If you think it is ever warranted to stop on the path of further understanding, you are very far from the truth. The life which we received was given to us not that we might just admire it, but that we should ever look for new truth hidden from us.
—After JOHN MILTON
Mankind makes progress when its faith progresses. And if there is any progress in religion, it is not in the discovery of something new, but in the purifying of the truths which have been revealed and explained to us.
We should not substitute real religious progress with other types of progress: technical, scholarly, and artistic. These technical, scholarly, and artistic achievements can certainly coexist with religious backwardness, as happens in our time.
If you want to serve God, you should work on the side of religious progress in the fight against prejudice, toward a better understanding of the clear and pure religion.
February 21
There was a time when people ate each other. They no longer do so, but they still eat animals. The time will come when more and more people will drop this terrible habit.
It is a mistake to believe that we need obey no moral in our attitude to the animals, that we have no moral responsibilities to them. This way lies complete vulgarity and rudeness.
—ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
The killing and eating of animals is a prejudice accepted by those who think that animals were given to people by God to eat, so that there is nothing wrong in killing them. This is not true. It may be written in some books that it is not a sin to kill an animal, but it is written in our own hearts more clearly than in any books—that we should take pity on animals in the same way as we do on each other. And we all know this, if we do not deaden the voice of our conscience inside of us.
February 22
All that is written about God, and all that people say about Him, still falls short of the mark. Certain things, which every person can understand about God, can never be expressed, things necessary for everyone, and things which cause the love of God.
—After ANGELUS SILESIUS
An intellect which can be understood is not an eternal intellect; a being which can be named is not an eternal being.
—LAO-TZU
There is a force which resides in all things, without which there is no heaven and no earth. This force cannot be perceived. People try to describe its qualities, to give it different names, such as “intellect” or “love,” but the being itself has no name. It is very remote from us, and it is closest to us.
—After LAO-TZU
God is the limitless being which accepts only truth.
—MATTHEW ARNOLD
Those people who ask where God is are crazy; God is everywhere, in all of nature and in the soul of each person. There are many different religions, but there is only one God. If a person cannot understand himself, how can he understand God?
—INDIAN WISDOM
If your eyes become blinded by the sun, you do not say that the sun does not exist. In the same way, you should not say that God does not exist if your intellect is lost in trying to understand him.
—After ANGELUS SILESIUS
February 23
The existing design of life corresponds neither to the requirements of conscience nor to the requirements of intellect.
Imagine a flock of pigeons in a corn field. Imagine that ninety-nine of them, instead of pecking the corn they need and using it as they need it, start to collect all they can into one big heap. Imagine that they do not leave much corn for themselves, but save this big heap of corn on behalf of the vilest and worst in their flock. Imagine that they all sit in a circle and watch this one pigeon, who squanders and wastes this wealth. And then imagine that they rush at a weak pigeon who is the most hungry among them who darest to take one grain from the heap without permission, and they punish him.
If you can imagine this, then you can understand the day-to-day behavior of mankind.
—WILLIAM PALEY
I see people arguing with each other, preparing different traps for each other, lying and betraying each other. I cannot see without tears that the foundations of Good and Evil are forgotten, or in some cases completely unknown.
—THEOGNIS
People are rational creatures. Why do they seem capable of using violence so much more easily than reason in their interactions with each other?
February 24
For a truth to be heard, it must be spoken with kindness. Truth is kind only when it is spoken through your heart with sincerity. You should know that when a message you convey to another person is not understood by him, at least one of the following things is true: what you have said is not true, or you have conveyed it without kindness.
The only way to tell the truth is to speak with kindness. Only the words of a loving man can be heard.
—HENRY DAVID THOREAU
To tell the truth is the same as to be a good tailor, or to be a good farmer, or to write beautifully. To be good at any activity requires practice: no matter how hard you try, you cannot do naturally what you have not done repeatedly. In order to get accustomed to speaking the truth, you should tell only the truth, even in the smallest of things.
We lie to other people so often that we get used to it, and we start to lie to ourselves.
—FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Truth cannot make a person unkind, or too self-assured; the manifestations of truth telling are humility and simplicity.
February 25
To pray is to accept and to remember the laws of the limitless being, God, and to measure all your deeds—past, present, and future—according to His laws.
Before you start praying, ask yourself whether at that moment you can concentrate; otherwise, do not pray at all.
Those who make a habit out of prayer do not pray sincerely.
—The TALMUD
If you ask for support from God, then you will learn how to find it in yourself. He does not change us, but we change ourselves by getting closer to Him. All ask from Him, as if He should help us, but in the end we give these things to ourselves.
—JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
From the ancient times, it has been known that prayer is a human necessity.
People use different rituals during prayer, special addresses in special circumstances, in special places, in the ways they present their message to God and ask Him to be kind.
But let there be this constant: during a prayer, forget about all external worldly things and address the divine part of your soul. Use this divine part to gain communication with that of which it is a part and when you feel yourself close to God, you deliver your soul to Him, and show Him all your deeds and wishes. Prayer does not happen according to the requirements of the world, but according to the divine part of your soul.
February 26
After a long conversation, stop and try to remember what you have just discussed. Don’t be surprised if many things, sometimes even everything you have discussed, were meaningless, empty, and trivial, and sometimes even bad.
A stupid person should keep silent. But if he knew this, he would not be a stupid person.
—MUSLIH-UD-DIN SAADI
Only speak when your words are better than your silence.
—ARABIC PROVERB
For every time you regret that you did not say something, you will regret a hundred times that you did not keep your silence.