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subscribe Tell a friend EARLY WRITINGS - 1927 1928 1929
THE RIGHT BASIS OF LIFE
1928
In order to help truly, we must have touched the source of our being; and from that source we can start to make all things new.
In order to understand the truth that we are different and yet are one, we must have knowledge and experience. Unity does not mean that we have destroyed variety or difference -on the contrary- it would be terribly monotonous if we were all alike, if we all had the same point of view, the same outlook. We all look at the Truth, but through our own individual understanding.
The difference between an ordinary person and a genius is that the genius has touched the source, which is the Truth. But the ordinary person, even if his desire were to help, will not be of real use to the world, as he has not perceived the Truth. So those who desire to help must first understand something of the Truth. Most of you at present are still like children who need to be instructed; but as time goes on and you struggle, both individually and collectively, to acquire knowledge for yourselves, that knowledge will become a part of you. And when knowledge has become your own, when it is of your own acquirement that which you have gained through suffering, through pleasure, and through intense joys, whatever you do, whatever your actions and feelings may be will bear the stamp of Truth.
Then you must make Beauty a dominant aim in life: the beauty that does not mean the accumulation of superficial things, but which is simplicity. Simplicity is greatness; simplicity of character, simplicity of mind, simplicity of body, creates perfection. Let us look for a moment at the Greeks. They had none of our modern conveniences, none of the paraphernalia of modern civilization; but they had that sense of true beauty, which is simplicity. You cannot be truly beautiful if you have not beautiful minds and clean hearts, if you have not great and noble ideas and feelings. By creating superficial beauty you may think that you have achieved perfection; but when stripped of its physical covering, the ugly savage is still there.
Spirituality means beauty -beauty in thought, beauty in feeling, and beauty in action. Most of you are ever trying to find new ways and means of achieving physical perfection, but you do not turn your minds to that which is lasting. If you start from the right point of view, from the right source, you will make the physical more beautiful because you have minds and hearts which are really noble, really great.
Many think that spirituality means seriousness and gloom. Spirituality, if properly understood, is the science of happiness; because the only goal worth attaining is the perfect happiness which comes when you have made your body, your mind and your emotions perfectly in unison with your will. What causes happiness and unhappiness? Unhappiness arises when you do not understand, when you have not conquered worry and depression. But when you have discovered that source which is Truth and Life, you are not then the slaves of weal or woe, the world then has no hold on you. The transient things have no value, and you learn to stand apart from them and watch.
If you look on spirituality as the kingdom in which you can find happiness, to which you can go whenever you are really thrilled with life, whenever you see great beauty, whenever you have great visions, whenever you read great literature, whenever you feel acute sorrow or great joy, then it becomes part of you, then you live eternally in that kingdom. Spirituality is not the knowledge of books, it is not theories of life -it lies within yourselves. When you have found it you shall have the happiness that cannot be destroyed, which shall not wither with time or age.
From that point of view, wherever there is struggle, wherever there is sorrow, wherever there is happiness, wherever there is the desire to live nobly and to attain Truth, there abides spirituality, which is the true basis of life.