Simplicity
Moving away from the periphery to gain the centre
April 26th 2011
Simplicity… So few people know the meaning and importance of this word! They stop at its outer expressions: simple clothing, simple manners, a simple way of life. Simplicity is really a philosophical attitude consisting in distancing oneself from the physical world, the world of phenomena, and rising to the spiritual world, the world of principles. That is what simplicity is: a movement towards the centre or the summit, whereas complication takes you back the other way, from the centre to the periphery, from the summit to the base. When you move away from simplicity, unity, you are faced with so many details, you no longer see how things organize themselves according to the laws of affinity; you are pulled about, you grope around and grow weak.
The symbol that best expresses simplicity is the diamond, since it is unadulterated, being pure carbon. And we too will possess the purity of the diamond, as well as its strength, when we find true simplicity.