—JOHN 16:33
Everything is indefinite, misty, and transient; only virtue is clear, and it cannot be destroyed by any force.
—MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
Only a person who renounces his personality becomes truly powerful. As soon as one denies his personality, it is not he but God who acts through him.
Once upon a time, a Roman empress lost her precious jewelry. It was announced across the empire that whoever found her lost stones before thirty days would receive a big reward, but any who returned the jewelry after thirty days would be executed. Samuel, a Jewish rabbi, found the precious stones, but he returned them after thirty days had passed. “Have you been abroad?” the Roman empress asked him. “No, I was at home.” “Maybe you did not know what was proclaimed?” “No, I knew,” said Samuel. “Then why did you not return these things before the expiry of the thirty days? Now you have to be executed.” “I wanted to show you that I returned your lost jewelry, not because of fear of your punishment, but because of fear of God.”
April 25
A person can understand himself as a material or a spiritual being. When you understand yourself as a spiritual being, then you are free.
What is “love of God,” if it is not the effort to add part of yourself to the higher creative flow of energy in this world? Divine force exists in everything, but the greatest manifestation of it in this world is in humanity, and in order to put it to work, one must understand it and accept it.
If a person does not believe himself capable of doing the best things in the world, then he starts to create the worst things.
I know that the sky knows everything, and that its laws are constant. I know that it sees everything, it gets into everything, and it is present in everything. The heavens can get into the depths of all human hearts in the same way that the daylight can lighten a dark room. We should try to reflect this heavenly light.
—CHINESE WISDOM
April 26
The understanding of the existence of God is accessible to everybody; the complete understanding of the essence of God is not accessible to any person.
All the nations of the world name and respect God. Different people give him different names, and put different clothes on him; but there is only one God under all these different manifestations.
—JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU
Faith in God is as natural to men as their ability to walk on two feet. This faith can be modified, and it can even disappear in some individuals; but as a rule, it is necessary for intellectual life in society.
—After GEORGE LICHTENBERG
There are some statements which cannot be fathomed: God exists or he does not exist; the soul exists in the body, or we do not have a soul; the world was created or the world was not created.
—BLAISE PASCAL
Live in God, live together with God, by understanding Him in you, and do not try to define Him with words.
April 27
A bad mood is often the reason for blaming others; but very often blaming others causes bad feelings in us: the more we blame others, the worse we feel.
One of our most common and widespread prejudices is that every person has a fixed, special characteristic, that there are kind people and evil, clever people and stupid people, and cold or hot people. But people are not like this; we can say about a person only that he is more often kind than evil, more often clever than stupid, more often cold than hot. We always divide people like this, but it is no less wrong.
If there is animosity between two people, both are to blame. Any number you multiply by zero, however big, will equal zero. If there is animosity, then, it is the animosity of two people toward each other, and it exists in both of them.
Try to understand and remember that a person always tries to do what is best for himself. And if he is right when he does the best thing for himself, it is good; but if he is mistaken, it is bad, because suffering will follow after such mistakes.
If you remember this, then you will never be upset by anybody, you will never reproach anybody, and you will never be an enemy to anybody.
—After EPICTETUS
If you are living with another person, make an agreement that as soon as either of you starts to blame the other, you will end the argument.
April 28
Work is the necessary condition of happiness. First, favorite and free work; secondly, the physical work which arouses your appetite and afterward gives you tranquil and sound sleep.
Manual labor does not exclude intellectual activity, but improves its quality and even helps it.
Constant idleness should be included in the tortures of hell, but it is, on the contrary, considered to be one of the joys of paradise.
—CHARLES DE MONTESQUIEU
When a person sets to work, even if it is the most unqualified, primitive, simple work, the human soul calms down. As soon as a person starts to work, all the demons leave him and cannot approach him. A man becomes a man.
—THOMAS CARLYLE
Work is necessary. If you want a good disposition of your spirit, work until you become tired. But not too much. Not until you become exhausted. A good spiritual disposition can be destroyed by excessive work as well as by idleness.
April 29
A person can fulfill his purpose in life equally as well in illness as in health.
If we meditate upon the existence of life after death, then all illnesses would seem to be taking us closer to the movement from one life to another, a transfer more desirable than undesirable. During these pains we can understand and explain for ourselves what will happen to us, and prepare for the new state of our next existence.
Usually people think that it is possible to serve God and humanity only when you are healthy. This is not true. Very often it is to the contrary. Christ served God and all mankind when he suffered on the cross, and even then he forgave those who killed him. Every person can do likewise. You cannot say which state is better, a healthy or ill state, in the service of God and humankind.
For yourself, and for yourself only, it is necessary to have health and power. But to serve God it is not necessary, and sometimes even the opposite is true.
Very often, when I have dealt with terminally ill people, I have learned that the most important thing is not hiding the approaching death from the patient, but on the contrary, explaining to him his own divine, spiritual nature, which grows in him and which cannot be destroyed by death.
Illnesses almost always destroy one’s physical power, and they release the power of one’s soul. For a person who concentrates his consciousness in the spiritual domain, illnesses do not diminish his goodness, but on the contrary, they increase it.
April 30
It seems that it is impossible to live without discovering the purpose of your life. And the first thing which a person should do is to understand the meaning of life. But the majority of people who consider themselves to be educated are proud that they have reached such a great height that they cease to care about the meaning of existence.
The real purpose of our existence is to understand this limitless life existing in this world.
A person may not know the purpose of his life, but he should know