.

The light which dwelleth in the heart of every man like unto the momii^ star, that light is your refuge.

Vemana.

7. How strange is it that the world tolerates and receives from among the highest revelations of truth only the most ancient and those which no longer benefit the age, but belittles and even hates all direct revelation, all original thought Thoreau.

8. The religious consciousness of humanity is not immobile, but changes continuously, becoming ever clearer and purer.

9. The correction of the existing evils cannot commence in any other way but with the exposure of religious falsehood and the establishment of religious truth by every individual in his own inner self.

V.

The Rational Principle in Man

1. What is reason? Whatever we define is defined by our reason. And therefore by what shall we define reason ?

If we define all things by reason, by the same token we cannot define reason. Yet we all not only recognize reason, but recognize only reason without doubt and we recognize it all equally well.

2. The true worth of man is in that spiritual principle which we sometimes call reason and sometimes conscience. This principle rising above the local and temporal contains positive truth and eternal righteousness. In midst of the imperfect it sees the perfect. This principle is general, dispassionate and always contrary to all that is prejudiced and selfish in human nature. This principle imperiously tells each one of us that our neighbor is as precious as our own self, and that his rights are as sacred as ours. It commands us to receive the truth no matter how repugnant it be to our pride, and to be just no matter how unprofitable It Ъ^

for us. This same principle calls upon us to rejoice in love, in all that is beautiful, holy and blessed, no matter in whom we may find these qualities. This principle is a ray of the Divine in пгап. Cht^ning.

3. All that we know we know through our reason. Therefore do not trust those who say that we should not follow our reason. Those who speak thus are like men who would advise us to extinguish the only light which guides us through darkness.

4. We must trust our reason. This is a truth which we can not and must not conceal. We can not believe in God if we belittle the importance of that faculty through which we know God. Reason is that faculty to which revelation is addressed. Revelation could be understood only by reason. If after a conscientious and unbiased appeal to our best faculties a certain religious teaching appears to us to be contrary to and out of harmony with the main principles of which we have no doubt, we must decline to have faith in such a teachii^. I am more convinced that my reasonable nature is of God than any book is an expression of His will. Channing.

5. Reason reveals to man the meaning and the significance of his life.

6. Reason is not given to man to teach him to love God and his neighbor. This has been implanted in the heart of man independently of reason. Reason was given to man to point out to him what is true and what is false. Man need only reject that which is false and he will learn all that he needs.

7. The errors and the disagreements of men in the matter of seeking and recognizing truth are due to nothing as much as to their distrust of reason; as a consequence

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human life, ruled by customs, traditions, fashions, superstitions, prejudices, violence and all sorts of things excepting reason, takes its own course, and reason exists by itself. It also frequently happens that if use is made of thinking at all, it is applied not to the search and the propagation of truth, but to a persistent endeavor to justify and to sustain customs, traditions, fashions, superstitions and prejudices at all costs.

The delusions and disagreements of people in the matter of recognizing the one truth are not due to a difference in the nature of human reason or to its inability to point them to the one truth, but to the fact that they do not trust it.

If they had faith in their reason they would find a method of verifying the indications of reason in themselves and in others. Having found such a method of mutual verification they would be convinced that reason is the same in all, and they would submit to its dictates.

ГЛ. Strakhoff.

8. Reason is one and the same in all people. Associations of men and their mutual influence one upon the other are based on reason. The dictates of reason—which is one and the same in all people-^are obligatory to all men.

9. To the degree that a man is truthful he is divine; the invulnerability, the immortality, the majesty of the divine enter man together with truthfulness. Emerson,

10. Remember your reason having the faculty of life in itself makes you free provided you do not turn it to the service of the flesh. The soul of man, enlightened by reason, free from passions which obscure this world, is a true fortress and there is no refuge open to man which is more secure and inaccessible to evil. He who does not knovii

this is blind, and he who knowing this does not trust to reason is truly unfortunate. Marcus Aurelius.

11. One of the principal duties of man is to aJlow that shining principle of reason which has been granted us by heaven to radiate in its full force.

Chinese wisdom.

12. I glorify Christianity because it expands, strengthens and elevates my rational nature. If I could not remain rational as a Christian I would reject Christianity. For the sake of Christianity I feel constrained to sacrifice my property, my reputation, my life, but no religion exists for which I would sacrifice that reason which elevates me above the animal and makes me a man. I do not know a greater blasphemy than to renounce the highest faculty given me by God. To do this is to oppose wilfully the divine principle which dwells in us. Reason is the highest expression of our thinking nature. It is in accord with the unity of God and universe and strives to make the soul a reflection and a mirror of supreme unity. Channing,

13. If a man did not know that he could see through his eyes and never opened them, he would be pitiable indeed. But still more is to be pitied the man who does not understand that reason has been granted to him so that he might bear all vicissitudes. With the help of reason we can bear all vicissitudes. Man endowed with reason will never in his life meet intolerable vicissitudes. Such do not exist for him. Yet how often instead of facing some vicissitude boldly we pusillanimously endeavor to avoid it. Is it not better to rejoice that God has given us the power to bear with equanimity that which happens to us independent of our volition and to thank him that he has put our soul under subjection

only to that which depends upon ourselves ? He did not put our soul under subjection to our parents, to our brothers, to our body or to death. In his goodness he put it under subjection to one thing only, namely our reason—and that depends on us. Epictetus.

14. Reason has been given us by God that we may serve Him. Therefore we must preserve it in all purity so that it may always distinguish the true from the false.

15. Man is free only if he abides in the truth. And \ truth is revealed by reason.

VI.

Reason—The Censor of Creeds

1. When a man uses his reason for the solution of such problems as why the world exists and why he lives in this world he experiences a sensation akin to dizziness or vertigo. The mind of man can not find answers to these problems. What does this mean ? It means that reason was not given to man to answer these questions, and that the very fact of formulating these questions is an error of reason. Reason only solves the question how we are to live. And the answer is very clear: so as to do good to ourselves and to others. This is needful to all that is living, myself included. And the possibility of living so is given to all that is living, including myself, through the exercise of reason. And this solution excludes all questioning as to why and wherefore.

2. "Are we not right ? Is it not necessary to keep the people deceived ? See how savage and uncultured they are."

No, they are savage and uncultured, because they have been rudely deceived. Therefore first of all cease to deceive them rudely.

3. If God, as an object of our faith, is above our rea-sootDg, it does not follow that we must neglect the activity of our reason and account it harmful.

Although the objects of our faith without a doubt are beyond the circle of our reasoning, reason has a vast importance in relation to them, because we can not possibly do without it. It has the functions of a censor which admitting from the domain of faith truth that is above our reason, in other words a metaphysical truth, still rejects all fictitious truths which contradict our reason.

But in addition to this affirmative function, reason has also a proper negative function in delivering man from sins, errors (which are excuses for stn) and superstitions. Th. Strakkoff.

4. Be a light unto yourself. Be a refuge unto yourself. Hold fast to the light of your lamp nor seek another refuge.

Sutta.

5. "While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light." John Vll, 36.

In order to know the true religion it is needful not to crush reason—a? it is taught by false teachers—but to purify and to exercise it, to examine by its light all that is submitted to us.

6. If you would attain to the knowledge of the all-embracing "I," you must first know yourself. In order to know yourself you must sacrifice your own "I" to the universal "I," Sacrifice your life if you would live in the spirit. Remove your thoughts from external things and from all that appears frtMu without. Endeavor to keep away from yourself all images that arise so that they may not cast their Ызск shadows on your soul.

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

143

Your shadows live and vanish. That which is eternal in згой, that which has reason, does not belong to the evanescent life. This eternal principle it within you, transport yourself into it, and it will reveal unto you that which is false and all that which is true and all that which you need

knowt Brahminic wisdom.

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THE ILLS OF LIFE

All that which infringes upon the happiness of our bodily life we call ills. And yet the whole of our life is a gradual process of delivering our soul from that which constitutes the happiness of our body. Therefore for him who comprehends life as it really is there are no ills.

I.

That Which We Call Suffering is a Necessary

Condition of Life

1. It is a blessing to man to bear the misfortunes of this earthly life because this leads him into the sacred solitude of his heart, where he finds himself as it were an exile from his native soil, obliged to trust to no earthly joys. It is also a blessing to him to encounter contradictions and reproaches, when others think evil of him, though his intentions be pure and his actions righteous, for this serves to keep him in humility and is an antidote to vain glory.

These things are blessed mainly because they enable us to commune with the witness within us who is God, and we may commune with Him when the world spurns us, holds us in contempt and deprives us of love.

Thomas й Kempis,

2. When Francis of Assisi was returning with a disciple from Perugia to Porciunculo one bitterly cold and stormy day he discussed with his disciple herein consists perfect joy. He said that perfect joy is not in being praised of the people for virtues, nor in possessing the gift of healing the sick, making deaf to hear, giving sight to the blind, nor in foreseeing and foretelling the future, nor in fathoming the course of the stars and« the properties o£ ^\k t^V^s^^^

and animals, nor even in the conversion of all men to the one trae faith. "Wherein is then perfect joy?" inquired the disciple. And Francis replied: "When we reach the monastery wet, filthy, shivering with the cold and starving and knock at the gate, and the gatekeeper asks: "Who are ye?' and we say: 'Brothers,' and he should reply: 'You lie, you are vagabonds strollii^ over the face of the world, enticing the people, stealing alms. Get you gone, I will not let you in.' If then, benumbed with the cold and starving, we shall receive these words in humility and love and shall say to ourselves that the gatekeeper was right and that evidently God had put it into his heart to treat us like this, only then shall we know the perfection of joy."

Only receive every task and every injury with love towards him who imposes the task and does us the injury, and every task and every injury will be transformed into joy. And this joy is perfect because every other joy can be destroyed, but nothing can destroy this joy, for it is always within our power.

3. If some divinity offered us to eliminate out of our life all sorrows and all that causes sorrows our first impulse would strongly tempt us to accept such an offer. When burdensome tasks and necessities oppress us, when ^(mies of pain consume us, when anxieties wring our heart, we are bound to feel that there is nothing preferable to life without toil, life of rest, security, peace and plenty. But I think that after a brief experience of such a life we should ask that divinity to restore us to our former life with its toil, necessities, sorrows and anxieties. A life entirely free from sorrows and anxieties would prove not only uninteresting but intolerable. For together with the sorrows and the causes of sorrow, all dangers, obstacles and failures would disappear from life, and with them all effort and striving

and the excitement of peril and the strain of battle and the triumph of victory. Only the unhindered realization of plans, success without obstacles would remain. We should soon tire of a game of which we know in advance that we must win. Fr, Paulson.