That is the one great first
step- the real desire for the ideal. Everything comes easy after that…. The
struggle is the great lesson. Mind you, the great benefit in this life is
struggle. It is through that we pass. If there is any road to Heaven, it is through
Hell. Through Hell to Heaven is always the way. When the soul has wrestled with
circumstances and has met death, a thousand times death on the way, but nothing
daunted has struggled forward again and again and yet again, then the soul
comes out as a giant and laughs at the ideal he has been struggling for,
because he finds how much greater is he than the ideal. I am the end, my own
self, and nothing else, for what is there to compare to my own self? Can a bag
of gold be the ideal of my soul? Certainly not! My soul is the highest ideal
that I can have. Realizing my own real nature is the one goal of my life.
There is nothing that is
absolutely evil. The devil has a place here as well as God, else he would not
be here. Just as I told you, it is through Hell that we pass to Heaven. Our
mistakes have places here. Go on! Do not look back if you think you have done
something that is not right. Now, do you believe you could be what you are
today, had you not made those mistakes before? Bless your mistakes, then. They
have been angels unawares. Blessed be torture! Blessed be happiness! Do not
care what be your lot. Hold on to the ideal. March on! Do not look back upon
little mistakes and things. In this battlefield of ours, the dust of mistakes
must be raised. Those who are so thin-skinned that they cannot bear the dust,
let them get out of the ranks.
If a man with an ideal
makes a thousand mistakes, I am sure that the man without an ideal makes fifty
thousand. Therefore, it is better to have an ideal. And this ideal we must hear
about as much as we can, till it enters into our hearts, into our brains, into
our very veins, until it tingles in every drop of our blood and permeates every
pore in our body. We must meditate upon it. “our of the fullness of the heart the
mouth speaketh,” and out of the fullness of the hear the hand words too.
It is thought which is the
propelling force in us. Fill the mind with the highest thoughts, hear them day
after day, think them month after month. Never mind failures; they are quite
natural, they are the beauty of life, these failures. What would life be
without them? It would not be worth having if it were nt for struggles. Where
would be the poetry of life? Never mind the struggles, the mistakes. I never
heard a cow tell a lie, but it is only a cow-never a man. So never mind these
failures, these little back sliding; hold the ideal a thousand times, and if
you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more. The ideal of man is to
see God in everything. But if you cannot se Him in everything, see Him in one
thing, in that thing which you like best, and then see Him in another. So on
You can go. There is infinite life before the soul. Take your times and you
will achieve your end.
Take up one idea. Make that
one idea your life-think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain,
muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave
every other idea alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way great
spiritual giants are produced. Others are mere talking machines.
The life of the practical
is in the ideal. It is the ideal that has penetrated the whole of our lives,
whether we philosophies, or perform the hard, everyday duties of life. The rays
of the ideal, reflected and refracted in various straight or tortuous lines,
are pouring in through every aperture and wind hole, and consciously or
unconsciously, every function has to be performed in its light, every object
has to be seen transformed, heightened or deformed by it. It is the ideal that
has made us what we are, and will make us what we are going to be. It is the
power of the ideal that has enshrouded us, and is felt in our joys or sorrows,
in our great acts or mean doings, in our virtues and vices.
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