OUR ILLS AND OUR REMEDIES

 
In the world of quiet speculation, as well as in the world of surging political activity, or individual striving, men are desperately trying to remedy the many ills to which humanity is heir. All our creeds and faiths, all our parties and "isms" are so many practical solutions offered toward this purpose.

But, though good in their intention and starting point, they often create confusion and chaos instead of solutions, because they lose sight of the inescapable truth that all external organization is doomed to failure unless it is implemented by inner spiritual transformation of the individual. I am, therefore, not concerned with parties, creeds and "isms," but only with those fundamental values which must be wholeheartedly and universally accepted, if humanity is to be truly saved.

I am equally concerned with the saint and the sinner, the small and the great, the rich and the poor, the ignorant and the wise, the East and the West. For them all, the one remedy of remedies which is recommended is spiritual understanding, which at once includes and supersedes all other forms of knowledge.

It inevitably precipitates the blending of theory and practice, for it is as much of the heart as of the mind. When understanding is our law, we have love which is imperishable, and action which is dynamically creative — love without entanglement, and action without attachment to results.

True understanding about man's place in God's Life Universal will enable man to avoid much suffering — physical and mental — sometimes invited by himself through wrong action, and often created by himself through vitiated imagination.

All joy, howsoever alluring, will fade away, unless it springs from life in the Truth Everlasting. All suffering will only harden or embitter the heart unless it is accepted with grace and resignation and utilized as an awakener to real values.

Suffering will haunt us again and again in numberless ways, unless we give up the illusion of separateness arising out of false identification with the body or the ego-mind. And true joy will evade us again and again, unless we get firmly established in the imperishable sweetness (ananda) of Life Eternal, which admits no divisions and accepts no limitations.

Be disciples of this Life Divine which vibrates eternally in one and all!