No One Can Be Victorious Over Life, Life Is Forever The Victor

Strong governments usually result in weak people.  The more completely a central administration takes over the powers of a people, the more rapidly people become dependent not only upon the strength of the government, but upon its endurance.

The more we fortify ourselves, the more we struggle for permanence.  We struggle to create a situation that we can depend upon.  As individuals, in our weakness, we wish for strong defenses around ourselves, they make us feel secure, but these defenses always crumble.

When we are able to build strong defenses, usually the result is that we created fortified cities and towns.  But, these towns do not move.   Perhaps they remain at the center of a great culture for a time but finally, they become only ruins on the outskirts of some forgotten way of life.  Wherever we build a great fixed structure, we ultimately regret it, and the institution we fashion finally turns upon itself and is destroyed.

This happens because the moment we place our lives into the keeping of a fixed system our destiny rests with that system. Whatever agitates it, must agitate us; whatever invades it, must invade us; whatever seeks to over throw it, seeks to overthrow us.  Thus we become bound into a system, and this, not being easily changeable and arriving finally at a state of crystallization, ultimately becomes a source of difficulty, not strength.

The ultimate unit of government is personified by the family, or even the individual,   this means the family requires autonomy.  It needs to be a unit composed of people working out their own salvation.  A family can not be captured in mass psychology by which individual judgment is gradually destroyed.

We know that there are always countless people capable of living better than the groups to which they belong.  An individual with a high code of morality, a high concept of ethics and a deep realization of human values, is really capable of a life superior to the general run of his own generation.

Yet by circumstances, this person commits themself to their generation.  They find that their virtues come into conflict with popular vices. They discover that they are out of step with prevailing fashions. They suddenly realize that in order to be admired, respected, and successful in a certain generation, they must live according to the code of that generation, and not according to the inner code of their own convictions.

And as soon as we begin to compromise what we know to be right, we begin to destroy our own peace of mind.  Our conscience does not approve of what we are doing, but we have put ourselves into a situation where we find it very difficult to escape the pressures, which cause us to do these things that we really do not want to do.  Little by little, habit, association, and pressure, working upon us destroy our own individuality.  Gradually, we become a creature of compromise.

We relax, we give up; we assume that it is not possible to battle against the pressures of circumstance.  Thus, in time, we become one of the offending, although in the beginning we were among those of the offended.  The only rewards for doing things badly are rewards of pain, misery and suffering.

There is only one way to counteract this kind of attitude, and that is for a person to come to know that regardless of circumstances, they are still an individual; that their own attitudes and convictions are important; that it is not necessary for any one to be forced into a condition unreasonable to them.  They do not have to compromise.

If we take a look around today, we can observe a world that is confused and miserable.  All over the world, human beings are suffering.  They are suffering because they are following patterns, moving with mass emotions, and accepting as inevitable the negative forces operating in society.

If we wish to be like other people, if we wish to reduce our integrities to match the patterns of our day, then we must be willing to face the inevitable results. If we live like other people, we will perhaps receive their approval for being stylish, but we will also be forced to accept their miseries.  We will make the same mistakes that they make and suffer the same pain. So we can wither choose to live better than other people, and enjoy greater values, or to live like them, and suffer as they do.

Nature does not provide a series of exceptions for this rule!

It doesn’t matter how involved we work ourselves into the cultural patterns of our time, each individual is actually always a separate person.  We are always alone as far as our own existence is concerned.  Our contact with all other human beings is comparatively superficial no matter how intensely we attempt to strengthen these contacts.

Even our associations with those we love are essentially associations with a stranger. Each of us has our own purpose and our own values.  Each of us is forever and individual – one against the many.

Therefore, we are each only capable of knowing ourselves.  We can have intellectual concepts about others, but we must always interpret them in terms of our understanding of ourselves.  We know our self; we think about other people.  This thinking about others can, of course, be valuable, and highly commendable, but it can also lead to a series of desperate situations.

To avoid this we need to accept ourselves for what we are – travelers in a distant land.  We are not actually citizens of the state in which we live.  Physically, we may be citizens; but morally and spiritually we are living beings – part of a living universe.

Our roots are in space and eternity, not in the earth and time.  Our mind, the subtler parts of our own imaginations, break through the boundaries of physical things.  We are in the physical world, but we are definitely not of it.

That means we are in this world for some reason.  We are here for a purpose that rests in the consciousness of the Cause of things.  We cannot dogmatize the reason for existence – we can only speculate; but we do however, have powerful intuitions about it.

The wisest and best of people, since the dawn of time, have assumed that we are here to learn something, to grow; that we are here to pass a test, or an examination, relating to universal citizenship.

Yet, here we are, building businesses as though we are going to live forever.  This is our problem.  We build here as though we are going to stay here.  We are fanatically addicted to our immediate situation – if our hearts, minds, and labors are all dedicated to today or the plan of tomorrow, our entire consciousness is invested in the development of some material enterprise – we simply lock ourselves into a situation for which we were not originally intended.

Unless we rebel against this, or clear ourselves of this influence, the situation will ultimately close in upon us and bring us to ruin.

If we settle down to a dull materialism our journey is meaningless; and we can’t assume that nature intended this.  It is not right or reasonable for us to take the attitude that life is unimportant. Nature does not waste energy in this way.  Nature does not go into the intrinsic process of creating things only so that these things can bore themselves to death.  And if we are unable to grasp this important message, it is time we gave it serious consideration.

Everything in nature seems to fit into a kindly conspiracy of all things working together for some vast good that is difficult for us to comprehend.  We need to accept the facts of our relationship with life. Only then can we build a certain internal value that is more important than receiving the applause of the masses.   When we begin to admit there is in space something gracious and beautiful and wonderful we also begin to realize that this wonder is in everything that space fashions; that all great and noble works of men, women and nature are built upon these principles and upon these laws.

The great values never became less, but we have created great fronts, and foregrounds in which we seem to see the near as more important than the great.  Little by little we have locked ourselves into districts and areas, locked ourselves in to the problems of real estate and mortgages, but we are still in a world in which values are eternal.

We can buy and sell property till the end of time, but the land belongs only to One, and no one else will actually own it.  We can certainly buy it and get a deed for it and sell it to someone else; but we are never going to own it.

Actually we cannot even own a painting, or a beautiful flower. We can share with its life, and we may be able to pay a little more for a more intimate association with that life; we may be able to buy that beautiful painting, and it may be a great joy to us – and as soon as we are dead, our children will sell it because they cannot tolerate it; but regardless of this, it will again be bought by someone who loves it, and so it will go on in the keeping of people who love it.

But what are they actually buying? They are buying something that can never be theirs. Something for which at best we can only serve as custodians.  That beautiful painting has been bought a hundred times before. It has belonged to a hundred previous owners who have loved it and have passed it on. So we may be one of those owners, but the painting will never belong to us, except in the sense of steward ship. Our great responsibility is to pass it on in as good condition as it came to us.

It is the same thing with everything in life.  We do not own anything; we cannot.  Our checkbook can tell us that we seem to own things but actually, everything in the universe belongs to itself.  The earth belongs to the earth; the start belong to the stars; and the human soul belongs to the human soul; and all these other values that we try to create are like slavery.  We try to force our ownership upon other human beings, and it fails.

We can, if we wish, think of ourselves, as builders of destiny, as formers of empires, and then read history and see how our toys fell apart; or we can simply recognize this as a garden, a road, a pleasant place along the way of our journey, where we can pause to refresh ourselves and share in certain pleasures, and then go on.  It is much like the caravan routes of ancient Asia – the roads that lead across the mountains and the valleys.  These caravan roads existed to enable men to transport merchandise, but they also became the carriers of culture and the custodians of knowledge of the two great worlds separated by deserts and jungles.

We must realize that we are never really going to be one with this road, in the sense that we will never really understand it.  We will never actually be one with anyone whom we meet along this road.  We cannot ever own the flower that grows there.  We can pause for a moment and admire it, and carry a memory of beauty as we go on, but we cannot stop.  Everywhere this road leads on.  A strange inevitable pressure forces us to this road, which leads not only to the horizon, but, upwards beyond the stars.

Where this road goes, we do not know, but we are all traveling this road together.  In this journey, we have the companionship of an infinite multitude with this same essential and inevitable procedure as ourselves.  We are united with everything that lives because it was born as we were, because it is living with the same forces and energies that we have.  Therefore, we have many things in common.

Why do we continue to live this strange, tense, artificial, separated existence which began sometime long ago when we built cities and towns and moved away from the countryside; when we lost that contract with the earth that belonged to our remote agrarian forebears?

With this loss of naturalness, we have also lost health and peace of soul.  We live a brittle existence, suffering from day to day, hurting and being hurt, in a universe where none of this is necessary.

Ancient medicine assumed that health was normal.  Today, we assume that health is abnormal and sickness is normal.  In the psychological literature of today, we find books that advance the idea that man needs to have a bad temper; it is important for him. If he does not get angry occasionally, he is going to be sick says the book. The truth of the matter is that if we are angry often enough, we will be sicker.

This is not the answer, in as much as anger is not good to begin with. Therefore, whatever it produces cannot be ultimately good.  Selfishness has never been good, and never will be, although we are being taught today to be successfully selfish.

The simple basic rules governing life now hurt us because we have not learned to understand them. We have not learned to obey them or to accept their meaning.

We build barriers of individuality and personality, of attitudes and purposes and convictions, and then we leave behind these walls, trying to shut ourselves out from an infinite and inevitable reality.

To us Heaven is rest because we are weary; and we are weary because we are constantly making trouble for ourselves and each other. If we stopped doing this, perhaps we would not get tired.  Perhaps the universe is just really full of fun. Perhaps it is a wonderful place where no one really wants to rest except those who have beaten each other to a pulp.

So if we stop doing these things to each other, perhaps we will not want rest anymore.  Perhaps it is much more interesting and wonderful to go on and see the landscapes that lie beyond the present mountains. Perhaps when we get to the stars, we can look out upon still greater fields where we shall see universes spread around us.  We do not know exactly what may be there, but we have a very profound belief that as we get nearer to the infinite insight, the Infinite being, the infinite purpose, we will come to happiness; we will come to peace of soul and peace of heart and mind.

Live and Learn.  

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We Were Not Created To Reform The Universe, But To Reform Ourselves.

We are coming more and more to the realization that we are all part of a single web of life and that our survival depends very largely upon cooperation with a plan existing everywhere in creation.  Invisible laws govern visible things and perhaps the end of education is to understand these invisible laws?

We find archetypally in nature that every form of life survives through a plan peculiar to its own kind.  Each division and subdivision of the natural world operates according to some form of instinctual instruction.  Living things fulfill their destiny; with the exception of ourselves, the various creatures around us probably never realize that they are following a patterned way of existence.

They have no defense against the ancient instincts or the early environmental training which they gained during their period of growth.  We are the one being that can contemplate the mystery of life and, strangely enough, we are the one being that can violate its rules.

There must be then, be a pattern of law particularly applicable to the human being?  We are no doubt, part of a natural creation.  This endowment does not justify the violation of those natural procedures even though we have been endowed with a higher degree of conscious intelligence than the forms around us.

The more we come into contact with our fellow men, the more remarkable human behavior appears.  It would seem that there are many inducements to live happily and with due regard for the rights and privileges of each other. Unfortunately, whatever these inducements may be, they are not sufficient.

In all the billions of years of evolution and hundreds of millions of years of growth on this planet, no other species has developed the same endowments.  We are, therefore, uniquely self-responsible.  Which means we each have a limited determinism to do that which we believe to be right.

It is because we posses this determinism that we are capable of becoming religious, that we do become religious.  But, religion is meaningless unless an individual has the right to determine good and evil, and by which we can raise ourselves above the deportment and patterns of other kingdoms in nature around us which are instinctively obedient.

This means we must become consciously obedient and maintain the rules and patterns suitable for the best preservation of our own kind.  Unless we do this, we are abusing our ecological position in the universe.

Humanity can and should be considered a unit.  The name Adam is a plural, meaning a collective; and the Adamic and pre-Adamic forms of humanity are considered symbolically as individuals, people, composed of a number of separate personalities within their own structure.

Humanity as a creature under the archetypal pattern breaks down into many cultural groups, racial groups, national groups, but all of these exist under natural law, survive by keeping this law, and we destroy ourselves by breaking it.  Turn back and look along the shores of the ocean of time and we will find many dead shells are found, resulting from the individual or the collective departing from the plan of which we are a part and which we can not violate with impunity.

The ancient orator Cicero defined civilization as a condition in which human beings dwell together in a state of civility.  On that basis we are not doing so well.  We are not fulfilling the needs of our human archetype.  We are not fulfilling ourselves.  We are forever sacrificing what we are to the accumulation of what we want.

It is time for us to accept our responsibilities to human society.  Just as we are now reaching out to try to protect endangered species around us, it is time for us to reach out and protect ourselves.  Unfortunately, on our present course of life we have made ourselves an endangered species.

The situation that we face is not an instantaneous phenomenon; it is the result of a long antecedent pattern of causes, a long ecological history involving the automobile, the motion picture, the airplane, the computer, the television, the advancements of all our industrial and economic processes until we have gradually become obsessed with our own worldliness.

But we can all do something about some of the problems that face us and recognize that it is absolutely necessary for us to discover the truth in the situations in which we find ourselves.  Unless we are able to do this, we will continue to make the same mistakes indefinitely.

In the ecological identity of ourselves it should be regarded that every individual is as important to the compound as every tiny form of life is important to the earth’s integrity.  If blades of grass fail, the planet will ultimately drop out of orbit.  It is a long process, but it will follow.

So unless every form of natural product is balanced so that it maintains its integrity and its individuality, the collective must and will suffer.  Each of us a small center within the vast structure of life, and the first thing that we can do is to put our own center in order, take hold of our natures, examine ourselves honestly, and try to find out why we are not as happy, contented, or as well-adjusted as we ought to be.

We will find that we are in need of an incentive if we are going to make any changes.  No one seems to want to be good simply because it is good, anymore than the majority of people want to keep the law simply because it is lawful.  We do things because of incentives, and there is perhaps a bit of ulterior motive in almost anything we do.  The one ulterior motive that may be forgiven is the natural desire to be better, to have a better integration within ourselves.

We like to think of families of worlds, families of galaxies, families of all kinds of magnitudes existing in space, and we observe that the cosmos around us is confidence-inspiring.  Here is a machinery beyond our comprehension, beyond our imagination, something that we must explore inch by inch, and in exploring it we must never fail to explore not only the greater but the lesser, not only the outer but the inner.

As we look out on this magnificent array of integrities, it is difficult to imagine that anyone’s life is an accident.  It is difficult to assume that in this vast pattern wayward individuals can successfully change the plans of the infinite.  We were not created to reform the universe, but to reform ourselves. It was our duty to transcend and transmute our material personality until we came to understand the reason for ourselves.

According to ancient legends, while “we” were in a state without sin, Adam lived in a paradisiacal region from which he fell by his own disobedience.  The story may be a little difficult to accept literally, but the fact remains that in a way we have been disobedient.  We are violating the principles that we know to be right.

Great generals and dictators have deliberately broken the law, “Thou shall not kill,” and have justified this because it fulfilled great ambitions of their own – political, social, industrial.  We have covered the earth with blood for the fulfillment of our own private ambitions.

We have much the Alexander the Great complex.  We look out longingly into space, searching for other worlds to conquer.  Actually, the world we have never conquered is ourselves.

The human being is a magnificent thing, and for the most part this magnificent thing wastes itself. It does that same thing we do with our energy resources.

People are getting a little weary of being unhappy all the time and attempting to escape from this unhappiness by selfish pursuits.

Most people would like to be better than they are.  Perhaps they are better than they know they are.  Given certain inducements, opportunities, and advantages, human character might even be modified to a considerable degree.  We can grow magnificently then, if we want to, but the average human being does not want to grow and, therefore, growth is forced upon us by suffering.

Ignorance is the primary disease.  It is ignorance which permits an individual to have a bad disposition and do nothing about it.  Ignorance is the basis of unkindliness.

Human evolution must be the victory of enlightenment over ignorance.

Live and Learn.  We All Do.

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Egotism Is A Destroyer Of Health and Happiness

One of the most universal and “respectable pressures is selfishness.  Some go as far as to say that without selfishness very little can be accomplished in this world.  Experience teaches us, however, that the consequences of such conduct can never truly contribute to the well-being of humanity.

Excessive self-interest lowers our sensitivity to the rights of others and to the common good.  It makes close understanding between individuals difficult and impossible and makes it extremely hard to maintain honorable friendships and constructive affections.

Selfishness abuses all privileges, including the privilege to live constructively.  Many of us are taught to be selfish, but this is one lesson that must be unlearned, unless we all enjoy suffering.  We may say to ourselves, “every man must think first of himself in this highly competitive society,” but unfortunately self-centeredness can never protect anyone.

Egotism is an aspect of selfishness and a top-ranking destroyer of health and happiness.  Very few people like to admit that they are egoists. They prefer to take on the attitude that they are always right, and superior to others in their opinions, beliefs and convictions.

An egoist cannot afford to admit their own mistakes.  To sustain their self-delusion they must win every argument and dominate every situation. Society conspires against them by letting them have their own way.   No sensible person will bother with a closed mind.

An egoist is seldom happy, for they live constantly on the defensive.  Their sense of superiority is their most valued possession, and they must protect it at all costs.  Because they cannot be taught, they remain ignorant and inadequate.  Their decisions are usually poor and their conduct often offensive.  He is never able to figure out how he can be so correct in his judgment and at the same time so miserable.

In religion the egotist enjoys privileges not available to them in business, industry, or domestic relationships.  It is very easy to abuse the right to one’s spiritual convictions.  In a religious argument there are few facts available to either of the contestants. Often the person who talks the loudest and fastest can count themselves the winner.  We just note, that most holy wars have been started by egotists willing to sacrifice the brotherhood of man for the sake of winning an argument.

Such attitudes permit us to resent the self-interest of others, and to accept our own selfishness as right and proper, or at least inevitable.  Through long association with ourselves, we have gained the ability to live in a state of uneasy comfort with our own peculiarities.  The laws and processes operating us are unknown, ignored, or forgotten.  We simply do as we please, whether it really pleases us or not.

But, true happiness can seldom, if ever, be achieved by selfish or self-centered persons. Neither wealth nor distinction can confer real contentment.  It has been said in the old Arabic proverbs that happiness, is always a by-product.  It is an effect, the cause of which is enlightened conduct.

An educated person should not be selfish, for the primary purpose of enlightened education is to educate selfishness out of the individual.

Live and Learn. We All Do.

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The Six Pressures That Make Living Difficult

The pressures that most commonly disturb us are usually environmental. The six pressures that make living difficult are:

1. Bodily pressures, such as sickness, age, fear of accidents, and fear of death.
2. Economic pressures, such as lack of training or credentials, unemployment, debt, disability, extravagance of self or family, unusual expenses, unexpected responsibilities, taxes, inflation, cost of adequate insurance, and the needs of children and other dependents.
3. Social pressures, such as lack of true friends, loneliness, status seeking, the temptation to compromise standards, lack of constructive interests, and fear of society and its demands upon character.
4. Emotional pressures, such as romantic difficulties, domestic problems, incompatibility, worries over children and other loved ones, fear of marriage or divorce, intemperance, infidelity, promiscuity, scandal, and emotional immaturity.
5. Character pressures involving lack of self control, worry, vanity, hatred, jealousy, unreasonable ambition, stubbornness, cruelty, short sightedness, egotism, willfulness, and over-possessiveness.
6. Spiritual pressures such as fear, lack of faith, or a feeling of internal insecurity. Other causes can be conflicts arising from religious confusion in society, the conflict of creeds, various depressing superstitions, and fanaticism.

All these external factors press in upon us through our sensory perceptions and are then coordinated by our mind; they begin to form a negative psychological syndrome, which in turn becomes pressure, which will then impel our future conduct. The constant flow of pressures into the individual often results in complexes, fixations and neuroses.

One of the mistakes that most people make is the belief that the aggressive conquest of environment is possible. Actually, it is not possible, because no human being can actually control environmental circumstances. Nobody can foresee or dominate the conduct of all other human beings.

The physical body is the receptacle of pressures. The human being, because we are pressure, has no adequate defense against pressure. The degree of self-control a person possesses reveals the degree that the will, conditioned by experience, has been able to reduce pressure. Thus life appears as an infinite variety of pressures setting up an infinite variety of demands, each requiring immediate gratification.

Heredity and environment now come into play. Both of these factors are merely pressures moving in upon us directly or indirectly from other people. As environment consists of many degrees and combinations of pressures and the consequences caused by these pressures, it provides valuable instruction. We must t decide whether we wish to profit by insight or continue to be the victim of our own ignorance.

Buddhism affirms that pressure is the torturer of life, the true cause of misery, madness and death. We can build all kinds of intellectual deceits. We can argue and excuse. We can draw pictures and develop formulas, but we cannot escape the simple fact that we must reduce the pressure or destroy ourselves.

Those long accustomed to think of pressure as a natural stimulant may have some trouble realizing that it is only a nerve whip. Nature provides pressure for certain emergencies, but life cannot and should not be one long emergency.

We all must recover from the delusion that pressure provides the energy necessary for accomplishment. We are not missiles, and life is not a problem trajectory.  WE can achieve our goals without tension by having clear insight, trained ability and purposed planning. Pressure pushes us on to exhaustion, not to victory.

The most universal therapeutic agent available to us is nature itself. Color, form, sound, and design reveal universal motions and processes.

Evil can never impress good upon the soul, and we must remember that direct action makes the deepest and most lasting impressions.

Not by fighting tension but by cultivating relaxation we achieve the solution to the problem. It is conscious receptivity to the benevolence of the universal plan that helps to heal the sufferings caused by disordered thoughts and emotions.

Anything, which increases tension, also lowers self-control. Beauty does not increase tension, but deformity does. Violation of conscience creates pressure. Exposure to hatred or violence creates tension. Immoral, amoral art or psychotic music creates tension. That which is in itself not good cannot be a direct cause of good. When we try to overthrow evil by revulsive tension, we create situation, which will lead to further tension. The war inside us can never result in peace.

Tension is merely stress moving into manifestation. Anything, which apparently can be accomplished by tension, can be more safely accomplished by disciplined action without tension. To become tense is the quickest way to make our problems larger and ourselves smaller. A head on collision with tension seldom is the solution. It is usually wiser to direct our thoughts and feelings into more constructive channels and allow the tension to subside from lack of support.

Which brings us to the point that, if a we can be the victim of our environment, it becomes evident that environment can shape our destiny. If bad habits can destroy us, good habits could also then rescue us. A single wrong attitude strengthened by repetition can become a destructive negative force. Conversely a single right attitude given strength and repetition can create a powerful constructive psychological archetype.

If children can be led into delinquency by motion pictures, televisions, and improper books, it is foolish to say that they cannot be inspired by an improved level of entertainment and literature that leads to better character and normalized psychic patterns. But, since it is not likely at the moment that desirable reforms will occur in society, each individual must make the necessary constructive adjustments in their own way of life.

We should remember that the normal state of the body is health, and the normal state of the mind is sanity. The emotions find their fullest expression through love, friendship, and kindness. We must settle down to the serious labor of self- improvement if we want to change our reality. Health like happiness much be earned, and each person must earn their own happiness. Fortunately, we have been endowed with the means for our own perfection. Growth is a do-it-yourself project.  Get to work!

Live and Learn.  We All Do.

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Find The Facts And Live By Them

We live in a kind of world in which we have created an artificial pattern. We have come to conclude that the troubles of life are real and immediate, and the joys of life remote and reserved for a fortunate few. We have also come to the general feeling that the knowledge necessary for our own enlightenment is extremely difficult to secure.

In a sense, this is true, but it is not true because of the quality of knowledge, but only because of the attitudes we have created within our own natures. We have created a wall between ourselves and the natural life.

Let us all think back a little to what was happening twenty or thirty years ago – the houses we lived in, the people we knew, the patterns which made up our friendships and acquaintances. As we look back upon that time, we see many faces in our minds that are no longer with us; we see situations that have broken up and disappeared; we see old houses that have been torn down for freeways; we see gardens that have disappeared to make way for apartment houses. The whole area of our experience has changed.

Now, it is perfectly normal to develop a little nostalgia about this. But, what it really does, is it points out that all things change; that whatever we grasp at vanishes even as we reach for it, and that most of the experiences of life have permanence only in our own memories.

So instead of regarding the world as a permanent place, maybe we should regard it as shifting sands of circumstance.

Every time the wind blows the sand, its patterns change, and the sand itself slips through our fingers.  And if we think for a moment of the faces we no longer see, we can very quietly remember that some day our own face will be among those that will no longer be seen; but instead of getting melancholy over this, this should be a something that is understood. The moment we can see this other side of things, the moment we can see that the reality of life is its motion and not its stationary aspect, then we can come to recognize that things are really motion, not objects. All objects vanish.  Motion goes on.

Motion is the only fixed thing there is. Motion is that which will continue, which has always been and always will be – a movement of life. It is this movement of life that is its very essence and substance.  It is by means of this that life becomes life.  Life without motion or movement is as the seed before it is quickened.

Within us, then, is pure motion.  Our self instead of being a fixed ego, is motion.  It is something that is always in a state of becoming what it has not yet attained, and releasing that, which has already acquired.   Motion is from the things that have been to the things that are, and on through all other states and conditions.  Thus we live from what we have been, from what we are, and toward what we will be.

Change is natural to moving things.  Change is only difficult to the person who believes that his own mind never changes.

It is a fact that everything in nature moves.  Everything moves from the state of insufficiency to the state of greater sufficiency; from failure to success; from slavery to freedom.  Therefore, there is in ourselves no impediment to our own motion to completion, except the impediment, which we place in our own minds.

If then, instead of living in a fixed world, we begin to look around us, we will discover something that we already know scientifically, but which in our psychology we do not always admit to ourselves.  Our earth is moving, everything that we have is moving through space rapidly or more rapidly than any projectile that we have yet been able to devise. Space, time, eternity, all is motion.  Cosmic systems are forever moving.

We are actually not standing still, even on this little planet.  And motion is of two kinds – motion from place to place, and motion from quality to quality.  These motions determine our real growth, our real ability to be great beings.

Stability to us is very largely in terms of status.  It is what we own – our bank account, our income, and the property that we administer.  It is something we can reach out and touch. Or, within ourselves, stability is a thing that we can call stubbornness – the determination to maintain the status quo.  It is our resolute determination to cling to those things that seem to be pleasant, and to build continuing walls against those things, which we believe to be unpleasant.

One of the great impediments to progress, in every area that we know, is this reactionary authoritarianism, and this little more that the continual exertion of the idea that there is a desirable permanence in things.

Take, for example, an area like education. With the exception of a few minor details, the educational theory of today is essentially that which was devised during the Renaissance. In other words, our educational theory actually came into existence in the 15^th century. We have undoubtedly refined and advanced the subjects taught, but the theory of teaching remains essentially the same.

We call this traditional authority. We believe that this fixedness is the desirable thing. Whenever a progressive educator arises who would like to correct some of the old faults, they are regarded as the enemy of education. It is necessary for the great-entrenched pattern of things to rise against them, with all of its authority, and discredit them, because anything, which attacks the continuance of the things as they are, is regarded as the enemy. We do not like to be moved out of patterns or to change our ways. We want to remain in the old comfortable attitudes, which have made us miserable for years and will continue to do so. So when someone comes along and suggests that we take a different attitude, we rise in defense of the old-not because it is good, but because it is familiar.

All over the world, therefore, the progress necessary to the solution of human problems has been inhibited by reactionary pressure.  This reactionary pressure is that the individual or group shall hold on to the advantages that it has.  The thing itself must be preserved.

But, what really must be preserved is motion.  Anything that blocks or stops motion, or stops the process of a thing unfolding from within itself, is bad, and is ultimately going to result in tragedy for all concerned.

Now, in terms of practical living, this is tremendously important, because many of our troubles arise from our desperate struggle to avoid change.  If however, we believe simply in a moving universe- if we believe that it is perfectly right and proper that things should change, that our own body should age, that our property should wear out, instead of resenting these things; if we recognize the inevitable that the things that we possess will gradually disintegrate, then we have release from this desperate effort to attempt to prevent that which we cannot prevent.

Everywhere we look, things gradually disappear and other things come and take their places.  Each year we watch the garden grow into its winterness, and sometimes we find it necessary in some areas certainly to replant our gardens every year.  No matter how beautifully they may bloom in August, we know how they are going to look in December. There is nothing we can do about it.  We accept this subconsciously, but we do not apply it to our own code of conduct.  We do not release ourselves from this lockedness of affirming that we must defeat the seasons.

If we can find some way to make or force this garden to grow, then we are a success; whereas in fact the substance, these principles cannot be defeated, and we ultimately destroy ourselves trying to defeat the principles of life.

So we need to remind ourselves as strongly as possible, to become observant, to simply accept those things which time and eternity and the living motions of life, reveal to be true. It is not necessary for us always to believe what we read in books; but we cannot successfully deny what we see unfolding around us in the ritual of nature itself.

We cannot deny the story of the morning glory, although it may not be the same kind of story that we find in the book of history.  We cannot deny the example and the experience of the bird and the butterfly, the flowering plant, the great tree, the mountain, the rivers.  All of these experiences move in upon us, and they become the valid messengers of one fact – namely, that everything it the universe is change.

Actually we have no right to say that change is bad. If change is bad, God is bad; if change is wrong, then the whole universe if wrong, and there is nothing we can do about it. Change is the most blessed of all things.  It is, however, a continuance against which we have built one very difficult barrier, and that is the barrier of death.

We assume that all change leads to death, and that beyond death, there is only uncertainty.  Even the most theologically minded person with a strong moral argument for immortality, still measures, by means of his sensory perception, the duration of things, and marks this duration with death.  However, all change ends in life, because death is not the end, but a releasing of things from restraint against change.

If we can remove the idea that change ends in death, we will destroy one of the great adversaries to our peace of mind, and we will have greater courage with which to free life, and to live our own lives without this barrier being forever high before us.  Then, motion becomes the symbol of complete freedom.  This motion goes on forever, fulfilling its own purposes, and carrying with it the fulfillment of all creatures; for it is motion that makes growth possible, and it is growth which makes enlightenment inevitable.

Let us imagine for a moment, that we are trying to sincerely get some peace of soul, to get through this block, which holds so many of us.

Through the love of nature we can develop of kinship with life. We can pick up books on nature study and gain some magnificent insight.  Anyone who has ever read through a book on the life of birds, or on the life of insects, or has considered the stories written on these little lives, will suddenly discover the universality of intelligence.  We would realize that these little creatures, without our faculties or powers, have tremendous existence of their own and that we, by our faculties and powers, has become disorderly, disobedient and has allowed our ambitions to threaten the survival of our own kind and all other kinds in nature.

We have all seen the metamorphosis of the butterfly from the caterpillar; we have all seen life come to the nest in the tree; we see around us all the manifestations of universal energy – motion that make up the mystery of nature; but only a few perhaps have ever come to experience these facts in a way that influenced and modified their own lives.  Most people do not accept these facts as Scriptures to be meditated upon, as mysterious mandalas to be studied and explored.

We can turn to the sky and the mountains and the moving stream. Here there are no doubts- only facts.  We can explain them in a thousand ways, but the facts remain.  The rivers cannot talk to us; the birds cannot tell us anything; and yet there is nothing that has existence that does not speak.  Trees speak – you can hear their voices when the wind moves through the branches, birds speak with their song. Some things speak in color, and others in motion.

The race of living things speaks in the flutter of wings and little cries at night.  The fish speaks, for you hear the little eddy of water when he swims; he jumps into the air and there is a little splash in the pool- this is the voice of his way of life.  Everything has some kind of voice, and the quieter we become to more of these voices we can hear.  All of these voices together reminding us that we live in a universe of facts, that we live in a universe of things that are just as they are, although we have tried to create out of this a universe of things we believe them to be.

Again the facts as they are will be only our ignorance of the facts; and ignorance is a complex thing, for it includes innumerable prejudices and intolerances and intemperance of attitude.

What we call evil Is not an evilness of being, but a fixation of wrong attitude.  It is something that arises as the result of tradition, association, temptation and a lack of interior integration.  All ignorant people regardless of how they choose to live are criminals in some degree, because every ignorant person will hurt someone, and this itself is a crime.  Every person who is selfish, or who advances his own cause at the harm of another is criminal.  Everyone who breaks Universal law, is a criminal before the Law.

But this does not mean that such individuals are hopeless; it does not mean that they must be punished forever or cast out of society.  It means that the vortex of attitude by means of which the criminal state arises in the self, must be corrected.

We must remember that we live in a universe of Law; we live in a universe in which the Law itself is beautiful.  We do not live in a universe of frustrating, inhibiting, tyrannizing laws, but of laws causing motion, causing all things to unfold out of their own needs.

In nature there are infinite forms of life, and each one of these comes to its own blossom.

The universe is not made up of things; it is made up of relationships between phases of motion.  Therefore, we are the ones who create the obstacles with which we confront our own endeavors and purposes.

We must begin to reduce the pressure; because after all, what does it benefit us if we gain the whole world and lose our own soul?

Live and Learn.  We All Do.

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