panions on this short journey. Let us make haste to be good. Amiel
10. If you can do a good deed or show love to someone take heed to do so at once, otherwise the opportunity may pass never to return
11. Grood men forget the good they have done; they are so busy about that which they do at the present moment that they can give no thought to what they did in the P^st. Chinese proverb.
12. Life now, at the present moment, this is the state in which God dwells within us. And therefore the present moment is the most precious of all. Make use of all the forces of your soul so that this moment pass not in vain, so that you may not miss God who can be manifested in you.
V.
The Error of Preparing for Life Instead of Living It
1. "I may depart for a season from the things which my conscience demands of me, because I am not quite ready," says one. "But I will get ready when the time comes and will then live in perfe t accord with the dictates of my conscience."
The error of such reasoning is in the fact that the man departs from the life in the present, which is the only real life, and puts it off to some future, whereas the future does not belong to him.
In order not to fall into this error man must remember and realize that he has no time to make preparations, that he must lead the best life he can right now, just as he is, that the only improvement he needs is improvement in love, and this improvement is effected only in the present. Th«.\:^-
fore, without putting things off, man must live every moment endeavoring with all his might to fulfill that calling for which he came into the world and which alone can give him true happiness. Man must live thus because he knows that any moment he may be deprived of the possibility of the fulfillment of that calling.
2. "I will do this when I grow up." "I will live so when I finish college, or when I get married." "And I will do so when I raise children, or marry off my son, or when I acquire wealth, when I move to another city, or when I reach old age."
Thus speak children, adults and old people, yet no man knows whether he will survive until evening. We cannot know about any of these things whether we succeed in accomplishing them or not, as death may interfere.
Death cannot interfere with one thing only; death cannot prevent us from fulfilling the will of God at any moment of our life—^and that is to love all people.
3. We frequently think and say that we cannot do all the things which we ought to do because of the condition in which we now find ourselves. How unfair this is. That inner labor wherein consists life is always possible. You are in prison, you are ill, you are restrained from any kind of outward activity, you are humiliated, tortured—but your inner life is in your power. In your thoughts you can reproach, condemn, envy, hate, or on the other hand still in your thoughts you can crush all these feelings and replace them with good feelings. Thus every moment of your life is yours, nor can anyone take it away from you.
4. When I say: "I cannot do so" I use a wrong expression. I should say: "Formerly I could not do so." I know full well that at any instant in the present I can do
with myself what I will. And it is well for man to know this.
5. The consciousness of illness, worry about curing it, and particularly this thought: "I am ill now and cannot, but when I recover I will do so and so"—this is a great error. It is like saying: I do not want that which is given me, I desire that which I have not. We can always rejoice in what we have now, and we can always do all possible things through that which is—that is through the forces which we have.
6. Every present hour is a critical and decisive hour. Note in your heart that every day is the best day of the year, every hour the best hour, every instant the best instant. The best, because it is the only one you have.
Emerson.
7. In order to live your life in the best manner possible, you must remember that all of your life is in the present and endeavor to act in the best way possible every present instant.
8. It is not well with you, and you imagine that it is because you cannot live as you would, and that you could more easily accomplish the things you ought if your life had been cast differently. This is wrong. You have all that you so much desire. Every instant you can do the very best that is possible to you.
9. In life, in real life there can be nothing better than what IS. To wish for anything better than what is is blasphemy.
10. Important deeds, g^eat deeds, deeds which can be finished in the future only are not truly deeds performed for God. If you believe in God you will believe in living in the present, and you will do the things that are completed in the present.
11, The closest approach to God is the greatest concentration on the present, and on the contrary the more you are taken up with the past or the future, the further you get away from God.
12. Memento mori, remember death! This is a great saying. If we only bore in mind that we should inevitabl)' die and that very soon, our life would be entirely different. If a man knows that he will die inside of thirty minutes, he will not do anything trifling or foolish in these last thirty minutes, surely not anything evil. But is the half century or so that separates you from death essentially different from a half hour?
VI.
The Consequences of Our Acts are God's Business, Not Oure
1. AH the consequences of our acts cannot ever be subject to us, because alt the consequences of our acts are inEnite in an infinite world and time.
2. If you can see all the consequences of your activity know thereby that your activity is trifling.
3. People say we cannot live if we do not know what awaits us. We must prepare ourselves for that which will be. This is wrong. The genuinely good life is when we take no concern in what will happen to our body, but in what we now need for our soul. And we need for our soul but one thing: to do that which brings our soul into union with all people and with God.
4. Our present acts this instant, now, are our own, but what will become of them, that is God's business.
St. Francis d'Assisi.
5. When living the life of the spirit, that is in harmony with God, man may not know the consequences of his
acts, but he will assuredly know that these consequences will be blessed.
6. An act performed without any speculations as to its consequences, and solely in obedience to the will of Grod is the best act that a man can perform.
7. When you give thought to the consequences of your activity you feel your weakness and nothingness. But the moment you realize that your business is now to do the will of Him who sent you here, you feel free, joyful and strong.
8. If a man gives thought to what will come of what he is doing, he is surely doing something for his own self.
9. The reward of a good life is nowise in the future, It is in the present. Do well now, and it will now be well with you. And if you do good works, the consequences cannot be otherwise but good.
VII.
Men Realizing the Meaning of Life in the Present Do Not Concern Themselves with the Problem of
Life After Death
1. Thoughts of a future life confuse us. We ask ourselves what will be after death? But we cannot ask this; we cannot ask this because life and future are contradictory terms; life can be in the present only. It seems to us that life was and will be, but life only is. It is not for us to decide the problems of the future, but how to live now, in the present
2. We are always in ignorance of the physical life, because the physical life has its entire course in time, and we cannot know the future. But in the domain of the spiritual there is no future. Thus the uncertainty of our life diminishes to the extent that out \\ie ^ъ%^% Vc^tcl ^^