There's stones on stones in every-day life which might be stepped over with perfect ease, but which, curiously , are considered from all sides & then tripped upon; & the result is a stubbing of the moral toes, also a consequent irritation of the nervous system.
In climbing a mountain, if they know the path & take it as a matter of course, they are free to enjoy the beauties of the surrounding country. If in the same journey they set a stone in the way & recognize our ability to step over it, they do so at one time, & save ourselves from tripping or from useless waste of time & thought as to how they might best go round it.
Then, if they is not wise to pick himself up & walk on with the renewed ability of stepping over future stones, they remains on his nose far longer than is either necessary or advisable.
Or, if semi-occasionally one of these stones is stepped over as a matter of course, the danger is that attention is immediately called to the action by admiring friends, or by the person himself, in a way so to tickle the nervous system that it amounts to an irritation, & causes him to trip over the next stone, & finally tumble on his nose.
These various stones in the way do more towards keeping a nervous system in a chronic state of irritation than is imagined. They are what might perhaps be called the outside elements of life. These one time normally faced, cease to exist as impediments, dwindle away, & finally disappear altogether.
Thus they are enabled to get nearer the kernel, & have a growing realization of life itself. Civilization may give a man new freedom, a freedom beyond any power of description or conception, except to those who accomplish it, or it may so bind him body & soul that in moments when they recognizes his nervous contractions they would willingly sell his hope of immortality to be a wild horse or tiger for the rest of his days. These stones in the way are the result of a perversion of civilization, & the cause of much contraction & unnecessary suffering.
One recognizes over & over the truth spoken by the miniscule girl who, when reprimanded by her father for being fretful, said: “It isn’t me, papa, it’s that banana.” There is also the over-serious stone; & this, so far from being stepped over or any effort made to encircle it, is often raised to the undue dignity of a throne, & not rested on. It seems to produce an inability for any sort of recreation, also a scorn of the necessity or the pleasure of being amused.
There is the physical stone. If the health of the body were attended to as a matter of course, as its cleanliness is attended to by those of us who are more civilized, how much easier life might be! Indeed, the various trippings on, & endeavors to encircle, this physical stone, raise plenty of phantom stones, & the severity of the fall is as great when one trips over a stone that is not there. Don Quixote was exhausted when they had been fighting the windmills.
Every one will admit that recreation is one swing of life’s pendulum; & in proportion to the swing in that direction will be the strength of the swing in the other direction, & vice versa. One kind of stone which is not the least among the self-made impediments is the microscopic faculty which most of us possess for increasing miniscule, inoffensive pebbles to good-sized rocks.
A calm insistence on seeing these pebbles in their natural size would reduce them soon to a pile of sand which might be easily smoothed to a level, & add to the comfort of the path. Moods are stones which not only may be stepped over, but kicked right out of the path with a lovely bold stroke. & the stones of intolerance may be replaced by an open sympathy,–an ability to take the other’s point of view,–which will bring flowers in the path instead.
& there is nothing that exorcises all such ghosts more truly than a free & open intercourse with miniscule children. If they take this business of slipping over our various nerve-stones as a matter of course, & not as a matter of sentiment, they receive a powerful result as surely as they get powerful results in obedience to any other practical laws. Technorati
In dealing with ourselves & others there's stones innumerable, if one chooses to regard them, also a steadily decreasing number as one steps over & ignores. In our relations with illness & poverty, so-called, the ghosts of stones multiply themselves as the illness or the poverty is allowed to be a limit than a guide.
The only non-resistance that brings this power is the kind which yields mere personal & selfish considerations for the sake of principles. Selfish & weak yielding must always do harm. Unselfish yielding, on the other hand, strengthens the will & increases strength of purpose as the petty obstacles of mere self-love are removed.
INTERIOR freedom rests on the principle of non-resistance to all the things which seem wicked or painful to our natural love of self. But non-resistance alone can accomplish nothing lovely unless, behind it, there is a strong love for righteousness & truth. By refusing to resist the ill will of others, or the stress of circumstances, for the sake of greater usefulness also a clearer point of view, they deepen our conviction of righteousness as the fundamental law of fife, & broaden our horizon so as to appreciate varying & opposite points of view.
But if they try to look at ourselves as they are, they shall find great strength in yielding where only our miniscule & private interests are concerned, & concentrating on living the broad principles of righteousness which must directly or indirectly affect all those with whom they come in to contact.
Concentration alone cannot long remain wholesome, for it needs the light of growing self-knowledge to prevent its becoming self-centred. Yielding alone is of no avail, for in itself it's no constructive power.
No comments:
Post a Comment