Learn to solve life's problems
Maintain balance in all circumstances
'We are constantly being solicited by all kinds of things, none of which are essential. Look at the way you are entreated to visit a certain country, an exhibition, to read this book, listen to that music...
I too, am bombarded with advertisements, I am offered flat silver, bottles of wine, dressing gowns... I am in a position to know what humans are told to buy, what they are sold to make their life easier... will it make them more intelligent, healthier, better off in any way? Is that the essential, or is the essential a philosophy that can show you how to solve the problems of life?
There are so many things to discourage us, to annihilate us! No one is spared. What can we do? Arm ourselves inside. in the mind and heart. Life is relentless, we have to fight, but not the way people think, with deadly weapons. I preach war, but a different kind of war, it consists of becoming an acrobat... a skilled acrobat, who can keep his balance in the midst of opposing, even hostile, forces.
Nothing is more important than that.
We think there must be some method, some magic truth or secret, that we can use every day, in all circumstances. But the method or secret that worked yesterday will not work today... you have to find a new one each time... as if you were on a tightrope, trying to keep your balance.
What was helpful yesterday, was for yesterday; today, you must find something else. Yesterday, you were in Paradise because of a thought you had, but today, the same thought does no good. Heaven forces you to advance, to discover things, and not settle for one truth only.
Each day presents us with new problems to solve, each day has a new distribution of forces, new situations, and if yesterday the solution lay in wisdom, today it will be love, or willpower, or patience. You must develop them all. There is always a solution, and you must find it. I am telling you things that I have verified, believe me.
I too am obliged to dance on the tightrope, each day. As they do in the circus, I hold a little parasol over my head and move it a little to the right, a little to the left, to keep from falling... that is how I stay in balance.'
'We are constantly being solicited by all kinds of things, none of which are essential. Look at the way you are entreated to visit a certain country, an exhibition, to read this book, listen to that music...
I too, am bombarded with advertisements, I am offered flat silver, bottles of wine, dressing gowns... I am in a position to know what humans are told to buy, what they are sold to make their life easier... will it make them more intelligent, healthier, better off in any way? Is that the essential, or is the essential a philosophy that can show you how to solve the problems of life?
There are so many things to discourage us, to annihilate us! No one is spared. What can we do? Arm ourselves inside. in the mind and heart. Life is relentless, we have to fight, but not the way people think, with deadly weapons. I preach war, but a different kind of war, it consists of becoming an acrobat... a skilled acrobat, who can keep his balance in the midst of opposing, even hostile, forces.
Nothing is more important than that.
We think there must be some method, some magic truth or secret, that we can use every day, in all circumstances. But the method or secret that worked yesterday will not work today... you have to find a new one each time... as if you were on a tightrope, trying to keep your balance.
What was helpful yesterday, was for yesterday; today, you must find something else. Yesterday, you were in Paradise because of a thought you had, but today, the same thought does no good. Heaven forces you to advance, to discover things, and not settle for one truth only.
Each day presents us with new problems to solve, each day has a new distribution of forces, new situations, and if yesterday the solution lay in wisdom, today it will be love, or willpower, or patience. You must develop them all. There is always a solution, and you must find it. I am telling you things that I have verified, believe me.
I too am obliged to dance on the tightrope, each day. As they do in the circus, I hold a little parasol over my head and move it a little to the right, a little to the left, to keep from falling... that is how I stay in balance.'