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Light on Life's Difficulties - James Allen · James Allen Works Collection

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  Speaker 1: Light on Life's difficulties by James Allen forward. When a
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  Speaker 1: man enters a dark room, he is not sure of
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  Speaker 1: his movements, he cannot see objects around him or properly
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  Speaker 1: locate them, and is liable to hurt himself by coming
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  Speaker 1: into sudden contact with them. But let a light be introduced,
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  Speaker 1: and immediately all confusion disappears, every object is seen, and
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  Speaker 1: there is no danger of being hurt. To the majority,
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  Speaker 1: life is such a dark room, and their frequent hurts,
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  Speaker 1: their disappointments, perplexities, sorrows, and pains are caused by sudden
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  Speaker 1: contact with principles which they do not see and are
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  Speaker 1: therefore not prepared to deal with. But when the light
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  Speaker 1: of wisdom is introduced into the darkened understanding, confusion vanishes,
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  Speaker 1: difficulties are dissolved, and all things are seen in their
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  Speaker 1: true place and proportion. And henceforth the man walks open
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  Speaker 1: eyed and unhurt, in the clear light of wise comprehension.
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  Speaker 1: James Allen, I truth am thy redeemer. Come to me.
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  Speaker 1: Lay down thy sin and pain and wild unrest, and
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  Speaker 1: I will calm thy spirit, stormy sea, pouring the oil
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  Speaker 1: of peace upon thy breast, friendless and love. Lo, I
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  Speaker 1: abide with thee defeated and deserted, cast away what refuge
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  Speaker 1: hast thou? Whither canst thou fly upon my changeless breast,
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  Speaker 1: thy burdens lay. I am thy certain refuge. Even I
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  Speaker 1: all things are passing, I alone can stay lo. I
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  Speaker 1: the great forsaken, Am the friend of the forsaken. I
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  Speaker 1: whom man despise, the weak, the helpless and despise defend.
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  Speaker 1: I gladden aching hearts and weeping eyes. Rest thou in me.
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  Speaker 1: I am thy sorrow's end, lover, friends and wealth, pleasure
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  Speaker 1: and fame. These fail and change and pass into decay.
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  Speaker 1: I blame thee not, nor turn my face away in
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  Speaker 1: my calm bosom, hide thy sin and shame. End a
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  Speaker 1: forward the light that leads to perfect peace. This book
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  Speaker 1: is intended to be a strong and kindly companion as
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  Speaker 1: well as a source of spiritual renewal and inspiration to
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  Speaker 1: those who aim at a life well lived and made
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  Speaker 1: strong and serene. It will help its readers to transform
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  Speaker 1: themselves into the ideal character they would wish to be,
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  Speaker 1: and to make their life hear the blessed thing which
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  Speaker 1: the majority only hope for in some future life. Our
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  Speaker 1: life is what we make it by our own thoughts
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  Speaker 1: and deeds. It is our own state and attitude of
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  Speaker 1: mind which determine whether we are happy or unhappy, strong
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  Speaker 1: or weak, sinful or holy, foolish or wise. If one
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  Speaker 1: is unhappy, that state of mind belongs to himself and
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  Speaker 1: is originated within himself. It is a state which responds
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  Speaker 1: to certain outward happenings, but its cause lies within and
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  Speaker 1: not in those outward occurrences. If one is weak in will,
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  Speaker 1: he has brought himself to and remains in that condition,
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  Speaker 1: by the course of thought and action which he has
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  Speaker 1: chosen and is still choosing. If one is sinful, it
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  Speaker 1: is because he has committed and continues to commit sinful acts.
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  Speaker 1: If he is foolish, it is because he himself does
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  Speaker 1: foolish things. A man has no character, no soul, no life,
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  Speaker 1: apart from his thoughts and deeds. What they are, that
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  Speaker 1: he is as they are modified, so does he change.
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  Speaker 1: He is endowed with will and can modify his character.
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  Speaker 1: As the carpenter changes the blocks of wood into a
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  Speaker 1: beautiful piece of furniture, so can the erring and sin
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  Speaker 1: stricken man change himself into a wise and truth loving being.
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  Speaker 1: Each man is responsible for the thoughts which he thinks
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  Speaker 1: and the acts which he does, for his state of
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  Speaker 1: mind and the life which he lives. No power, no event,
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  Speaker 1: no circumstance can compel a man to evil and unhappiness.
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  Speaker 1: He himself is his own compeller. He thinks and acts
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  Speaker 1: by his own volition. No being, however wise and great,
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  Speaker 1: even the Supreme, can make him good and happy. He
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  Speaker 1: himself must choose the good and thereby find the happy.
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  Speaker 1: And because of this that when a man wishes and wills,
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  Speaker 1: he can find the good and the true and enjoy
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  Speaker 1: its bliss and peace. There is eternal gladness in the
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  Speaker 1: courts of truth and holy joy among the perfect ones.
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  Speaker 1: The gates of Heaven are forever open, and no one
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  Speaker 1: is prevented from entering by any will or power but
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  Speaker 1: his own. But no one can enter the kingdom of
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  Speaker 1: Heaven so long as he is enamored of and chooses
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  Speaker 1: the seductions of hell, so long as he resigns himself
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  Speaker 1: to sin and sorrow. There is a larger, higher, nobler,
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  Speaker 1: diviner life than that of sinning and suffering, which is
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  Speaker 1: so common, and which indeed nearly all are immersed a
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  Speaker 1: life of victory over sin and triumph over evil, a
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  Speaker 1: life wise and happy, kind and tranquil, virtuous and peaceful.
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  Speaker 1: This life can be found and live now. And he
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  Speaker 1: who lives it is steadfast in the midst of change,
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  Speaker 1: RESTful among the restless, Peaceful, though surrounded by strife, should
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  Speaker 1: death confront him, he is calm, though assailed by persecution.
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  Speaker 1: He knows no bitterness in his heart, is compassionate and
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  Speaker 1: filled with rejoicing. In this supremely beautiful life, there is
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  Speaker 1: no evil. Sin and sorrow are ended, and aching hearts
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  Speaker 1: and weeping eyes are no more. The life of triumph
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  Speaker 1: is not for those who are sadisfied with any lower conditions.
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  Speaker 1: It is for those who thirst for it and are
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  Speaker 1: willing to achieve it, who are eager for righteousness, as
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  Speaker 1: the miser is for gold. It is always at hand
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  Speaker 1: and is offered to all. And blessed are they who
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  Speaker 1: accept and embrace it. They will enter the world of truth.
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  Speaker 1: They will find the perfect peace light on facts and hypotheses.
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  Speaker 1: When freedom of thought and freedom of expression abound, there
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  Speaker 1: is much controversy and much confusion. Yet it is from
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  Speaker 1: such controversial confusion that the simple facts of life emerge,
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  Speaker 1: attracting us with their eternal uniformity and harmony, and appealing
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  Speaker 1: forcibly to us with their invisible simplicity and truth. We
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  Speaker 1: are living in an age of freedom and mental conflict.
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  Speaker 1: Never were religious sects so numerous, school, philosophical, occult, and
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  Speaker 1: otherwise abound, and each is eager for the perpetuation and
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  Speaker 1: dominance of its own explanation of the universe. The world
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  Speaker 1: is in a condition of mental ferment. Contradiction has reached
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  Speaker 1: the point of confusion, so that the earnest seeker for
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  Speaker 1: truth can find no solid rock of refuge in the
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  Speaker 1: opposing systems which are presented to him. He is thereby
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  Speaker 1: thrown back upon himself, upon those incontrovertible facts of his
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  Speaker 1: own being which are ever with him, which are indeed
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  Speaker 1: himself his life. Controversy is arranged around hypotheses, not around facts.
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  Speaker 1: Fact is fixed and final hypotheses is variable and vanishing.
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  Speaker 1: In his present state of development, man is not alive
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  Speaker 1: to the beautiful simplicity of facts, nor to the power
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  Speaker 1: of satisfaction which is in an inherent in them. He
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  Speaker 1: does not perceive the intrinsic loveliness of truth, but must
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  Speaker 1: add something to it. Hence, when fact is named, the
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  Speaker 1: question almost invariably arises, how can you explain the fact?
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  Speaker 1: And then follows a hypothesis, which leads to another hypothesis,
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  Speaker 1: and so on and on, until the fact is altogether
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  Speaker 1: lost sight of amid a mass of contradictory suppositions thus
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  Speaker 1: arise the sex and controversial schools. The clear perception of
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  Speaker 1: one fact will lead to the perception of other facts.
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  Speaker 1: But a supposition, while appearing to elucidata fact, does in
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  Speaker 1: reality cover it up. We cannot realize the stately splendor
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  Speaker 1: of truth while playing with the gaudy and attractive toys
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  Speaker 1: of pretty hypotheses. Truth is not in opinion, nor can
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  Speaker 1: an opinion in large or adorn. Fact and supposition are
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  Speaker 1: eternally separate, and the cleverest intellectual jugglery, while it may
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  Speaker 1: entertain and deceive even the elect, cannot in the slightest
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  Speaker 1: degree alter a fact or affect the nature of things
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  Speaker 1: as they are. Because of this, the true teacher abandons
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  Speaker 1: the devious path of hypotheses and deals only with the
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  Speaker 1: simple facts of life. He fixes the attention of men
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  Speaker 1: and women upon these, instead of increasing confusion and intensifying
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  Speaker 1: wordy warfare by foisting another assumption upon a world already
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  Speaker 1: lost and bewildered in a maze of hypotheses. The facts
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  Speaker 1: of life are ever before us, and can be understood
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  Speaker 1: and known if we but abandon our egotism and the
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  Speaker 1: blinding delusions which that egotism creates. Man need not go
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  Speaker 1: beyond his own being to find wisdom, and the facts
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  Speaker 1: of that being afford a sufficient basis on which to
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  Speaker 1: erect a temple of knowledge of such beauty and dimensions
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  Speaker 1: that it shall at once emancipate and glorify. Man is,
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  Speaker 1: and as he thinks, so he is. A perception and
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  Speaker 1: realization of these two facts alone of man's being and
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  Speaker 1: thinking lead into a vast avenue of knowledge which cannot
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  Speaker 1: stop short of the highest wisdom and perfection. One of
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  Speaker 1: the reasons why men do not become wise is that
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  Speaker 1: they occupy themselves with interminable speculations about a soul separate
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  Speaker 1: from themselves, that is, from their own mind, and so
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  Speaker 1: blind themselves to their actual nature and being. The supposition
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  Speaker 1: of a separate soul veils the eyes of man, so
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  Speaker 1: that he does not see himself, does not know his
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  Speaker 1: own mentale is unaware of the nature of his thoughts,
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  Speaker 1: without which he would have no conscious life. Man's life
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  Speaker 1: is actual, his thoughts are actual, His life is actual.
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  Speaker 1: To occupy ourselves with the investigation of things that are
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  Speaker 1: is the way of wisdom. Man considered as above, beyond
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  Speaker 1: and separate from mind and thought is speculative and not actual.
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  Speaker 1: And to occupy ourselves with the study of things that
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  Speaker 1: are not is the way of folly. Man cannot be
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  Speaker 1: separated from his mind. His life cannot be separated from
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  Speaker 1: his thoughts. Mind, thought, and life are as inseparable as light, radiance,
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  Speaker 1: and color, and are no more in need of another
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  Speaker 1: factor to elucidate them than are light, radiance and color.
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  Speaker 1: The facts are all sufficient, and contain within themselves the
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  Speaker 1: groundwork of all knowledge concerning them. Man is mind, is
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  Speaker 1: subject to change. He is not something made and finally completed,
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  Speaker 1: but has within him the capacity for progress by the
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  Speaker 1: universal law of evolution. He has become what he is,
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  Speaker 1: and is becoming that which he will be. His being
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  Speaker 1: is modified by every thought he makes. Every experience affects
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  Speaker 1: his character. Every effort he makes changes his mentality. Herein
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  Speaker 1: is the secret of man's degradation, and also of his
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  Speaker 1: power and salvation if he but realize this law of
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  Speaker 1: change in the right choice of thought. To live is
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  Speaker 1: to think and act, and to think an act is
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  Speaker 1: to change. While man is ignorant of the nature of thought,
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  Speaker 1: he continues to change for better and worse. But being
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  Speaker 1: acquainted with the nature of thought, he intellectually accelerates and
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  Speaker 1: directs the process of change, and only for the better.
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  Speaker 1: What the sum total of a man's thoughts are? That
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  Speaker 1: he is from this sameness of thought? With man there
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  Speaker 1: is not the slightest fractional deviation. There is a change
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  Speaker 1: as a result with the addition and subtraction of thought.
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  Speaker 1: But the mathematical law is an invariable quality. Seeing that
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  Speaker 1: man is mind, that mind is composed of thought, and
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  Speaker 1: that thought is subject to change, it follows that deliberately
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  Speaker 1: to change the thought is to change the man. All
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  Speaker 1: religions work upon the heart, the thought of man, with
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  Speaker 1: the object of directing it into purer and higher channels.
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  Speaker 1: Success in this direction, whether partial or complete, is called salvation.
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  Speaker 1: That is, deliverance from one kind of thought, one condition
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  Speaker 1: of mind, by the substitution of another thought another condition.
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  Speaker 1: It is true that The dispensers of religion today do
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  Speaker 1: not know this because of the hypothetical veil which intervenes
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  Speaker 1: between the fact and their consciousness. But they do it
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  Speaker 1: without knowing it. And the great teachers who founded the
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  Speaker 1: various religions built upon this fact, as their precepts plainly
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  Speaker 1: show the chief things upon which these teachers lay such
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  Speaker 1: stress and so constantly reiterate, such as the purification of
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  Speaker 1: the heart, the thinking of right thoughts, the doing of
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  Speaker 1: good deeds. What are they but calls to a higher,
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  Speaker 1: nobler mode of thought, energizing forces, urging men and women
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  Speaker 1: to make an effort in the choosing of thoughts which
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  Speaker 1: shall lift them into realms of greater power, greater good,
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  Speaker 1: greater bliss, aspiration, meditation, devotion. These are the chief means
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  Speaker 1: which men in all ages employ to reach up to
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  Speaker 1: the higher modes of thought, wider errors of peace, faster
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  Speaker 1: realms of knowledge. For as he thinketh in his heart,
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  Speaker 1: so is he he is saved from himself from his
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  Speaker 1: own folly and suffering, by creating within new habits of thoughts,
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  Speaker 1: by becoming a new thinker, a new man. Should a man,
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  Speaker 1: by a supreme effort, succeed in thinking as Jesus thought,
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  Speaker 1: not by imitation, but by a sudden realization of his
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  Speaker 1: indwelling power, he would be as Jesus. In the Buddhistic records,
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  Speaker 1: there is an instance of a man, not the possessor
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  Speaker 1: of great piety or wisdom, who ask Buddha how one
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  Speaker 1: might attain the highest wisdom and enlightenment. Buddha replied by
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  Speaker 1: ceasing all desire. It is recorded that the man let
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  Speaker 1: go of all personal desires and at once realize the
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  Speaker 1: highest wisdom and enlightenment. One of the sayings of Buddha
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  Speaker 1: runs the only miracle with which the wise man concerns
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  Speaker 1: himself is the transformation of a sinner into a saint.
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  Speaker 1: Emerson also referred to this transforming power of change of
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  Speaker 1: thought when he said, it is as easy to be
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  Speaker 1: great as it is to be small, which is closely
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  Speaker 1: akin to that other great, and oft repeated but little understood, saying,
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  Speaker 1: be ye therefore perfect even as your father, which in
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  Speaker 1: heaven is perfect. And after all, what is the fundamental
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  Speaker 1: difference between a great man and a small one? It
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  Speaker 1: is one of thought, of mental attitude. True, it is
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  Speaker 1: one of knowledge, But then knowledge cannot be separated from thought.
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  Speaker 1: Every substitution of a better for a worse thought is
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  Speaker 1: a transforming agency which marks an important advance in knowledge
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  Speaker 1: throughout the whole range of human life, from the lowest
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  Speaker 1: savage to the highest type of man. Thought determines character, condition,
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  Speaker 1: and knowledge. The mass of humanity moves slowly along the
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  Speaker 1: evolutionary path, urged by the blind impulse of its dominant thoughts,
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  Speaker 1: as they are stimulated and called forth by external things.
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  Speaker 1: But the true thinker, the sage, travels swiftly and intelligently
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  Speaker 1: along a chosen path of his own. The multitudes, unenlightened
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  Speaker 1: concerning their spiritual nature are the slaves of thought. But
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  Speaker 1: the sage is the master of thought. They follow blindly.
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  Speaker 1: He chooses intelligently. They obey them the impulse of the moment,
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  Speaker 1: thinking of their immediate pleasure and happiness. He commands and
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  Speaker 1: subdues impulse, resting upon that which is permanently right. They,
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  Speaker 1: obeying blind impulse, violate the laws of righteousness. He, conquering impulse,
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  Speaker 1: obeys the laws of righteousness. The sage stands face to
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  Speaker 1: face with the facts of life. He knows the nature
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  Speaker 1: of thought. He understands and obeys the law of his being,
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  Speaker 1: but the sorrow burden victim of blind impulse can open
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  Speaker 1: his mental eyes and see the true nature of things
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  Speaker 1: when he wishes to do so. The sage, intelligent, radiant, calm,
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  Speaker 1: and the fool, confused, darkened, disturbed are one in essence,
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  Speaker 1: and are divided only by the nature of their thoughts.
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  Speaker 1: When the fool turns away from and abandons his foolish
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  Speaker 1: thoughts and chooses and adopts wise thoughts low, he then
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  Speaker 1: becomes a sage. Socrates saw the essential oneness of virtue
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  Speaker 1: and knowledge, and so every sage sees. Learning may aid
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  Speaker 1: and accompany wisdom, but does not lead to it. Only
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  Speaker 1: the choosing of wise thoughts, and necessarily the doing of
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  Speaker 1: wise deeds, leads to wisdom. A man may be learned
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  Speaker 1: in the schools, but foolish in the school of life.
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  Speaker 1: Not the committing of words to memory, but the establishing
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  Speaker 1: of one's self and purer thoughts. Nobler thinking leads to
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  Speaker 1: the peace giving revelations of true knowledge. Folly and wisdom,
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  Speaker 1: ignorance and enlightenment are not merely the result of thought.
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  Speaker 1: They are the thought itself. Both cause and effect, effort
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  Speaker 1: and result are contained in thought. All that we are
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  Speaker 1: is the result of what we have thought. It is
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  Speaker 1: founded on our thoughts. It is made up of our thoughts.
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  Speaker 1: Man is not a being possessing a soul. He himself
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  Speaker 1: is soul. He himself is the thinker and doer, actor
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  Speaker 1: and knower. His composite mentality is himself. His spiritual nature
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  Speaker 1: is rounded by his sphere of thought. He it is
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  Speaker 1: that desires and sorrows, enjoys and suffers, loves and hates.
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  Speaker 1: The mind is not the instrument of a metaphysical superhuman soul.
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  Speaker 1: Man is soul. Mind is being. Mind is man. Man
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  Speaker 1: can find himself. He can see himself as he is.
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  Speaker 1: When he is prepared to turn from the illusory and
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  Speaker 1: self created world of hypothesis in which he wills, and
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  Speaker 1: to stand face to face with actuality, then will he
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  Speaker 1: know himself as he is. Moreover, he can picture himself
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  Speaker 1: as he would wish to be, and he can create
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  Speaker 1: within him the new thinker, the new man. For every
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  Speaker 1: moment is the time of choice, and every hour is destiny.
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  Speaker 1: Light on the law of cause an effect in human life,
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  Speaker 1: How frequently people associate the word law with hardness and cruelty.
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  Speaker 1: It seems to embody for them nothing but an inflexible tyranny.
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  Speaker 1: This arises partly from their inability to perceive principles apart
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  Speaker 1: from persons, and partly from the idea that the office
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  Speaker 1: of law is solely to punish. Viewed from such an
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  Speaker 1: attitude of mind, the term law is hazily regarded as
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  Speaker 1: some sort of indefinite personality whose business it is to
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  Speaker 1: hunt transgressors and crush them with overwhelming punishments. Now, while
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  Speaker 1: law punishes, its primary office is to protect. Even the
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  Speaker 1: laws which man makes are framed by him to protect
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  Speaker 1: himself from his own base or passions. The law of
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  Speaker 1: our country is instituted for the protection of life and property,
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  Speaker 1: and it comes into operation as a punishing factor when
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  Speaker 1: it is violated. Offenders against it probably think of it
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  Speaker 1: as cruel, and doubtless regard it with terror. But to
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  Speaker 1: them that obey it, it is an abiding protector and friend,
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  Speaker 1: and can hold for them no terror. So with the
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  Speaker 1: divine law, which is the stay of the universe, the
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  Speaker 1: heart and life of the cosmos, It is that which
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  Speaker 1: protects and upholds, and it is no less protective in
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  Speaker 1: its penalties than in its peaceful blessings. It is indeed
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  Speaker 1: an eternal protection, which is never for one moment withheld,
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  Speaker 1: and it shields all beings against themselves by bringing all
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  Speaker 1: violations of itself, whether ignorant or wilful, through pain to nothingness.
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  Speaker 1: Law cannot be partial. It is an unvarying mode of action,
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  Speaker 1: disobeying which we are hurt. Obeying we are made happy.
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  Speaker 1: Neither protection nor supplication can alter it, for if it
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  Speaker 1: could be altered or annulled, the universe would collapse and
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  Speaker 1: chaos would prevail. It is not less kind that we
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  Speaker 1: should suffer the penalty of our wrongdoing than we should
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  Speaker 1: enjoy the blessedness of our right doing. If we could
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  Speaker 1: escape the effects of our ignorance and sin, all security
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  Speaker 1: would be gone, and there would be no refuge, for
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  Speaker 1: we could then be equally doubtful of the result of
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  Speaker 1: our wisdom and goodness. Such a scheme would be one
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: of caprice and cruelty, whereas law is a method of
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: justice and kindness. Indeed, the supreme Law is the prince
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: of eternal kindness, faultless in its working and infinite in application.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: It is none other than that eternal love, forever full,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: forever flowing free, of which the Christian sings the boundless
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: compassion of Buddhistic precepts and poetry. The law which punishes
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: us is the law which preserves us. When in their
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: ignorance men would destroy themselves, its everlasting arms are thrown
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: about them in loving, albeit sometimes painful protection. Every pain
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: we suffer brings us nearer to the knowledge of the
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: divine wisdom. Every blessing we enjoy speaks to us of
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the perfection of the great Law, and of the fullness
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: of bliss that shall be man's when he has come
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: to his heritage of divine knowledge. We progress by learning,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: and we learn up to a certain point by suffering.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: When the heart is mellowed by love, the law of
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: love is perceived, and all its wonderful kindness. When wisdom
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: is acquired, peace is assured. We cannot alter the law
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: of things, which is of sublime perfection, but we can
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: alter ourselves so as to comprehend more and more of
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: that perfection and make its grandeur ours. To wish to
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: bring down the perfect to the imperfect is the height
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: of folly. But to strive to bring the imperfect up
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: to the perfect is the height of wisdom. Seers of
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the cosmos do not mourn over the scheme of things.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: They see the universe as a perfect whole, not an
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: imperfect jumble of parts. The great teachers are men and
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: women of abiding joy and heavenly peace. The blind, captive
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: of unholy desire may cry, ah, love. Could you and
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: I with him conspire to grasp this sorry scheme of
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: things entire? Would we not shatter it to bits and
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: then remold it nearer to the heart's desire. This is
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the wish of the carnal nature, the wish to enjoy
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: unlawful pleasures to any extent and not reap any painful consequences.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: It is such men who regard the universe as a
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: sorry scheme of things. They want the universe to bend
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: to their will and desire. Want lawlessness, not law. But
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: the wise man bends his will and subjects his desire
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to the divine order, and he sees the universe as
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: the glorious perfection of an infinitude of parts. Buddha always
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: referred to the mortal law of the universe as the
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: good law, And indeed it is not rightly perceived if
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: it is not thought of as anything but good, For
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: in it there can be no grain of evil, no
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: element of kindness. It is no iron hearted monster crushing
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: the weak and destroying the ignorant, but a soothing love
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: and brooding compassion, shielding the tenderness from harm and protecting
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: the strongest from a too destructive use of their strength.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: It destroys all evil, it preserves all good. It infolds
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: the tiniest seedling in its care, and it destroys the
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: most colossal wrong. With a breath to perceive it is
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: the beatific vision. To know it is the beautific bliss.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: And they who perceive and know it are at peace.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: They are glad for evermore. Such is the law which
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: moves the righteousness, which none at last can turn aside
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: or stay. The heart of it is love. The end
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: of it is peace and consummation, sweet obey light On
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: values spiritual and material, it is an old time axiom
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: that everything has its price. Everybody knows this commercially, but
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: how few know it spiritually. Business consists of a mutual
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: interchange of equitable values. The customer gives money and receives goods,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: and the merchant gives goods and receives money. This method
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: is universal and is regarded by all as just in
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: spiritual things, the method is the same, but the form
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: of interchange is different. For material things, a material thing
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: is given in exchange. Now, these two forms of exchange
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: cannot be transposed. They are of reverse natures and remain
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: eternally separate. Thus a man may bring money to a
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: shop and ask for food, or clothing or literature, and
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: he will receive goods to the value of his money.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: But if he were to take a dollar to a
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: teacher of truth and ask to be supplied with a
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: dollar's worth of religion, or righteousness or wisdom, he would
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: be told that those things cannot be purchased with money,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: that their spiritual nature excludes them from business transactions. The
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: wise teacher, however, would also tell him that these spiritual
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: necessities must be purchased, though money cannot buy them. They
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: have their price, and something must be parted with before
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: they can be received. In a word, instead of offering money,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: he must offer up self or selfishness. For so much
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: selfishness given up, so much religion, righteousness, and wisdom would
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: be immediately received without fail and with perfect equity. For
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: if a man is sure of receiving perishable food and
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: clothing for the money he puts down, how much more
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: surely he will receive the imperishable spiritual sustenance and protection
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: for the selfishness which he lays down. Shall the law
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: operate in the lesser and fail in the greater. Man
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: may fail to observe the law, but the law is infallible.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: A man may love his money, but he must part
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: with it before he can receive the material comforts of life. Likewise,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: a man may love his selfish gratifications, but he must
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: give them up before he can receive the spiritual comforts
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: of religion. Now, when a tradesman gives goods for money,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: it is not that he may keep the money, but
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: that he may give it in exchange for other goods.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: The primary function of business is not to enable everybody
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: to hoard up money, but to facilitate the interchange of commodities.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: The miser is the greatest of all failures, and he
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: may die of starvation and exposure while being a millionaire,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: because he is the worshiper of the letter of money
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: and an ignorer of its spirit, the spirit of mutual interchange.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Money is a means, not an end. Its exchange is
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: a sign that goods are being justly given and received. Thus, commerce,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: with all its innumerable ramifications of detail, is reducible to
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: one primary principle, namely, mutual interchange of the material necessities
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: of life. Now, let us follow this principle into the
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: spiritual sphere and trace there its operation. When a spiritual
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: man gives spiritual things kindness, sympathy, love, and receives happiness
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: in return, it is not that he may hoard and
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: hug to himself that happiness, but that he may give
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: it to others and so receive back spiritual things. The
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: primary function of spirituality is not to hoard up personal pleasure,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: but to render actual the interchange of spiritual blessings. The
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: most selfish man, he whose chief object is the getting
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: of happiness for himself, is a spiritual miser. His mind
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: may perish of spiritual destitution, though he be surrounded with
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: the objects which he has obtained to pander to his pleasure,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: because he is worshiping the letter of happiness and is
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: ignoring its spirit, the spirit of unselfish interchange. The object
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: of selfishness is the getting of personal pleasure or happiness.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: The object of religion is the diffusion of virtue. Thus
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: religion with all its innumerable creeds, may be resolved into
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: one primary principle, namely, mutual interchange of spiritual blessings. What then,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: are spiritual blessings? They are kindness, brotherliness, good will, sympathy forbearance, patience, trustfulness, peacefulness,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: love unending, and compassion unlimited. These blessings, these necessities for
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: the starving spirit of man, can be obtained, but their
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: price must be paid unkindness, uncharitableness, i will, hardness, ill temper, impatience, suspicion, strife, hatred.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: All these, along with the happiness the personal satisfaction which
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: they give, must be yielded up. These spiritual coins, dead
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: in themselves, must be parted with, and when parted with,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: there will be immediately received their spiritual counterparts, the living
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: and imperishable blessings to which they are a means and
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: of which they are a signed. To conclude, when a
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: man gives money to a merchant and receives goods in return,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: he does not wish to have his money again. He
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: has willingly parted with it forever and is satisfied with
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: the exchange. So when a man gives up unrighteousness in
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: exchange for righteousness, he does not wish to have his
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: selfish pleasures back again. He has given them up forever
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: and is satisfied and at peace. Thus, also, when one
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: bestows a gift, even though it may be a material gift,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: he does not look for the receiver to send him
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: back its value in money, because it is a spiritual
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: deed and not a business transaction. The material thing thus
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: represents the interchange of spiritual blessings and its accompanying bliss.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: The bliss of a gift bestowed and that of a
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: gift received are not two sparrows sold for a farthing.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Everything in the universe, every object, in every thought is valued.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Material things have a material value. Spiritual things have a
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: spiritual value, and to confound these values is not wise.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: To seek to purchase spiritual blessings with money or material
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: luxuries with virtue is the way of selfishness and folly.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: It is to confound barter with religion, and to make
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: a religion of barter. Sympathy, kindness, love cannot be bought
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: and sold. They can only be given and received. When
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: a gift is paid for, it ceases to be a gift.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Because everything has a value, that which is freely given
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: is gained with accumulation. He who gives up the lesser
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: happiness of selfishness gains the greater happiness of unselfishness. The
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: universe is just, and its justice is so perfect that
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: he who has once perceived it can no more doubt
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: or be afraid. He can only wonder and be glad.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Light on the sense of proportion. In a nightmare, there
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: is no relation of one thing to another. All things
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: are haphazard, and there is a general confusion and misery.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Wise men have likened the self seeking life to a nightmare.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: There is a close resemblance between a selfish life in
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: which the sense of purportion is so far lost that
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: things are only seen as they affect one's own selfish aims,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: and in which there are feverish excitements and overwhelming troubles
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: and disasters, and that state of troubled sleep known as nightmare.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: In a nightmare, too, the controlling will and perceiving intelligence
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: are asleep, and in a selfish life, the better nature
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: and spiritual perceptions are locked in profound slumber. The uncultivated
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: mind lacks the sense of proportion. It does not see
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: the right relation of one natural object to another, and
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: is thereafter dead to the beauty and harmony with which
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: it is surrounded. And what is this sense of proportion
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: but the faculty of seeing things as they are? It
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: is a faculty which needs cultivating, and its cultivation, when
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: applied to natural objects, embraces the entire intelligence and refines
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: the moral character. It enters, how into spiritual things as
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: well as things natural. And here is more lacking and
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: more greatly needed. For to see things as they are
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: in the spiritual sphere is to find no ground for grief,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: no lodging place for lamentation. Whence spring all this grief
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: and anxiety, and fear and trouble? Is it not because
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: things are not as men and women wish them to be?
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Is it not because the multiplicity of desires prevents them
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: from seeing things in their true perspective and right proportion.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: When one is overwhelmed with grief, he sees nothing but
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: his loss. Its nearness to him blots out the whole
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: view of life. The thing in itself may be small,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: but to the sufferer it assumes a magnitude which is
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: out of proportion to the surrounding objects of life. All
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: who have passed the age of thirty can look back
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: over their lives at times when they were perplexed with anxiety,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: overwhelmed with grief, or even perhaps on the verge of despair,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: over incidents which, now seen in their right proportion, are
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: known to be very small. If the would be suicide,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: will today stay his hand and wait, he will, at
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: the end of ten years marvel at his folly over
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: so comparatively small a matter. When the mind is possessed
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: by passion or paralyzed with grief, it has lost the
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: power of judgment. It cannot weigh and consider. It does
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: not perceive the relative values and proportions of the things
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: by which it is disturbed. Awake in acting it yet
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: moves in a nightmare which holds its faculties in thrall.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: The passionate partisan lacks a sense of proportion to such
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: an extent that to him his own side or view
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: appears all that is right and good, and his opponents
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: all that is bad and wrong. To this PARTI, his
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: reason is chained, so that whatever reason he may bring
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: to bear upon the matter is enlisted in the service
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: of bias, and is not exercised in order to find
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: the just relation which exists between the two sides. He
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: is so convinced that his own party is all right
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: and the other, equally intelligent party is all wrong, that
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: it is impossible for him to be impartial and just.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: The only thing he understands as justice is that of
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: getting his own way or placing some ruling power in
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: the hands of his party. Just as the sense of
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: proportion in things material puts an end to the spirit
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: of repugnance, so in things spiritual it puts an end
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: to the spirit of strife. The true artist does not
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: see ugliness anywhere. He sees only beauty. That which is
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: loathsome to others feels to him its rightful place in nature,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: and it appears in his picture as a thing of beauty.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: The true seer does not see evil anywhere. He sees
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: universal good. That which is hateful to others he sees
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: in its rightful place in the scheme of evolution, and
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: it is held dispassionately in his mind as an object
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: of contemplation. Men and women worry and grieve and fight
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: because they lack this sense of proportion, because they do
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: not see things in their right relations. The objects of
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: their turbulence are not things in themselves, but their own
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: opinions about things self created shadows the unreal creations of
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: an egoistic nightmare. The cultivation and development of the ethical
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: sense of proportion converts the heated partisan into a gentle
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: peacemaker and gives the common searching of the prophet to
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: the hitherto blind instrument in the clashing play of selfish forces.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: The spiritual sense of proportion gives sanity. It restores the
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: mind to calmness. It bestows impartiality and justice, and reveals
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: a universe of faultless harmony light on adherence to principle.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: The man of truth never departs from the divine principles
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: which he has expoused. He may be threatened with sickness, poverty, pain,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: loss of friends, and position, yea, even with immediate death,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Yet he does not desert the principles which he knows
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: to be eternally true to him. There is one thing
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: more grievous, more to be feared and shunned than all
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: the above evils put together, and that is the desertion
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: of principle, to turn coward in the hour of trial,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: to deny conscience, to join the rabble of passions, desires,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: and fears in turning upon, accusing and crucifying the eternal
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Christ of divine principle, because that principle has not given
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: him personal health, affluence, and ease. This, to the man
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: of truth, is the evil of evils, the sin of sins.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: We cannot escape sickness and death, though we may avoid
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: them for a long time. In the end they will
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: overtake us. But we can avoid wrongdoing. We can avoid
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: fear and cowardice. When we habitually avoid wrongdoing and cast
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: out fear, the evils of life will not subdue us
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: when they overtake us, for we shall have mastered them.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Instead of avoiding them for a season. We shall have
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: conquered them on their own ground. There are those that
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: teach that it is right to do wrong when the
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: wrong is to protect another. That it is good, for instance,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: to tell a lie when its object is the well
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: being of another. That is, that it is right to
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: desert a principle of truthfulness under severe trial. Such teaching
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: has never emanated from the lips of the great teachers.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: It has not been uttered even by those lesser yet
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: superbly noble men, the prophets, saints and martyrs. For those
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: divinely illuminated men knew full well that no circumstance can
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: make a wrong a aright, and that a lie has
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: no saving and protective power. Wrong Doing is a greater
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: evil than pain, and a lie is more deadly and
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: destructive than death. Jesus rebuked Peter for trying to shield
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: his master's life by wrongdoing, and no right minded person
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: would accept life at the expense of the moral character
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: of another when it appeared possible to do so. All
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: men admire and revere the martyrs, those steadfast men and
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: women who feared wrong, cowardice, and lying, but who did
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: not fear pain and death. Those who were steadfast and
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: calm in their adherents to principle, even when it brought
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: to the utmost extremity of trial. Yea, even when the
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: taunts and jeers of enemies assailed them, and the tears
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: and agonies of loved ones appealed to them, they flinched
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: not nor turned back, knowing that the future good and
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: salvation of the whole world depended upon their firmness in
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: that supreme hour. For this they stand through all time
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: as monuments of virtue, centers of saving and uplifting power
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: for all human kind. But he who lied to save
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: himself or for the sake of the two or three
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: beings whom he personally loved, is rarely heard of, for
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: in the hour of desertion of principle, his power was gone.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: If he is heard of, he is not love for
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: that lie. He has always looked upon as one who
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: fell when the test was applied as an example of
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: the highest virtue. He is rejected by all men in
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: all times. Had all men believed that an untruth was
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: right under extreme circumstances, we should have no martyrs and saints.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: The moral fiber of humanity would have been undermined, and
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: the world left to grope in ever deepening darkness. The
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: attitude which regards wrongdoing for the sake of others as
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: the right thing to do is based on the assumption
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: that wrong and untruth are inferior evils to unhappiness, pain,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: and death. But the man of moral insight knows that
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: wrong and untruth are the greater evils, and so he
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: never commits them, even though his own life or the
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: lives of others appear to be at stake. It is
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: easy for a man in the flowery time of ease
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: or the heyday of prosperity to persuade himself that he
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: is staunchly adhering to principle. But when pain overtakes him,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: when the darkness of misfortune begins to settle down upon him,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: and the pressure of circumstances hems him in, then he
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: is on his own trial and has come to the
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: testing time. In that season, it will be brought to
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: light whether he clings to self or adheres to truth.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Principles are for our salvation in the hour of need.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: If we desert them in that hour, how can we
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: be saved from the snares and pains of self. If
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: a man does wrong to his conscience, thinking thereby to
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: avoid some immediate or pressing pain, he does not but
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: increase pain and evil. The good man is less anxious
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: to avoid pain than wrongdoing. There is neither wisdom nor
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: safety in deserting permanent and protective principles when our happiness
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: seems to be at stake. If we desert the true
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: for the pleasant, we shall lose both the pleasant and
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: the true. But if we desert the pleasant for the true,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: the peace of the truth will soothe away our sorrow.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: If we barter the higher for the lower emptiness and
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: anguish will overtake us, and then, having abandoned the eternal,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: where is our rock of refuge? But if we yield
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: up the lower for the higher, the strength and satisfaction
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: of the higher will remain with us. Fullness of joy
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: will overtake us, and we shall find in truth a
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: rock of refuge from the evils and sorrows of life.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: To find the permanent amid all the changes of life,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: and having found it, adhere to it under all circumstances,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: this only is true happiness. This only is salvation and
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: lasting peace. Light on the sacrifice of the self. Self
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: sacrifice is one of the fundamental principles in the teaching
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: of the great spiritual masters. It consists in yielding up
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: self or selfishness, so that truth may become the source
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: of conduct. Self is not an entity that has to
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: be cast out, but a condition of mind that has
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: to be converted. The renunciation of self is not the
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: annihilation of the intelligent being, but the annihilation of every
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: dark and selfish desire. Self is the blind clinging to
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: perishable things in transient pleasures, as distinguished from the intelligent
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: practice of virtue and righteousness. Self is the lusting, covening,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: desiring of the heart, and it is this that must
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: be yielded up before truth can be known with its abiding,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: calm and endless peace. To give up things will not avail.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: It is the lust for things that must be sacrificed.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Though a man sacrifice wealth, position, friends, family, home, wife, child,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: and life, also, it will avail nothing if self is
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: not renounced. Buddha renounced the world and all that it
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: held dear to him. But for six years he wandered
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: and served and suffered, And not till he yielded up
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: the desires of the heart did he become enlightened and
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: arrive at peace. By giving up only the objects of
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: self indulgence, no peace will ensue, but torment will follow.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: It is self indulgence the desire for the object that
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: must be abandoned. Then peace enters the heart. Sacrifice is
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: painful so long as there is any vestige of self
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: remaining in the heart. While there remains in the heart
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: a lurking desire for an unworthy object or pleasure that
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: has been sacrificed, there will be periods of intense suffering
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: and fierce temptation. But when the desire for the unworthy
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: object or pleasure is put away forever from the mind,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: and the sacrifice is complete and perfect. Then concerning that
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: particular object or pleasure, there can be no more suffering
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: or temptation. So when self in its entirety is sacrificed,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: sacrifice in its painful aspect is at an end, and
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: perfect knowledge and perfect peace are reached. Hatred is self.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: Covetuousness is self. Envy and jealousy our self, vanity and
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: boasting our self, gluttony and sensuality our self, lying in deception,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: our self, speaking evil of one's neighbor is self. Anger
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: and revenge our self. Self. Sacrifice consists in yielding up
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: all these dark conditions of mind and heart. The process
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: is a painful one in its early stages, but soon
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: a divine peace descends at intervals upon the pilgrim. Later,
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: this piece remains longer with him, and finally, when the
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: rays of truth begin to be radiated in the heart,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: remains with him. This sacrifice leads to peace, for in
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: the perfect life of truth, there is no more sacrifice
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: and no more pain and sorrow. For when there is
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: no more self, there is nothing to be given up
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: when there is no more clinging of the mind to
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: perishable things, there is nothing to be renounced. Where all
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: has been laid on the altar of truth. Selfish love
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: is swallowed up in divine love, and in divine love
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: there is no thought of self, for there is the
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: perfection of insight, enlightenment, and immortality, and therefore perfect peace.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: Light on the management of the mind following the last chapter,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: A few hints on the management of one's mind will
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: doubtless be opportune. Before a man can see even the
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: necessity for thorough and complete self government, he will have
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: to throw off a great delusion in which so many
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: are involved, the delusion of believing that his lapses of
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: conduct are entirely due to those about him, not entirely
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: to himself. I could make far greater progress if I
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: were not hindered by others. Or it is impossible for
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: me to make any headway seeing that I live with
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: such irritable people. Are commonly expressed complaints which spring from
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: the error of imagining that others are responsible for one's
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: own folly. The violent or irritable man always blames those
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: about him for his fits of anger, and by continually
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: living In this delusion, he becomes more and more confirmed
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: in his rashness and perturbations. For how can a man overcome, nay,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: how can he even try to overcome his weaknesses if
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: he convinces himself that it springs entirely from the actions
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: of others. Moreover, firmly believing this as he does, he
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: vents his anger more and more upon others in order
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: to make matters better for himself, and so become completely
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: lost to all knowledge of the real origin of his
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: unhappy state. Men cast the blame of their unprosperous acts
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: upon the abettors, of their own resolve, or anything but
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: their weak, guilty selves, being responsible for every action. All
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: a man's weaknesses, sins, and falls take rise in his
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: own heart, and he alone is responsible for them. It
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: is true that there are tempters and provokers, but temptations
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: and provocations are powerless to him who refuses to respond
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: to them. Tempters and provokers are but foolish men, and
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: he who gives way to them has become a willing
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: cooperator in their folly. He is unwise and weak, and
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: the source of troubles is in himself. The pure man
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: cannot be tempted, the wise man cannot be provoked. Let
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: a man fully realize that he is absolutely responsible for
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: his every action, and he has already gone a considerable
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: distance along the path which leads to wisdom and peace.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: For he will then commence to utilize temptation as a
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: means of growth, and the wrong conduct of others he
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: will regard as a test of his own strength. Socrates
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: thank the gods for the gift of a shrewish wife,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: in that it enabled him the better to cultivate the
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: virtue of patience. It is a simple and easily perceived
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: truth that we can better grow patient by living with
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: the impatient, better grow unselfish by living with the selfish.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: If a man is impatient with the impatient, he is
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: himself impatient. If he is selfish with the selfish, then
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: he himself is selfish. The test and measure of virtuous trial,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: and like gold and precious stones, the more it is tested,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: the brighter it shines. If a man thinks he has virtue,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: yet gives way when its opposing vice is presented to him,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: let him not delude himself. He has not yet attained
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: to the possession of that virtue. If a man would
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: rise and become a man. Indeed, let him cease to
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: think the weak and foolish thought, I am hindered by others,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: and let him set about to discover that he is
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: hindered only by himself. Let him realize that the giving
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: way to another is but a revelation of his own imperfection.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: And lo upon him will descend the light of wisdom,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: and the doors of peace will open unto him, and
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: he will soon become the conqueror of self. The fact
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: that a man is continually troubled and disturbed by close
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: contact with others is an indication that he requires such
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: contact to impel him onward to a clearer comprehension of
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: himself and toward a higher and more steadfast state of mind.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: The very things which he regards as insurmountable hindrances will
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: become to him the most valuable aids. When he fully
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: realizes his moral responsibility and his innate power to do right.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: He will then cease to blame others for his unmanly conduct,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: and will commence to live steadfastly under all circumstances. The
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: scales of self delusion will quickly fall from his eyes,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: and he will then see that often when he imagined
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: himself provoked, he was really the provoker. As he rises
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: above his own mental disturbances, the necessity for coming in
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: contact with the same condition in others will cease, and
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: he will pass, by a natural process into the company
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: of the good and the pure. He will then awaken
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: in others the nobility which he has arrived at in
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: himself be noble, and the nobleness that lies in other men,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: sleeping but never dead, will rise in majesty to meet
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: thine own light on self control the door of heaven.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: The foremost lesson which the world has to learn on
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: its way to wisdom is the lesson of self control.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: All the bitter punishments which men undergo in the school
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: of experience are inflicted because they have failed to learn
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: this lesson. Apart from self control, salvation is a meaningless word,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: and peace is an impossibility, for how can a man
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: be saved from any sin while he continues to give
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: way to it, Or how can he realize abiding peace
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: until he has conquered and subdued the troubles and disturbances
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: of his mind. Self control is the door of heaven.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: It leads to light and peace. Without it, a man
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: is already in hell. He is lost in darkness and unrest.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: Men inflict upon themselves far reaching sufferings and pass through
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: indescribable torments, both of body and soul through lack of
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: sins self control. Not until they resort to its practice
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: can their sufferings and torments pass away. For it has
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: no substitute. Nothing can take its place, and there is
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: no power in the universe that can do for a
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: man that which he sooner or later must do for himself.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: By entering the practice of self control. By self control,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: a man manifests his divine power and ascends toward divine
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: wisdom and perfection. Every man can practice it. The weakest
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: man can begin now, and until he does begin, his
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: weakness will remain, or he will become weaker. Still calling
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: or not calling upon God or Jesus, Rama or Buddha,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: spirits or masters will not avail men who refuse to
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: govern themselves and purify their hearts. Believing or disbelieving that
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: Jesus is God, that Buddha is omniscient, or the spirits
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: or masters guide human affairs cannot help men who continue
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: to cling to the elements of strife and ignorance and
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: corruption within themselves. What theological affirmation or denial can justify
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: or what outward power put right the man who refuses
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: to abandon a slanderous or abusive tongue, or give up
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: an angry temper, or to sacrifice his impure imaginings. The
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: flower reaches the upper light by first contending with the
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: under darkness, and man can only reach the light of
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: truth by striving against the darkness within himself. The vast
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: importance of self control is not realized by men. Its
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: absolute necessity is not apprehended by them, and the spiritual
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: freedom and glory to which it leads are hidden from
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: their eyes. Because of this, men are enslaved, and misery
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: and suffering ensue. Let a man contemplate the violence, impurity,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: disease and suffering which occur upon earth, and consider how
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: much of it is due to want of self control,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: and he will gradually come to realize the great need
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: there is for self control. I say again that self
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: control is the gate of Heaven, for without it, neither happiness,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: nor love, nor peace can be realized and maintained. In
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: the degree that it is lacked by a man, in
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: just that measure, will his mind and life be given
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: over to confusion. And it is because such a large
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: number of individuals have not yet learned to practice it,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: that the enforced restraint of national laws is required for
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: the maintenance of law and order and the prevention of
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: destructive confusion. Self control is the beginning of virtue, and
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: it leads to the acquisition of every noble attribute. It
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: is the first essential quality in a well ordered and
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: truly religious life, and it leads to calmness, blessedness, and
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: peace Without it. Although there may be theological belief or profession,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: there can be no true religion. For what is religion
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: but enlightened conduct, and what is spirituality but the triumph
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: over the unruly tendencies of the mind. When men both
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: depart from and refuse to practice self control, they fall
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: into the great and dark delusion of separating religion from conduct.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: Then they persuade themselves that religion consists not in overcoming
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: self and living blamelessly, but in holding a certain belief
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: about scripture and in worshiping a certain savior in a
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: particular way. Hence arise the innumerable complications and confusions of
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: letter worship and the violence and bitter strife into which
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: men fall in defense of their own formulated religion. But
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: true religion cannot be formulated. It is a purity of mind,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: a loving heart, a soul at peace with the world.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: It need not be defended, for it is being and
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: doing and living. A man begins to practice religion when
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: he begins to control himself light on acts in their consequences.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: One of the commonest excuses for wrong doing is that
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: if right were done, calamity would ensue. Thus the foolish
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: concern themselves not with the act, but with the consequence
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: of the act, a foreknowledge of which is assumed. The
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: desire to secure pleasant results and to escape unpleasant consequences
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: is at the root of that confusion of mind, which
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: renders men incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, and
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: prevents them from practicing the one and abandoning the other.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: Even when it is claimed that the wrong thing is
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: done not for one's self but in order to secure
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: the happiness of others, the illusion is the same, only
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: it is more subtle and dangerous. The wise concern themselves
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: with the act and not with the consequences. They consider
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: not what is pleasant or unpleasant, but what is right.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: Thus doing what is right only, and not straining after results,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: they are relieved of all burdens of doubt, desire, and fear.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: Nor can one who so acts ever become so involved
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: in inextricable difficulty, or be troubled with painful perplexity. His
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: course is so simple, straight and plain, that he can
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: never be confused with misgivings and uncertainties. Those who so
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: act are said by Krishna to act without regard to
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: the fruits of action, And he further declares that those
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: who have thus renounced results are supremely good, supremely wise.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: Those who work for pleasant results only, and who depart
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: from the right path when their own or other's happiness
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: appears to be at stake, cannot escape doubt, difficulty, perplexity,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: and pain. Ever, forecasting probable consequences, they act in one
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: way today and in another way tomorrow. Unstable and blown
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: about by the changing wind of circumstance, they become more
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: and more bewildered. The consequences about which they trouble do
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: not accrue. But they who work for righteousness only, who
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: are careful to do the right act, putting away all
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: selfish considerations all thoughts of results. They are steadfast, unchanging, untroubled,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: and at peace amid all vicissitudes, and the fruits of
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: their acts are ever sweet and blessed. Even the knowledge
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: which only the righteous possess that wrong acts can never
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: produce good results, and that right acts can never bring
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: about bad results, is in itself fraught with sweet assurance
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: and peace. For whether the fruits of acts are sought
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: or unsought, they cannot be escaped. Those who sow to
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: self and ignorant of the law of truth, think they
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: can make their own results reap the bitter fruits of self.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: They who sow to righteousness, knowing themselves to be the
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: reapers and not the makers of the consequences, reap the
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: sweet fruits of righteousness. Right is supremely simple and is
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: without complexity. Error is interminably complex and involves the mind
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: in confusion. To put away self and passion and establish
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: oneself and right doing, this is the highest wisdom light
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: on the way of wisdom. The path of wisdom is
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: the highest way, the way in which all doubt and
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: uncertainty are dispelled, and knowledge and surety are realized. The
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: excitements and pleasures of the world and surge in whirlpools
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: of human passions. Wisdom, so calm, so silent, and so beautiful,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: is indeed difficult to find. Difficult not because of its
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: incomprehensible complexity, but because of its unobtrusive simplicity, and because
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: self is so blind and rash and so jealous of
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: its rights and pleasures. Wisdom is rejected of men because
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: it always comes right home to one's self in the
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: form of wounding reproof, and the lower nature of man
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: cannot bear to be reproved. Before wisdom can be acquired,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: self must be wounded to the death. And because of this,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: because wisdom is the enemy of self, self rises in
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: rebellion and will not be overcome and denied. The foolish
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: man is governed by his passions and personal cravings. When
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: about to do anything, he does not ask is this right,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: but only considers how much pleasure or personal advantage he
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: will gain by it. He does not govern his passions
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: and act from fixed principles, but is the slave of
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: his inclinations and follows where they lead. The wise man
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: governs his passions and puts away all personal cravings. He
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: never acts from impulse and passion, but dispassionately considers what
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: is right to be done and does it. He is
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: always thoughtful and self possessed, and guides his conduct by
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: the loftiest moral principles. He is superior to both pleasure
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: and pain. Wisdom cannot be found in books or travel,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: in learning or philosophy. It is acquired by practice only.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: A man may read the precepts of the greatest sages continually,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: but if he does not purify and govern himself, he
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: will remain foolish. A man may be intimately conversant with
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: the writings of the greatest philosophers, but so long as
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: he continues to give way to his passions, he will
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: not attain wisdom. Wisdom is right action, right doing. Folly
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: is wrong action wrongdoing, all reading, all studying is in vain.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: If man will not see his errors and give them up,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: Wisdom says to the vain man. Do not praise yourself
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: to the proud man, humble yourself to the gossip, govern
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: your tongue to the angry man, Subdue your anger to
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: the resentful man. Forgive your enemy to the self indulgent man,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: be temperate to the impure man. Purge your heart of lust,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: and to all men, beware of small faults. Do your
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: duty faithfully, and never inter meddle with the duty of another.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: These things are very simple. The doing of them is simple.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: But as it leads to the annihilation of self, the
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: selfish tendencies in a man object to them and rise
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: up in revolt against them, loving their own life of
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: turbulent excitement and feverish pleasure, and hating the calm and
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: beautiful silence of wisdom. Thus men remain in folly. Nevertheless,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: the way of wisdom is always open, is always ready
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: to receive the tread of the pilgrim who has grown
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: weary of the thorny and intricate ways of folly. No
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: man is prevented from becoming wise but by himself. No
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: man can acquire wisdom but by his own exertions. And
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: he who is prepared to be honest with himself, to
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: measure the depths of his ignorance, to come face to
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: face with his errors, to recognize and acknowledge his own faults,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: and at once to set about the task of his
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: own regeneration, such a man will find the way of wisdom,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: walking with humble and obedient feet, he will in due
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: time come to the sweet city of deliverance. Light on disposition.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: I cannot help it. It is my disposition. How often
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: one hears this expression as an excuse for wrongdoing, What
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: does it imply? This that the person who utters it
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: believes that he has no choke in the matter, that
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: he cannot alter his character. He believes that he must
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: go on doing the wrong thing to the end of
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: his days because he was born so, or because his
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: father or grandfather was like that, or if not these,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: then someone along the family line a hundred or two
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: or three hundred years ago must have been afflicted, and
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: therefore he is and must remain so. Such a belief
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: should be uprooted, destroyed, and cast away, for it is
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: not only without reason, it is a complete barrier to
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: all progress, to all growth and goodness, to all development
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: of character and noble expansion of life. Character is not permanent.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: It is indeed one of the most changeable things in nature.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: If not changed by a conscious act of the will,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: it is being continually modified and reformed by the pressure
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: of circumstances. Disposition is not fixed, except in so far
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: as one fixes it by continuing to do the same thing,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: and by persistence in the stubborn belief that he cannot
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: help it. As soon as one gets rid of that belief,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: he will find that he can help it. Further. He
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: will find that intelligence and will are instruments which can
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: mold disposition to any extent, and that too with considerable rapidity.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: If one is in earnest, what is disposition but a
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: habit formed by repeating the same thing over and over again.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: Cease repeating doing the same thing, and lo, the disposition
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: is changed. The character is altered to cease from an
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: old habit of thought or action. Is I know, difficult
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: at first, but with each added effort, the difficulty decreases
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: and finally disappears. And then the new and good habit
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: is formed, and the disposition is changed from bad to good.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: The character is ennobled, the mind is delivered from the
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: torment and is lifted into joy. There is no need
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: for any one to remain the slave of a disposition
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: which causes him unhappiness and which he himself regards as undesirable.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: He can abandon it. He can break away from the slavery.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: He can deliver himself and be free. Light on individual liberty.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: Within the sphere of his own mind, man has all power,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: but in the sphere of other minds and outside things,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: his power is limited. He can command his own mind,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: but he cannot command the minds of others. He can't
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: choose what he shall think, but he cannot choose what
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: others shall think. He cannot control the weather as he wills,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: but he can control his mind and decide what his
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: mental attitude toward the weather shall be. A man can
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: reform the dominion of his own mind, but he cannot
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: reform the outer world, because the outer world is composed
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: of other minds having the same freedom of choice as himself.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: A pure being cannot cleanse the heart of one less pure,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: But by his life of purity, and by elucidating his
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: experience in the attainment of purity, he can, as a teacher,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: act as a guide to others and so enable them
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: more readily and rapidly to purify themselves. But even then
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: those others have the power to decide whether they shall
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: accept or reject such guidance. So complete is man's choice.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: It is because of this dual truth that man has
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: no power in the realm of others minds and yet
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: has all power over his own mind, that he cannot
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: avoid the consequences of his own thoughts and acts. Man
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: is altogether powerless to alter or avert consequences, but he
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: is altogether powerful in his choice of causative thought. Having
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: chosen his thoughts, he must accept their full consequences. Having acted,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: he cannot escape the full results of his act. Law
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: reigns universally, and there is perfect individual liberty. A man
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: can do as he likes, but all other men can
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: also do as they like. A man has power to steal,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: but others have the power to protect themselves against the thief.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: Having sent out his thought, having acted his purpose, a
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: man's power over that thought and purpose is at an end.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: The consequences are certain and cannot be escaped, and they
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: will be of the nature of the thought an act
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: which produce them painful or blessed. Seeing that a man
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: can think and do as he chooses, and that all
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: others have the like liberty, a man has to learn
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: sooner or later to reckon with other minds, And until
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: he does this he will be ceaselessly involved in suffering
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: to think an act. Apart from the consideration of others
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: is both an abuse and an infringement of liberty. Such
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: thoughts and acts are annulled and brought to naught by
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: the harmonizing principle of liberty itself, and such annulling in
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: bringing to naught is felt by the individual as suffering.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: When the mind, rising above ignorance, recognizes the magnitude of
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: its power within its own sphere and ceases to antagonize
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: itself against others, it harmonizes itself to those other minds.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: Having acknowledged their freedom of choice, it has then realized
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: spiritual plenitude and the cessation of suffering. Selfishness, egotism, and
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: despotism are, from the spiritual standpoint, transferable terms. They are
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: one and the same thing. Every selfish thought or act
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: is a manifestation of egotism, is an effort of despotism,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: and is met with suffering and defeat. It is annulled
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: because the law of liberty cannot, even in the smallest particular,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: be annulled. If selfishness could conquer, liberty would be nonexistent.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: But selfishness fails of all results but pain because liberty
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: is supreme. An act of selfishness contains two elements of egotism,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: namely the denial of liberty of others and the assertion
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: of one's own liberty beyond its legitimate sphere, thereby destroys itself.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: Despotism is death. Man is not the creature of selfishness.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: He is the maker of it. It is an indication
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: of his power, his power to disobey even the laws
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: of his own being. Selfishness is power without wisdom. It
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: is energy wrongly directed. A man is selfish because he
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: is ignorant of his nature and power as a mental being.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: Such ignorance and selfishness entails suffering, and by repeated suffering
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: an age long experience, he at last arrives at knowledge
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: and the legitimate exercise of his power. The truly enlightened
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: man cannot be selfish. He cannot accuse others of selfishness
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: or try to coerce them into being unselfish. The selfish
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: man is eager to bend others to his own way
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: and will, believing it to be the only right way
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: for all. He thereby ignorantly wastes himself in trying to
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: check in others the power which he freely exercises himself,
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: namely the power to choose their own way and exercise
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: their own will. By so doing, he places himself in
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: direct antagonism with the like tendencies and the freedom of
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: other minds, and brings into operation the instruments of his
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: own suffering. Hence the ceaseless interplay of conflicting forces, the
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: unending fires of passion, the turmoil, strife, and woe. Selfishness
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: is misapplied power. The unselfish man is he who, ceasing
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: from all personal interference, abandons the eye as the source
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: of judgment. Having recognized his unlimited freedom through the abandonment
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: of all egotism, even in thought, he refrains from encroachment
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: upon the boundless freedom of others. He realizes the legitimacy
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: of their choice and their right to be the free
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: employment of their power. However others may choose to act
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: towards such a man, it can never cause him any
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: trouble or suffering, because he is perfectly willing that they
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: should so choose to act, and he harbors no wish
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: that they should act in any other way. He realizes
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: that his sole duty, as well as his entire power,
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: lies in acting rightly toward them, and that he is
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: in no way concerned with their actions toward him. That
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: is both their choice and their business. To the unselfish man.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: Therefore malice, envy, backbiting, jealousy, accusation, condemnation, and persecution have
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: passed away. Having ceased to practice these things, he is
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: not disturbed when they are hurled at him. Thus, liberation
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: from sin is liberation from suffering. The selfless man is free.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: He has made the servitude of sin impossible. He has
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: broken every bond light on the blessing and dignity of work.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: That labour is life is a principle pregnant with truth,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: and one which cannot be too often repeated or too
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: closely studied and practiced. Labour is so often regarded as
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: an irksome and even degrading means of obtaining ease and pleasure,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: and not as what it really is, a thing happy
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: and noble in itself. The lesson contained in the maxim
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: needs to be taken to heart and more and more
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: thoroughly learned actively, both mental and physical, is the essence
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: of life. The complete cessation of life is death, and
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: death is immediately followed by corruption. Ease and death are
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: closely related. The more there is of activity, the more
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: abounding is life. The brain worker, the original thinker, the
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: man of unsa ceasing mental activity, is the longest lived
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: man in a community. The agricultural laborer, the gardener, the
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: man of unceasing physical activity comes next, with lengthen years.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: Pure hearted, healthy minded people love work and are happy
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: in their labors. They never complain of being overworked. It
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: is very difficult, almost impossible for a man to be
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: overworked if he lives a sound and pure life. It
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: is worry, bad habits, discontent, and idleness that kill, especially idleness,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: For if labor is life, then idleness must be death.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: Let us get rid of sin before we talk about
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: being overworked. There are those who are afraid of work,
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: regarding it as an enemy, and who fear a breakdown
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: by doing too much. They have to learn what a
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: health bestowing friend work is. Others are ashamed of work,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: looking upon it as a degrading thing to be avoided.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: The pure in heart and sound in head are neither
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: afraid nor ashamed of work, and they dignify whatsoever they undertake.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: No necessary work can be degrading. But if a man
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: regards his work as such, he is already degraded not
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: by his task, but by his slavish vanity. Man hath
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: his daily work of body and mind, appointed which declares
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: his dignity. The idle man who is afraid of work
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: and the vain man who is ashamed of it are
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: both on the way to poverty, if they are not
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: already there. The industrious man who loves work and the
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: man of true dignity, who glorifies work, are both on
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: their way to affluence, if they are not already there.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: The lazy man is sowing the seeds of poverty and crime.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: The vain man is sowing the seeds of humiliation and shame.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: The industrious man is sowing the seeds of affluence and virtue.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: The dignified worker is sowing the seeds of victory and honor.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: Deeds are seeds, and the harvest will appear in due season.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: There is a common desire to acquire riches with as
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: little effort as possible, which is a kind of theft.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: To try to obtain the fruits of labor without laboring
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: is to take the fruits of another man's labor. To
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: try to get money without giving its equivalent is to
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: take that which belongs to another, and not one's self.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: What is theft but this frame of mind carried to
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: its logical extreme. Let us rejoice in our work. Let
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: us rejoice that we have the strength and capacity for work,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: and let us increase that strength and capacity by unremitting labor.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: Whatever our work may be, it is noble and will
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: be perceived by the world as noble if we perform
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: it with a noble spirit. The virtuous do not despise
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: any labor which their lot. And he who works and
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: faints not, who is faithful, patient, and uncompromising, even in
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: the time of poverty, he will surely at last eat
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: of the sweet fruits of his labor. Yea, even while
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: he labors and seems to fail, happiness will be his
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: constant companion. For blessed is the man that has found
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: his work. Let him ask no other blessedness. Light on
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: good manners and refinement, more upward, working out the beast,
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: and let the ape and tiger die. All culture is
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: getting away from the beast. Evolution is a refining process,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: and the unwritten laws of society are inherent in the
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: evolutionary law. Education is intellectual culture. The scholar is engaged
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: in purifying and perfecting his intellect. The spiritual devotee is
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: engaged in purifying and perfecting his heart. When a man
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: aspires to nobler heights of achievement and sets about the
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: realization of his ideal, he commences to refine his nature.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: And the more pure man makes himself within, the more refined, gracious,
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: and gentle will be his outward demeanor. Good manners have
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: an ethical basis and cannot be divorced from religion. To
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: be ill mannered is to be imperfect, for what are
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: ill manners? But the outward expression of inward defects what
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: a man does that he is. If he acts rudely,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: he is a rude man. If he acts foolishly, he
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: is a foolish man. If he acts gently, he is
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: a gentleman. It is a mistake to suppose that a
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: man can have a gentle and refined mind behind a
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: rough and brutal exterior, though such a man may possess
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: some strong animal virtues, As the outer is an expression
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: of the inner. One of the steps in the noble
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: will aid fold path to perfection, as expounded by Buddha,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: is right conduct or good behavior. It should be plain
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: to all that the man who has not yet learned
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: how to conduct himself toward others in a kindly, gracious,
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: and unselfish spirit has not entered the pathway of the
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: holy life. If a man refines his heart, he will
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: refine his behavior. If he refines his behavior, it will
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: help him to refine his heart. To be coarse, brutish,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: and snappish may be natural to the beast. But the
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: man who aspires to be an even or endurable member
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: of society, not to mention the higher manhood, will at
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: once purge away any such beastial traits that may possess him.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: All these things which aid in man's refinement, such as music,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: paining poetry, manners are servants and messengers of progress. Man
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: degrades himself when he imitates the brood. Let us not
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: mistake in barbarism for simplicity or vulgarity. For honesty, unselfishness, kindliness,
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: and consideration for others will always be manifested outwardly as gentleness, graciousness,
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: and refinement. To affect these graces by stimulating them may
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: seem to succeed, but it does not. Affection and hypocrisy
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: are soon divulged. Every man's eye sooner or later pierces
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: through their flimsiness, and ultimately none but the actors of
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: them are deceived. As Emerson says, what is done for
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: effect is seen to be done for effect, and what
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: is done for love is felt to be done for love.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: Children who are well bred are taught always to consider
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: the happiness of others before their own, to offer others
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: the most comfortable seat, the choicest fruit, the best tidbit,
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: and so on, and also to do everything, even the
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: most trivial acts, in the right way. And these two things,
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: unselfishness and right action, are at the basis not only
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: of good manners, but of all ethics, religion, and true living.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: They represent power and skill. The selfish man is weak
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: and unskillful in his actions. Unselfishness is the right way
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: of thinking. Good manners are the right way of acting.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: As Emerson again says, there is always a way of
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: doing everything, if it be to boil an egg. Manners
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: are the happy way of doing things right. It is
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: a frequent error among men to imagine that the higher
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: life is an ideal, something quite above and apart from
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: the common details of life, and that to neglect these
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: or to perform them in a slovenly manner is an
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: indication that the mind is preoccupied on higher things, whereas
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: it is an indication the mind is becoming inexact, dreaming
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: and weak, instead of exact, wide, awake and strong. No
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: matter how apparently trivial the thing is which has to
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: be done, there is a right way of doing it,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: and to do it in the right way saves friction,
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: time and trouble, conserves power, and develops grace, skill and happiness.
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: The artisan has a variety of tools with which to
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: ply his particular craft, and is taught and also finds
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: by experience that each tool must be applied to its
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: special use, and never under any circumstances must one tool
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: be made to do the service for another. By using
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: every tool in its proper place and the right way,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: the maximum of dexterity and power is attained. Should a
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: boy learning a trade refuse instruction and persist in using
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: the tools in his own way, making one tool do
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: service for another would never become anything better than a
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: clumsy bungler, and would be a failure in his trade.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: It is the same throughout the whole life. If a
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: man opens himself to receive instruction and studies how to
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: do everything rightly and lawfully. He becomes a strong, skillful,
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: and wise master of himself, his thoughts and actions. But
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: if he persists in following his momentary impulses and doing
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: everything as he feels prompted, not exercising thoughtfulness, and rejecting instruction,
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: such a man will attain to nothing better than a
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: slovenly and bungling life. Confucius paid the strictest attention to dress,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: eating deportment, passing speech to all the so called trivialities
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: of life, as well as to the momentous affairs of state,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: and the lofty moral principles which he expounded. He taught
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: his disciples that it is a sign of a vulgar
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: and foolish mind to regard anything as trivial that is
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: necessary to be done. That the wise man pays attention
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: to all his duties and does everything wisely, thoughtfully, and rightly.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: It is not an arbitrary edict of society that the
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: man who persists in eating with his knife be rejected,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: for a knife is given to cut with and a
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: fork to eat with, and to put things to wrong.
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: And slovenly uses even in the passing details of life,
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: does not make for progress, but is retrogressive and makes
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: for confusion. It is not a despotic condition in the
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: law of things, that so long as a man persists
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: in thinking and acting unkindly toward others, he shall be
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: shut out from heaven. He shall remain in the outer
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: pain and unrest. For selfishness is disruption and disorder. The
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: universe is sustained by exactness. It rests on order. It
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: demands right doing. And the searcher of wisdom will watch
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: all his ways. He will think purely, speak gently, and
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: act graciously, refining his entire nature. Both in the letter
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: and the spirit light on diversities of creeds. Those who
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: depart from the common track in matters of faith and
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: strike out independently in search of the higher life, as
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: distinguished from the letter of religious dogma, are apt to
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: sink into a pitfall which awaits them at the first step,
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: namely the pitfall of pride. Attacking creeds and speaking contemptuously
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: of the Orthodox, as though Orthodoxy were synonymous with evil,
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: are not uncommon practices among those who fondly imagine that
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: they are in possession of greater spiritual light. Departure from
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: Orthodoxy does not, by any means include departure from sin. Indeed,
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: it is frequently accompanied with increased bitterness and contempt. Change
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: of opinion is one thing, change of heart is quite another.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: To withdraw one's adherents from creeds is easy. To withdraw
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: one's self from sin is more difficult. Hatred and pride,
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: and not necessarily orthodoxy and conformity are the things to
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: be avoided. One's own sin, and not another man's creed,
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: is the thing to be despised. The right minded man
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: cannot pride himself on being broader than others, or assume
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: that he is on a higher plane than others, or
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: think with self righteous contempt of those who still cling
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: to some form of letter worship which he has abandoned.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: Applying the words narrow, bigoted, and selfish to others is
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: not the indication of an enlightened mind. No person would
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: wish these terms to be applied to himself, and he
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: who is becoming truly religious does not speak of others
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: in words which would wound him were they direct toward himself.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: Those who are learning how to exercise humility and compassion
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: are becoming truly enlightened, thinking lowly of themselves and kindly
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: of others, condemning their own sins with merciless logic, and
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: thinking with tender pity of the sins of others. They
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: develop that insight into the nature and law of things,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: which enables them to see the truth that is in
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: others and in the religions of others. They do not
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: condemn their neighbour because he holds a different faith, or
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: because he adheres to a formal creed. Creeds must be,
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: and he who performs faithfully his duty in his own
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: particular creed, not interfering with or condemning his neighbor in
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: the performance of his duty, is bringing the world nearer
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: to perfection and peace. Amid all the diversities of creeds,
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: there is a unifying power of undying and unalterable love.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: And he or she who has love has entered into
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: sympathetic union with all. He who has acquired the true
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: spirit of religion, who has attained to pure insight and
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: deep charity of heart, will avoid all strife and condemnation.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: He will not fall into the delusion of praising his
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: own sect, should he belong to one and try to
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: prove that it alone is right, or disparage other sects
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: and try to prove that they are false. As the
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: true man does not speak in praise of himself or
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: his own work, so the man of humility, charity, and
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: wisdom does not speak of his own sect as being
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: superior to all others. He does not seek to elevate
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: his own particular religion by picking wholes and forms of
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: faith which are held sacred by others. Nothing more explicit
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: and magnanimous has ever been uttered in reference to this
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: particular phrase of the practice of charity than is to
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: be found in the twelfth Edict of a Shoka, the
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: great Indian ruler and saint, who lives some two or
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: three centuries previous to the Christian era, and whose life
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: dedicated to the spread of truth testified to the beauty
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: of his words. The edict runs thus, there should be
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: no praising of one's own sect and a crying of
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: other sex, but on the contrary, a rendering of honor
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: to other sex for whatever cause honor may be due.
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: By so doing, both one's own sect may be helped
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: forward and the other sex will be benefited. By acting otherwise,
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: one's own sect will be destroyed in injuring others. Whosoever
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: exalts his own sect by decrying others does so doubtless
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: out of love for his own sect, thinking to spread
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: abroad the fame thereof. But on the contrary, he inflicts
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: the more and injury upon his own sect. These are
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: wise and holy words. The breath of dead charity is
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: in them, and they may be well pondered upon by
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: those who are anxious to overthrow not the religions of
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: other men, but their own shortcomings. It is a dark
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: and deep seated delusion that causes a man to think
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: that he can best advance the cause of his religion
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: by expousing what he regards as the evils of other religions.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: The most part of it is that while such a
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: one rejoices in the thought that by continually belittling other sects,
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: he will perhaps at last wipe them out and win
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: all men to his side, he is all the time
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: engaged in the sad work of bringing into disrepute and
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: thereby destroying his own sect. Just as every time a
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: man slanders another, he inflicts lasting injury upon his own
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: character and prospects, so every time one speaks evil of
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: another sect he soils and demeans his own. And the
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: man who is prone to attack and condemn other religions
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: is the one who suffers most when his own religion
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: is attacked and condemned. If a man does not like
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: that his own religion should be denounced as evil and false,
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: he should carefully guard himself that he does not condemn
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: other religions as such. If it pleases him, when his
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: own cause is well spoken of and helped, he should
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: speak well of and help other causes, which, while differing
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: from his own in method, have the same good view
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: in the end. In this way he will escape the
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: errors and miseries of sectarian strife, and will perfect himself
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: in divine charity. The heart that has embraced gentleness and
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: charity avoids all those blind passions which keep the fires
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: of party strife, violence, persecution, and bitterness burning from age
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: to age. It dwells in thoughts of pity and tenderness,
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: scorning nothing, despising nothing, and not stirring up animosity. For
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: he who acquires gentleness gains that clear insight into the
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: great Law which cannot be obtained in any other way.
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: He sees that there is good in all sects and religions,
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: and he makes that good his own. Let the truth
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: seek or avoid divisions and offending distinctions, and let him
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: strive after charity. For charity does not slander, backbite, or condemn.
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: It does not think of trampling down in other's and
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: elevating its own. Truth cannot contradict itself. The nature of
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: truth is exactness, reality, undeviating certitude. Why then, the ceaseless
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: conflict between the religions and creeds is it not because
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: of error? Contradiction and conflict belong to the domain of error.
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: For error being confusion is in the nature of self contradiction.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: If the Christian says my religion is true and Buddhism
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: is false, and if the Buddhist says Christianity is false
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: and Buddhism is true, we are confronted with an irreconcilable contradiction.
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: For these two religions cannot be both true and false.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: Such a contradiction cannot come from truth and must therefore
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: spring from error. But if both these religious partisans should
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: now say or think yes, truly, the contradiction springs from error.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: But the error is in the other man. In his religion,
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: and not me and mine. This does but intensify the contradiction.
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: From where then springs the error and where is truth?
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: Does not the very attitude of mind which these men
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: adopt toward each other constitute the error. And were they
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: to reverse that attitude, exchanging antagonism for good will, would
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: they not perceive the truth which does not stand in
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: conflict with itself. The man who says my religion is
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: true and my neighbours as false, has not yet discovered
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: the truth in his own religion. But when a man
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: has done that, he will see the truth in all religions.
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: As behind all the universal phenomena, there is but one truth,
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: so behind all the religions and creeds, there is but
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: one religion. For every religion contains the same ethical teaching,
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: and all the great teachers taught exactly the same thing.
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: The precepts of the Sermon on the Mount are to
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: be found in all religions. The life which these precepts
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: demand was lived by the great teachers and many of
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: their disciples. For the truth is a pure heart and
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: a blameless life, and not a set of dogmas and opinions.
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: All religions teach purity of heart, holiness of life, compassion, love,
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: and good will. They teach the doing of good deeds
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: and the giving up of selfishness and sin. These things
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: are not dogmas, theologies, and opinions. They are things to
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: be done, things to be practiced, to be lived. Men
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: do not differ about these things, for they are the
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: acknowledged verities of every sect. What, then, do they differ
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: about about their opinions, their speculations, their theologies. Men differ
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: about that which is unreal, not that which is real.
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: They fight over error and not over truth. The very
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: essential of all religion and religions is that before a
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: man can know anything of truth, he must cease from
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: fighting his fellow man, and shall learn to regard him
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: with good will and love. How can a man do
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: this while he is convinced that his neighbour's religion is false,
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: that it is his duty to do all that he
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: can to undermine and overthrow it. This is not doing
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: unto others, as we would that they should do to us.
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: That which is true and real is true and real
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: everywhere and always. There is no distinction between the pious
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: Christian and the pious Buddhist. Purity of heart, piety of life,
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: holy aspirations, and the love of truth are the same
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: in the Buddhist as the Christian. The good deeds of
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: the Buddhists are not different from the good deeds of
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: the Christian. Remorse for sin and sorrow for wrong thoughts
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: and deeds springs in the hearts not only of Christians,
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: but of men and women of all religions. Great is
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: the need of sympathy, Great is the need of love.
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: All religions are the same in that they teach the
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: same fundamental truths, But men, instead of practicing these truths,
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: engage opinions and speculations about things which are outside the
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: range of knowledge and experience. And it is in defending
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: and promulgating their own particular speculations that men become divided
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: and engage in conflict with each other. Condemnation is the
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: beginning of persecution. The thought I am right and you
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: are wrong is a seed prolific of hatred. It was
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: out of this seed that the Spanish Inquisition grew. He
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: who would find the universal truth must abandon egotism and
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: quench the hateful flames of condemnation. He must remove from
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: his heart the baneful thought. All others are wrong, and
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: think the illuminating thought. It is I who am wrong.
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: And having thus thought, he will cease from sin, and
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: will live in love and goodwill toward all, making no distinctions,
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: engaging in no divisions, a peacemaker and not a partisan.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: Thus living charitably disposed to all, he will become one withal.
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: He will comprehend the universal truth, the eternal religion. For
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: while error and selfishness divide, truth demonstrates true truth, and
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: religion unifies light on law and miracle. The love of
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: the wonderful is an element in human nature, which, like
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: passions and desires, requires to be curved, directed, and finally transmuted.
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: Otherwise superstition and the obscuration of reason and insight cannot
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: be avoided. The idea of a miracle must be transcended
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: before the orderly, eternal, and beneficent nature of the law
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: can be perceived. Then peace and certainty, which knowledge bestows,
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: can be enjoyed. Just as a child, when its eyes
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: are open to the phenomena of this world, becomes involved
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: in wonder and revels in tales of giants and fairies,
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: so when a man first opens his mental eyes to
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: spiritual things. Does he become involved in stories of marvels
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: and miracles as a child at last becomes a man
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: and leaves behind the crudities of childhood, understanding more accurately
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: the relative nature of the phenomena around him. So, with
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: a fuller spiritual development and greater familiarity with the inner realities,
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: a man at last leaves behind the era of childish wonderment.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: He comes into touch with the law of things, and
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: governs his life by principles that are fixed and invariable.
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: Law is universal and eternal, And although vast areas of
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: knowledge are waiting to be revealed, cause and effect will
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: ever prevail every new discovery. Every truth revealed will serve
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: to bring one nearer to the realization of the beauty, stability,
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: and supremacy of the Law. And very gladdening it is
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: to know that the law is inviolable and eternal throughout
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: every department of nature, For then we know that the
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: same operations of the universe are ever the same, and
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: can therefore be discovered, understood, obeyed. This is a ground
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: of certainty, and therefore of great hope and joy. The
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: idea of miracle is a denial of law and the
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: substitution of an arbitrary and capricious power. It is true
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: that around the lives of the great teachers of humanity,
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: stories of miracles have grown, but they have emanated from
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: the undeveloped minds of the people, not from the teachers themselves.
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: Laotza expounded the supreme law or reason, which emits no miracle.
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: Yet his religion has today become so corrupted with the
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: introduction of the marvelous as to be little better than
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: a mass of superstition. Even Buddhism, whose founder declared that
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: seeing the law of Karma, cause and effect governs all things,
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: the disciple who aims at performing miracles does not understand
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: the doctrine, and that the desire to perform miracles arises
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: either from covechiuousness or vanity. Has surrounded, in its corrupted form,
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: the life of its great master with a number of miracles.
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: Even during the lifetime of Rama Krishna, the Hindu teacher
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: who died in eighteen eighty six and who is regarded
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: by his disciples as an incarnation of deity. To this age,
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: all sorts of miracles were attributed to him by the people,
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: and are now associated with his name. Yet, according to
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: Max Muller, these miracles are without any foundation of evidence
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: or fact, and Ramakrishna himself ridiculed and repudiated miracle. As
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: men become more enlightened, miracles in wonder working will be
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: expunged from all religion, and the orderly beauty of law
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: and the ethical grandeur of obedience to the law will
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: become revealed and known. No man who desires to perform
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: miracles or astral or psychological wonders, who is curious to
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: see invisible or supernatural things, who is ambitious to become
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: a master or an adept, can attain a clear perception
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: of truth and the living of the highest life. Childish
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: wonderment about things must be supplanted by knowledge of things,
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: and vanity is a complete barrier to the entrance of
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: the true path, which demands of the disciple lowliness of
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: heart and humility. He is on the true path who
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: is cultivating kindness forbearance and a loving heart. The marks
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: of a true master are not miracles in wonder working,
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: but infinite patience, boundless compassion, spotless purity, and a heart
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: at peace withal light on war in peace, war springs
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: from inward strife. War in heaven precedes war on earth.
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: When the inward spiritual harmony is destroyed by division and conflict,
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: it will manifest itself outwardly in the form of war.
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: Without this inward conflict, war could not be, nor can
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: war cease, until the inward harmony is restored. War consists
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: of aggression and resistance, and after the fight has commenced,
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: both combatants are like aggressors and resisters. Thus, an effort
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: to put an end to war by aggressive means produces war.
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: I have set myself stubbornly against the war spirit, said
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: a man a short time ago. He did not know
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: that he was, by that attitude of mind practicing and
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: fostering the war spirit. To fight against war is to
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: produce war. It is impossible to fight for peace, because
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: all fighting is the annihilation of peace. To think of
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: putting an end to war by denouncing and fighting it
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: is the same as trying to quench the fire by
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: throwing straw upon it. He therefore, who is truly a
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: person of peace, does not resist war, but practices peace.
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: He therefore, who takes sides and practices attack and defense,
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: is responsible for war. For he is always at war
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: in his mind. He cannot know the nature of peace,
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: for he has not arrived at peace in his own heart.
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: The true man of peace is he who has put
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: away from his mind the spirit of quarreling and party strife,
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: who neither attacks others nor defends himself, and whose heart
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: is at peace withal Such a man has already laid
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: in his heart the foundations of the empire of peace.
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: He is a peace maker, for he is at peace
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: with the whole world, and practices the spirit of peace
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: under all circumstances. Very beautiful is the spirit of peace,
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: and it says, come and rest. Bickerings, quarrelings, party divisions,
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: These must be forever abandoned by him who would establish peace.
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: War will continue so long as men will allow themselves
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: else individually, to be dominated by passion. And only when
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: men have quelled the inward tumult will the outward horror
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: pass away. Self is the great enemy, the producer of
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: all strife, and the maker of many sorrows. He therefore,
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: who will bring about peace on earth. Let him overcome egotism,
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: let him subdue his passions, let him conquer himself. Light
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: on the brotherhood, of man. There is no lack of
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: writing in preaching about universal brotherhood, and it has been
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: adopted as a leading article of faith by many newly
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: formed societies. But what is so urgently needed to begin
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: with is not universal brotherhood, but particular brotherhood. That is,
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: the adoption of a magnanimous, charitable, and kindly spirit toward
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: those with whom we come in immediate contact, toward those
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: who contradict, oppose, and attack us, as well as toward
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: those who love and agree with us. I make a
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: very simple statement of truth when I say that until
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: such particular brotherhood is practiced, universal brotherhood will remain a
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: meaningless term. For universal brotherhood is an end a goal,
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: and the way to it is by particular brotherhood. The
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: one is sublime in far reaching consummation. The other is
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: the means by which that consummation must be realized. I remember,
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: on one occasion reading a paper devoted largely to the
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: teachings of universal brotherhood, and the leading article along and
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: learned one was the exposition of this subject. But on
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: turning over a few more pages, I found another piece
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: by the same writer in which he accused of misrepresentation, lying,
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: and selfishness not his enemies, but the brethren of his
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: own society, who bear at least as far such sins
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: are concerned, stainless reputations. A scriptural writer asks the question,
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: if a man does not love his brother whom he
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: has seen, how can he love God, whom he has
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: not seen? In the same manner, if a man does
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: not love the brother whom he knows, how can he
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: love people of all creeds and all nations whom he
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: does not know. To write articles on universal brotherhood is
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: one thing. To live in peace with one's relations and neighbors,
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: and to return good for evil is quite another. To
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: endeavor to propagate universal brotherhood while fostering in our heart
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: some sparks of envy, spite, and resentment, malice or hatred
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: is to be self deluded. For thus shall we be
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: all the time, hindering and denying by our actions that
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: which we eulogize by our words. So subtle is such
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: self delusion that, until the very heights of love and
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: wisdom are reached, we are all liable at any moment
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: to fall into it. It is not because our fellow
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: men do not hold our views, or follow our religion,
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: or see as we see that universal brotherhood remains unrealized,
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: but because of the prevalence of ill will. If we hate, avoid,
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: and condemn others because they differ from us, all that
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: we may say or do in the cause of universal
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: brotherhood will be another snare to our feet, a mockery
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: to our aspirations, and a farce to the world at large.
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: Let us then remove all hatred and malice from our hearts.
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: Let us be filled with good will toward those who
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: try and test us by their immediate nearness. Let us
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: love them that hate us, and think magnanimously of those
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: who condemn us or our doctrine. In a word, let
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: us take the first step toward universal brotherhood by practicing
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: brotherhood in the place where it is most needed. And
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: as we succeed in being brotherly and these important particulars,
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: universal brotherhood will be found to be not far distant
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: light on life's sorrows. There is great sorrow in the world.
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: This is one of the supreme facts of life. Grief
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: and affliction visit every heart, and many that are today
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: reveling in hilarious joy or sinful riot, will tomorrow be
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: smitten low and sorrow. Suddenly, and with swift and silent
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: certainty comes its poignant arrow, entering the human heart, slaying
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: its joy, laying low its hopes, and shattering all its
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: earthly plans and prospects. Then the humbled, smitten soul reflects
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: and enters deeply and sympathetically into the hidden meanings of
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: human life. In the dark times of sorrow, men and
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: women approach very near to truth. When in one brief
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: hour the build up of hopes of many years of
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: toil fall like a toy palace, and all earthly pleasures
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: burst and vanish like petty bubbles in the grasp, Then
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: the crushed spirit, bewildered tempest, tossed and without a refuge,
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: gropes in dumb anguish for the eternal and seeks its
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: abiding peace. Blest are they that mourn, said the Teacher
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: of the West, and the Teacher of the East declared
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: that where there is great suffering, there is great bliss.
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: Both of these sayings express the truth that sorrow is
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: a teacher and purifier. Sorrow is not the end of life,
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: though it is, in its consummation the end of the
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: worldly life. It leads the bewildered spirit into rest and safety.
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: For the end of sorrow is joy and peace. Strong
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: searcher for truth, strenuous fighter against self and passion. Seasons
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: of sorrow must be your portion for a time while
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: any vest of self remains. Temptations will assail you. The
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: veil of illusion will cloud your spiritual vision, producing sorrow
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: and unrest. When heavy clouds settle down upon your spirit,
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: accept the darkness as your own, and pass through it
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: bravely into the cloudless light beyond. Bear well in mind
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: that nothing can overtake you that does not belong to you,
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: and that is not for your eternal good. As the
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: poet has truly sung, not space, nor time, nor deep
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: nor high can keep my own way from me, and
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: not alone. Are the bright things of life yours. The
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: dark things are yours also when difficulties in trouble gather
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: thickly about you, when failures come and friends fall away,
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: when the tongue that has sweetly praised you bitterly blames,
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: when beloved lips that pressed against your lips, the soft,
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: warm kisses of love taunt and mock you in the
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: lonely hour of your solitary grief, or when you lay
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: beneath the sod the cold casket of clay, that but
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: yesterday held the responsive spirit of your beloved. When these
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: things overtake you, remember that the hour of your gastnemy
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: has come. The cup of anguish is yours to drink.
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: Drink it silently and murmur not, For in that hour
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: of oppressive darkness and blinding pain, no prayer will save you,
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: No cry to Heaven will bring you sweet relief. Faith
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: and patience only will give you the strength to endure
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: and to go through your crucifixion with a meek and
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: gentle spirit, not complaining, blaming no one, but accepting it
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: as your own. When one has reached the lowest point
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: of sorrow, when weak and exhausted and overcome with a
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: sense of powerlessness, he cries to God for help, and
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: there comes no answering comfort and no relief. Then, discovering
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: the painfulness of sorrow and the insufficiency of prayer alone,
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: he is ready to enter the path of self renunciation,
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: ready to purify his heart, ready to practice self control,
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: ready to become a spiritual athlete, and to develop that
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: divine and invincible strength which is born of self mastery.
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: He will find the cause of sorrow in his own
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: heart and will remove it. He will learn to stand alone,
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: not craving sympathy from any but giving it to all,
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: not thoughtlessly sinning and remorsefully repenting, but studying how not
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: to commit sin. Humbled by innumerable defects and chastened by
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: many sufferings, he will learn how to act blamelessly toward others,
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: how to be gentle and strong, kind and steadfast, compassionate,
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: and wise. Thus he will gradually rise above sorrow, and
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: at last truth will dawn upon his mind, and he
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: will understand the meaning of abiding peace. His mental eye
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: will be open to perceive the cosmic order. He will
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: be blessed with the vision of the law, and will
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: receive beautific bliss. When the true order of things is perceived,
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: sorrow is transcended. When the contracted personal self, which hugs
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: its own fleeting pleasures and broods over its own petty
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: disappointments and dissatisfactions, is broken up and cast away. Then
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: the larger life of truth enters the mind, bringing bliss
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 1: and peace, and the universal will takes the place of self.
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: The individual becomes one with humanity. He forgets self in
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: his love for all. His sorrow is swallowed up in
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: the bliss of truth. Thus, when you have by experience
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: entered completely into the sorrow that is never lifted from
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: the heart of humankind, when you have reaped and eaten
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: all the bitter fruits of your own wrong thoughts and deeds,
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: then div find compassion for all suffering beings will be
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: borne in your heart, healing all your wounds and drying
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: all your tears. You will rise again into a new
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: and heavenly life, where the sting of sorrow cannot enter,
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: for there is no self. There After the crucifixion comes
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: the transfiguration. The sorrowless state is reached through sorrow, and
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: the wise do not grieve. Ever, remember this, in the
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: midst of sin and sorrow, there abides the world of truth.
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: Redemption is at hand. The troubled may find peace, the
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: impure may find purity. Healing awaits the broken hearted. The
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: weak will be adorned with strength, and the downtrodden will
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: be lifted up and glorified. Light on life's changes, the
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: tendency of things to advance from a lower to a
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: higher level, and from high to higher still is universal.
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: The worlds exist in order that beings may experience and
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: by experiencing, acquire knowledge, and increase in wisdom. Evolution is
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: only another name for progress. It signifies perpetual change, but
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: a purposeful change, a change accompanied by growth. Evolution does
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: not mean the creation of a new being from a
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: being of a different order. It means the modification of
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: things by experience and change, and such modification as progress.
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: The fact of change is ever before us. Nothing can
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: escape it. Plants, animals, and human beings germinate, reach maturity
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: and pass into decay. Even the lordly suns and their
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: attendant worlds rolling through illimitable spaces, although their life is
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: reckoned in millions of years, at last decay in parish,
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 1: after having passed through innumerable changes. We cannot say of
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: any being or object this will forever as it is,
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: for even while we are saying it, the being or
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: object would be undergoing change. Sadness and suffering accompany this change,
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: and beings mourn for that which has departed, for the
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: things which are lost and gone. Yet in reality, change
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 1: is good, for it is the open door to all achievement, advancement,
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: and perfection. Mind as well as matter, is subject to
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 1: the same change. Every experience, every thought, every deed changes
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: a person. There is little resemblance between the elderly and
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: their period of childhood and youth, and eternally fixed, unchangeable
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: being is not known. Such a being may be assumed,
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 1: but it is a postulate only. It is not within
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: the range of human observation and knowledge. A being not
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: subject to change would be a being outside progress. There
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 1: is a teaching which declares that man has a spiritual
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: soul that is eternally pure, eternally unchanged, eternally perfect, and
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: that sinning, suffering, changing man as we see him is
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: an illusion. That indeed, the spiritual soul is the man,
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: and the other is on reality. There is another teaching
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 1: that affirms that man is eternally imperfect, that stainless purity
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 1: can never be reached, and that perfection is an impossibility,
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: an illusion. It will be found that these two extremes
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: have no relation to human experience. They are both of
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 1: the nature of speculative metaphysics, which stands in opposition to
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: the facts of life, so much so that the adherents
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 1: of these two extremes deny the existence of the commonest,
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: everyday facts of human experience. That which is assumed is
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: regarded as real, the facts of life are declared to
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: be unreal. It is well to avoid both these extremes
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: and find the middle way of human experience sperience. It
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 1: is well to avoid opinions and speculation of our own
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 1: or others. It is well to refer to the facts
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: of life. We see that man passes through birth and
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 1: growth and old age, that he experiences sin, sickness, and death,
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 1: that he sorrows and suffers, aspires and rejoices, and that
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: he is ever looking forward to greater purity and striving
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: toward perfection. These are not opinions, speculations, or metaphysics. They
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 1: are universal facts. If man were already perfect, there would
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: be no need for him to be perfected, and all
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: moral teaching would be useless and ridiculous. Moreover, a perfect
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 1: being could not be subject to illusion and unreality. On
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: the other hand, if a man could never attain to
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 1: purity and perfection, his aspirations in striving would be useless.
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: They would indeed be mockeries, and the heavenly perfection of
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: saintly and divine men and women would have to be
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: belittled and denied. We see around us sins, sorrow, and suffering,
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: and we see before us in the lives of the
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: great teachers, the sinless, sorrowless divine state. Therefore we know
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: that man is an imperfect being, yet capable of and
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: destined for perfection, the divine state toward which he aspires
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: he will reach. The fact that he so ardently desires.
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: It means that he can reach it, even if the
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: fact were not demonstrated in those great ones who have
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: already attained. Man is not a compound of two beings,
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: one real and perfect, the other unreal and imperfect. He
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: is one and real, and his experiences are real. His
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: imperfection is apparent, and his advancement and progress are also apparent.
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 1: The realities of life claim men in spite of their metaphysics,
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: and all come under the same law of change in progress.
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: He who affirms the eternal sinlessness and perfection of man
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: should not to be logical and consistent, ever speak of
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 1: sins and faults, of disease and death. Yet he refers
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: to these things as matters to be dealt with. Thus,
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 1: in theory he denies the existence of that which he
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: habitually recognizes. In practice, he also who denies the possibility
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: of perfection, should not aspire or strive. Yet we find
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: him practicing self denial and striving ceaselessly toward perfection. Holding
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: to the theoretical does not absolve one from the inevitable.
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 1: The teacher of the unreality of sickness, old, age, and
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 1: death is at last caught in the toils of disease,
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: succumbs to age, and disappears in death. Change is not
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: only inevitable, it is the constant and unvarying law. Without it,
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 1: everything would remain forever as it is, and they would
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 1: be neither growth nor progress. The strenuous struggle of all
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: life is a prophecy of his perfection. The looking upward
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 1: of all beings is evidence of their ceaseless ascension. Aspirations, ideals,
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: moral aims, while they denote man's imperfection, assuredly point to
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: his future perfection. They are neither unnecessary nor aimless, but
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 1: are woven into the fabric of things. They belong to
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: the vital essence of the universe. Whatsoever a man believes
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: or disbelieves, what theories he holds or does not hold,
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: one thing is certain. He is found in the stream
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: of life and must think and act. To think and
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: act is to experience, and to experience is to change
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: and develop. That man is conscious of sin means that
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: he can become pure. That he abhors evil, sin dignifies
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 1: that he can reach up to good. That he is
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: a pilgrim in the land of error assures us without
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 1: doubt that he will at last come to the beautiful
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: city of truth. Light on the truth of transitoriness. It
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: is well sometimes to meditate deeply and seriously on the
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: truth of transitoriness. By meditation we will come to perceive
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: how all compounded things must pass away. Yea, how even
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: while they remain, they are already in the process of
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: passing away. Such meditation will soften the heart, deepen the understanding,
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: and render one more fully conscious of the sacred nature
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: of life. What is there that does not pass away?
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: Among all the things of which a man says, this
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: will be mine tomorrow. Even the mind is continually changing.
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: Old characteristics die and pass away, and new ones are formed.
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: In the midst of life, all things are dying. Nothing endures,
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 1: nothing can be retained. Things appear and disappear, They become,
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: and then they pass away. The ancient sages declare the
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 1: visible universe to be maya illusion, meaning thereby that impermanency
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: is the anti thesis of reality. Change and decay are
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: in the very nature of visible things, and they are
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: unreal illusory in the sense that they pass away forever.
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 1: He who would ascend into the realms of reality, who
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: would penetrate into the world of truth, must first perceive
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: with no uncertain vision, the transitory nature of the things
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: of life. He must cease to delude himself into believing
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: that he can retain his hold on his possessions, his body,
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: his pleasures, and objects of pleasure. For as the flower fades,
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 1: and as the leaves of the tree fall in wither,
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: so must these things, in their sins, pass away forever.
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 1: The perception of the truth of transitoriness is one of
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: the few great steps in wisdom. For when it is
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: fully grasp and this lesson has sunk deeply into the heart,
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 1: the clinging to perishable things, which is the cause of
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 1: all sorrow, will be yielded up, and the search for
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 1: the truth which abides will be accelerated. Anguish is rife
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 1: because men and women set their hearts on the acquisition
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: of things that perish, because they lust for the possession
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: of those things which even when obtained cannot be retained.
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 1: There is no sorrow that would not vanish if the
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: clinging to transient things were given up. There is no
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: grief that would not be dispersed if the desire to
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: have and hold things which in their very nature cannot
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 1: endure were taken out of the heart. Tens of thousands
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: of grief stricken hearts are today bewailing the loss of
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 1: some loved object, which they called theirs. In days that
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 1: are past, are weeping over that which is gone forever
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 1: and cannot be restored. Men are slow to learn the
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 1: lessons of experience and to acquire wisdom, and unnumbered griefs
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 1: and pains and sorrows have failed to impress them with
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: the truth of transitoriness. He who clings to that which
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 1: is impermanent cannot escape sorrow, and the intensity of his
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: sorrow will be measured by the strength of his clinging.
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: He who sets his heart on perishable things embraces the
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: companionship of grief and lamentation. Men and women cannot find
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 1: wisdom because they will not renounce the clinging to things.
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 1: They believe that clinging to perishable objects is the source
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 1: of happiness, and not the cause of sorrow. They cannot
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 1: escape unrest and enter into the life of peace, because
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 1: desire is difficult to quench, and the immediate and transitory
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 1: pleasure which gratified desire affords is mistaken for by joy.
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 1: It is because the true order of things is not
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: understood that grief is universal. It is ignorance of the
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: fleeting nature of things that lies at the root of sorrow.
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 1: The sting of anguish will be taken out of life.
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: When the luss to hold and to preserve the things
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: of decay is taken out of the heart, sorrow is ended.
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 1: For him who sees things as they are, who, realizing
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 1: the nature of transiency, detaches his heart and mind from
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 1: the things that perish. There is a right use for
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 1: perishable things, and when they are rightly used and not
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 1: doted upon for themselves alone, their loss will cause no sorrow.
• 2:15:42
  Speaker 1: If a rich man thinks in his heart, my riches
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 1: and possessions are no part of me, nor can I
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 1: call them mine, seeing that when I am summoned to
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 1: depart from this world, I cannot take them with me.
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: They are entrusted to me to be used rightly, and
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 1: I will employ them to the best of my ability
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 1: for the good of men and for the world. Such
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 1: a man, though surrounded by luxuries and responsibilities, will be
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 1: lifted above sorrow and will draw nearer to truth. On
• 2:16:12
  Speaker 1: the other hand, if the poor man does not covet
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: riches and possessions, his condition will cause him no anxiety
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: and unrest. He who, by a right understanding of life
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 1: reads his heart of all selfish grasping and clinging, who
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: uses things wisely and in their proper place, and who,
• 2:16:32
  Speaker 1: with chastened heart and mind, clarified of all thirsty desires,
• 2:16:36
  Speaker 1: remains serene and self contained. In the midst of all changes,
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: such a man will find truth. He will stand face
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: to face with reality. For in the midst of all
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: error there abides truth. At the heart of the transiency,
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 1: there reposes the permanent, and illusion does but veil the
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 1: eternal and unchanging reality. The nature of that reaction is
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 1: not my purpose to deal with here. Let it suffice
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: that I indicate that it is only found by abandoning
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 1: in the heart all that is not of love and compassion, wisdom,
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: and purity. In these things there is no element of transitoriness,
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 1: no sorrow, and no unrest. When the truth of transitoriness
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: is well perceived, And when the lesson contained in the
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: truth of transitoriness is well learned, Then does a man
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 1: set out to find the abiding truth? Then does he
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: wean his heart from those selfish elements which are productive
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 1: of sorrow. He whose treasure is truth, who fashions his
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 1: life in accordance with wisdom, will find the joy which
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 1: does not pass away. He will leave behind him the
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 1: land of lamentation, and crossing the wide ocean of illusion,
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: will come to the sorrowless sure the light that never
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 1: goes out amid the multitude of conflicting opinions and theories,
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: and caught in the struggle of existing stance. Whither shall
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: the confused truth seeker turn to find the path that
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 1: leads to peace unending? To What refuge shall he fly
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 1: from the uncertainties and sorrows of change? Will he find
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: peace in pleasure? Pleasure has its place, and in its
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: place it is good, But as an end, as a refuge,
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: it affords no shelter. He who seeks it as such
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 1: does but increase the anguish of his life. For what
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 1: is more fleeting than pleasure, and what is more empty
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 1: than the heart that seeks satisfaction in so ephemeral a thing.
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: There is therefore no abiding refuge in pleasure. Will he
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 1: find peace in wealth and worldly success. Wealth and worldly
• 2:18:46
  Speaker 1: success have their place, But they are fickle and uncertain possessions,
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 1: and he who seeks them for themselves alone will be
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 1: burdened with many anxieties and cares. When the storms of
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 1: adversity sweep over his glittering yet frail habitation, he will
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 1: find himself helpless and exposed. But even should he maintain
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: such possessions throughout life, what satisfaction will they afford him
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: in the hour of death? There is no abiding refuge
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 1: in wealth and worldly success. Will he find peace in health.
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 1: Health has its place and should not be thrown away
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 1: or despised, But it belongs to the body, which is
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 1: destined for dissolution, and is thereby perishable. Even should health
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: be maintained for a hundred years, the time will come
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: when the physical energies will decline, and debility and decay
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: will overtake them. There is no abiding refuge in health.
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: Will he find refuge in those whom he dearly loves.
• 2:19:47
  Speaker 1: Those whom he loves have their place in his life.
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: They afford him means of practicing unselfishness, and thereby arriving
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 1: at truth. He should cherish them with loving care and
• 2:19:58
  Speaker 1: consider their needs be for his own. But the time
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: will come when they will be separated from him, and
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: he will be left alone. There is no abiding refuge
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 1: in loved ones. Will he find peace in this scripture
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 1: or that scripture feels an important place as a guide.
• 2:20:17
  Speaker 1: It is good, but it cannot be a refuge, For
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 1: one may know the scripture by heart yet be in
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: sore conflict and unrest. The theories of men are subject
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: to successive changes, and no limit can be set to
• 2:20:31
  Speaker 1: the variety of textual interpretations. There is no abiding refuge
• 2:20:35
  Speaker 1: in scripture. Will he find rest in this teacher? Or
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: that the teacher has his place, and as an instructor
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: he renders good service. But teachers are numerous, and their
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: differences are many. Though one may regard his particular teaching
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: as in possession of the truth, that teacher will one
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 1: day be taken from him. There is no abiding refuge
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 1: in a t Will he find peace in solitude? Solitude
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 1: is good and necessary in its place, but he who
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 1: courts it as a lasting refuge will be like one
• 2:21:11
  Speaker 1: perishing of thirst in a waterless desert. He will escape
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 1: men and the turmoil of the city, but he will
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 1: not escape himself in the unrest of the heart. There
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 1: is no abiding rest in solitude. If then the seeker
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: can find no refuge in pleasure, in success, in health,
• 2:21:31
  Speaker 1: in family and friends, in scripture, in the teacher, or
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 1: in solitude, whither shall he turn to find that sanctuary
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 1: which shall afford abiding peace. Let him take refuge in righteousness.
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: Let him fly to the sanctuary of a purified heart.
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 1: Let him enter the pathway of a blameless, stainless life,
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 1: and walk it meekly and patiently, until it brings him
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 1: to the eternal temple of truth in his own heart.
• 2:22:01
  Speaker 1: He who has taken refuge in truth, even in the
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 1: habitation of a wise understanding and a loving and steadfast heart,
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 1: is the same weather in pleasure or pain, wealth or poverty,
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: success or failure, health or sickness, with friends or without,
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 1: in solitude or noisy haunts. And he is independent of
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 1: bibles and teachers, for the spirit of truth instructs him.
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: He perceives without fear or sorrow the change and decay
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: which are in all things. He has found peace. He
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 1: has entered the abiding sanctuary. He knows the light that
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 1: will never go out.