is not the entire truth.
Others say: come out of self; strive to foi^et self and seek happiness in pleasures. This also is untrue. This is untrue if alone for the reason that pleasures will not eliminate disease. Peace and happiness are neither within us, nor outside of us, but are in God, and God is both within us and outside of us.
Love God, and you will find in God that which you seek.
II.
Just as the Human Body Craves Food and Suffers When
Deprived of It, so Does the Soul of Man Crave Love and Suffers When Deprived of It
1. All things are drawn to earth and to one another. £ven so all souls are drawn to God and to one another.
So that men might live all as one, and not each for himself, God revealed to them only that which is needful for all, and not that which is needful for each one separately.
And so that men might know what is needful to all and for all. He entered their souls, and in their souls manifested Himself as love.
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3. The troubles of men do not come from poor harvests, from conflagrations, from evil doers, but only from their living their lives apart from one another. And they live apart, because they have no faith in that voice of love which dwells in them and which draws them together.
4. As long as man lives the animal life, it seems to him that if he is separated from other people, it must be so and cannot be otherwise. But as soon as he commences to live the life of the spirit, he finds it strange, deplorable and even painful to be apart from other people, and he will strive to become one with them. And it is love alone that makes people one.
5. Every man knows that he must do those things which unite him with people rather than those which separate him from them; he knows it not because any one has so commanded him, but because the more he unites with people, the better he lives, and, on the contrary, the more he separates from them, the worse is his life.
6. The business of every man's life is to grow better and better every year, every month, every day. And the better men become, the more closely they unite one with another. And the more closely they unite, the better becomes their life.
7. The more I love a person, the less I feel my sep-aratedness from him. It seems as though he is the same as I, I the same as he.
8. If we only firmly held to this rule; to be one with people in the things on which we agree, without demanding their adherence to the things from which they dissent, we would be much closer to Christ than those so-called Christians who keep themselves aloof from men of other religions, demanding their adherence to their own view of the truth.
9. Love your enemies, and you will have no enemies.
10. The path to union is as discernible as a plank thrown across a puddle. The moment you swerve from the path you find yourself in the mire of worldly vanities» quarrels and malice.
III.
Love is Only then Genuine When It Embraces All
1. God wanted us to be happy, and for that reason endowed us with a longing for happiness, but He wanted us to be happy in the aggregate and not as individuals, and for that reason He endowed us with a longing for love. For this reason men will be happy only when they all love one another.
2. The Roman philosopher Seneca asserted that all that is living, all that we see about us, is one body; even as our own hands, feet, stomach and bones, we are all members of one body. We have all been bom alike, we all alike seek our own good, we all understand that it is better for us to help one another, rather than to harm one another. The same love to one another has been implanted in our hearts. We are like stones joined together in an arch and are bound to collapse unless we support one another.
3. Every man strives to do as much good for himself as possible, and the greatest good in the world is to be in loye and harmony with all people. How then can we attain this boon if we feel that we love some people, but do not love others ? We must learn to love those whom we do not love. Man learns the most difficult tasks, he learns to read and write, acquires sciences and crafts. If man only applied himself as assiduously to acquiring love as to learning various crafts, and sciences, he would soon train himself to love all persons, even those who are distasteful to him.
4. If you realize that love is the nK>st important thing in life, you would not on meeting a man debate wherein he could be useful to you, but how and wherein you could be useful to him. Follow this rule, and you will always succeed better than if you took care of yourself alone.
5. If we love those who attract us, who praise us, who do us good, then we love for ourselves, so as to better ourselves. Genuine love is when we love not for ourselves, seeking no benefit for ourselves, but for those whom we love, and when we love not because people are attractive or useful to us, but because we acknowledge in every being that spirit which dwells in us.
Only when we love in this manner can we love those that hate us, our enemies, as Christ taught us to do.
6. We must respect every man, no matter how miserable or ridiculous he may be. We must remember that in every man dwells the same spirit as in us. Even if a man is repulsive, both as to body and as to soul, we must think like this: "There must be such odd people in the world, we must bear with them." But if we show such people that we loathe them, we are in the first instance unjust, and then we challenge their bitter animosity.
Such as he is he cannot alter himself. What else can he do but to fight us like a deadly enemy if we show hostility to him? We would, indeed, be good to him if he ceased to be as he is. But he cannot do this. Therefore, we must be good to every man just as he is, not requiring of him to do that which he cannot do, not requiring him, in other words, to cease to be himself. Schopenhauer.
7. Endeavor to love him whom you once did not love, whom you have condemned, or who may have done you an injury. And if you succeed in doing so, you will learn a
new joy. Even as a bright light dispelling the darlcness, the light of love will shine gloriously and joyously in your heart once you rid yourself of hatred.
8. The best of men is he who loves all and does good to all without distinction, whether they be good or bad.
Mohammed.
9. Why is a disagreement with a fellow man so painful, and hatred of a fellow man still more painful? Because we all feel that the principle which makes us all human beings is the same in all of us, so that when we hate others, we are in discord with that which is one in all, we are in discord with ourselves.
10. "I am weary, I am despondent, I am lonely." Who told you to separate yourself from all people and to shut yourself up in the prison house of your solitary, miserable and futile self ?
11. Act so that you may tell every man: "Do as I do."
Kant.
12. Until I see that the principal precept of Christ, to love your enemy, is observed, I shall not believe that those who call themselves Christians are Christians indeed.
Lcsnng. IV.
Only the Soul May Be Truly Loved
1. Man luves himself. But if in loving himself he loves his. body, he is in error. Such love will bring him nothing but sufferii^s. Loving himself is only then right when man in doing so loves his soul. And the soul is the same in all people. Therefore, if a man loves his soul, he will also love the souls of other people.
2. All men crave one thing and work for it tmceas-
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THE PATHWAY OF LIFE 85
ingly, namely to live well. Therefore, since the earliest days and in all places saints and sages have taught their fellow men how to live so as to make life good instead of evil. And all these saints and sages, in many climes and different periods, have taught men one and the same doctrine.
This doctrine is brief and plain.
It shows that all men live by the same spirit, that all men are one and the same, but are separated in this life by their bodies, and if they realize that they all live by the same spirit, they must all unite in love. And if men do not realize this, and live by their separate bodies, they are hostile to one another and are unhappy.