Speaker 1: Small tasks and duties. Wrapped in our nearest duty is
the key which shall unlock for us the heavenly gait.
Unveiled the heavenly vision. He shall see as pain in bliss.
Who cometh not too early or too late, like the
star that shines afar, without haste and without rest. Let
each man wheel with steady sway round the task that
rules the day, and do his best Gotha. As pain
and bliss inevitably follow on wrong and right beginnings, so
unhappiness and blessedness are inseparably bound up with small tasks
and duties. Not that a duty has any power of
itself to bestow happiness or the reverse. This is contained
in the attitude of the mind which is assumed towards
the duty, and everything depends upon the way in which
it is approached and done. Not only great happiness, but
great power arises from doing little things unselfishly, wisely, and perfectly.
For life in its totality is made up of little things.
Wisdom inheres in the common details of everyday existence, and
when the parts are made perfect, the whole will be
without blemish. Everything in the universe is made up of
little things, and the perfection of the grate is based
upon the perfection of the small. If any detail of
the universe were imperfect, the whole would be imperfect. If
any particle were omitted, the aggregate would cease to be.
Without a grain of dust, there could be no world.
And the world is perfect because the grain of dust
is perfect. Neglect of the small is confusion of the great.
The snowflake is as perfect as the star. The dewdrop
is as symmetrical as the planet. The microbe is not
less mathematically proportion than the man. By laying stone upon stone,
plumbing and fitting each with perfect adjustment, the temple at
last stands forth in all its architectural beauty. The small
precedes the great. The small is not merely the apologetic
attendant of the great, It is its master and informing genius.
Vain men are ambitious to be great, and look about
to do some great thing, ignoring and despising the little
tasks which call for immediate attention, and in doing in
which there is no vain glory regarding such trivialities as
beneath the notice of great men. The fool lacks knowledge
because he lacks humility and inflated with the thought of
self importance, he aims at impossible things. The great man
has become such by the scrupulous and unselfish attention which
he has given to small duties. He has become wise
and powerful by sacrificing ambition and pride in the doing
of those necessary things which evoke no applause and promise
no reward. He never sought greatness. He sought faithfulness, on selfishness, integrity, truth,
and in finding these in the common round of small
tasks and duties, he unconsciously ascended to the level of greatness.
The great man knows the vast value that inheres in moments, words, greetings, meals, apparel, correspondence,
rest work, detached efforts, fleeting obligations in the thousand and
one little things which press upon him for attention. Briefly,
in the common details of life. He sees everything as
divinely aproportioned, needing only the application of dispassionate thought and
action on his part to render life blessed and perfect.
He neglects nothing, does not hurry, seeks to escape nothing
but error and folly, attends to every duty as it
is presented to him, and does not postpone in regret.
By giving himself unreservedly to his nearest duty forgetting alike
pleasure and pain, he attains to that combined childlike simplicity
and unconscious power, which is greatness. The advice of Confucius
to his disciples eat at your own table as you
would at the table of a king emphasizes the immeasurable
importance of little things, as also does that aphorism of
another great teacher, Buddha. If anything is to be done,
let a man do it, let him attack it vigorously.
To neglect small tasks or to execute them in a
perfunctory or slovenly manner, is a mark of weakness and folly.
The giving of one's entire and unselfish attention to every
duty in its proper place evolves by a natural growth
higher and even higher combinations of duties. Because it evolves
power and develops talent, genius, goodness, character. A man ascends
into greatness as naturally and unconsciously as the plant evolves
into a flower, and in the same manner, by fitting
with unabated energy and diligence every effort and detail in
its proper place, thus harmonizing his life and character. Without
friction or waste of power. Of the almost innumerable recipes
for the development of will, power and concentration which are
now scattered abroad, one looks almost in vain for any
wholesome hint applicable to vital experience. Breathings, postures, visualings, occult
methods are practices as delusive as they are artificial and
remote from all that is real and essential in life.
While the true path, the path of duty of earnest
and undivided application to one's daily task, along with alone
will power and concentration of thought, can be wholesomely and
normally developed, remains unknown, untrodden, unexplored even by the elect.
All unnatural forcing and straining in order to gain power
should be abandoned. There is no way from childhood to
manhood but by growth, Nor is there any other way
from folly to wisdom, from ignorance to knowledge, from weakness
to strength. A man must learn how to grow, little
by little, and day after day, by adding thought to thought,
effort to effort, deed to deed. It is true the
Fakir gained some sort of power by his long persistence
in postures and mortifications, but it is a power which
is brought at a heavy price, and that price is
an equal loss of strength in another direction. He is
now never a strong, useful character, but a mere fantastic
specialist in some psychological trick. He is not a developed man.
He is a maimed man. True will power consists in
overcoming the irritabilities, follies, rash impulses, and moral lapses which
accompany the daily life of the individual, and which are
apt to manifest themselves on every slight provocation, and in
developing calmness, self possession, and dispassionate action in the press
and heat of worldly duties, and in the midst of
the passionate and unbalanced throng. Anything short of this is
not true power, and this can only be developed along
the normal pathway of steady growth, in executing ever more
and more masterfully, unselfishly and perfectly the daily round of
legitimate tasks and pressing obligations. The master is not he
whose psychological accomplishments, rounded by mystery and wonder, leave him
at unguarded moments, the prey of irritability, of regret, of peevishness,
or other petty folly or vice, but he whose mastery
is manifested in fortitude, non resentment, steadfastness, calmness, and infinite patience.
The true master is master of himself. Anything other than
this is not mastery but delusion. The man who sets
his whole mind on the doing of each task as
it is presented, who puts into it energy and intelligence,
shutting all else out from his mind, and striving to
do that one thing, no matter how small, completely and perfectly,
detaching himself from all reward in his task, that man
will every day be acquiring greater command over his mind,
and will, by ever ascending degrees, become a last a
man of power, a master. Put yourself unreservedly into your
present task, and so work, act live, that you shall
leave each task a finished piece of labor. This is
the very true way to the acquisition of will, power,
concentration of thought, and conservation of energy. Look not about
for magical formulas, for strained and artificial methods. Every resource
is already with you and within you. You have but
to learn how wisely to apply yourself in that place
which you now occupy. Until this is done, those other
and higher places which are waiting for you cannot be taken.
Possession of cannot be reached. There is no way to
strengthen wisdom but by acting strongly and wisely in the
present moment, and each present moment reveals its task. The
great man, the wise man, does small things greatly, regarding
nothing as trivial that is necessary. The weak man, the
foolish man, does small things carelessly and meaningly, hankering the
while after some greater work, for which, in his neglect
and inability in small matters, he is ceaselessly advertising his incapacity.
The man who least governs himself is always more ambitious
to govern others and assume important responsibilities. Whoso neglects a
thing which he suspects he ought to do because it
seems too small a thing is deceiving himself. It is
not too little, but too great for him that he
doth it not. And just as the strong doing of
small tasks leads to greater strength, so the doing of
those tasks weakly leads to greater weakness. What a man
is in his fractional duties that he is in the
aggregate of his character. Weakness is as great a source
of suffering as sin. And there can be no true
blessedness until some measure of strength of character is evolved.
The weak man becomes strong by attaching value to little
things and doing them accordingly. The strong man becomes weak
by falling into looseness and neglect concerning small things, thereby
forfeiting his simple wisdom and squandering his energy. Herein we
see the beneficent operation of that law of growth which
is expressed in the little understood words to him that
hath shall be given, and from him that hath not
shall be taken away, even that which he hath. Man
instantly gains or loses by every thought he thinks, every
word he says, every act he does, and every work
to which he puts heart and hand. His character from
moment to moment is a graduating quantity too, or which
some measure of good is added or subtracted during every moment,
and the gain or loss is involved even to absoluteness
in each thought, word, and deed. As these follow each
other in rapid sequence, he who masters the small becomes
the rightful possessor of the great. He who is mastered
by the small can achieve no superlative victory. Life is
a kind of cooperative trust, in which the whole is
the nature of and dependent upon the unit. A successful business,
a perfect machine, a glorious temple, or a beautiful character
is evolved from the perfect adjustment of a multiplicity of parts.
The foolish man thinks that little faults, little indulgences, little
sins are of no consequence. He persuades himself that so
long as he does not commit flagrant immoralities, he is
virtuous and even holy. But he is thereby deprived of
virtue and holiness, and the world knows him accordingly. It
does not reverence, adore, and love him. It passes him by.
He is reckoned of no account. His influence is destroyed.
The efforts of such a man to make the world virtuous.
His exhortions to his fellow men to abandon great vices
are empty of substance and barren of fruitage. The insignificance
which he attaches to his small vices permeates his whole
character and is the measure of his manhood. He is
regarded as an insignificant man. The levity with which he
commits his errors and publishes his weaknesses comes back to
him in the form of neglect and loss of influence
and respect. He is not sought after. For who will
seek to be taught of folly his work does not prosper.
For who will lean up a read words fall on
deaf ears, for they are void of practice, wisdom, and experience.
And who will go after an echo? The wise man,
or he who is becoming wise, sees the danger which
lurks in those common personal faults which men mostly commit
thoughtlessly and with impunity. He also sees the salvation which
inheres in the abandonment of those faults, as well as
in the practice of virtuous thoughts and acts, which the
majority disregard is unimportant, and in those quiet but momentous
daily quests over self which are hidden from others eyes.
He who regards his molessed delinquencies as of the gravest
nature becomes a saint. He sees the far reaching influence,
good or bad, which extends from his every thought and act,
and how he himself is made or unmade by the
soundness or unsoundness of those innumerable details of conduct which
combine to form his character in life. And so he watches, guards, purifies,
and protects himself little by little and step by step.
As the ocean is composed of drops, the earth of
grains and the stars of points of light. So is
life composed of thoughts and acts. Without these, life would
not be. Every man's life therefore is what his apparently
detached thoughts and acts make it. Their combination is himself.
As the year consists of a given number of sequential moments,
so a man's character in life consists of a given
number of sequential thoughts and deeds, And the finished whole
will bear the impress of the parts. All sorts of
things in weather must be taken in together to make
up a year and a sphere. Little kindnesses, general, and
sacrifices make up a kind and generous character. Little renunciations, endurances,
and victories over self make up a strong and noble character.
The truly honest man is honest in the minutest details
of his life. The noble man is noble in every
little thing he says and does. It is a fatal
delusion with men to think that life is detached from
the momentary thought in act, and not to understand that
the passing thought indeed is the foundation and substance of life.
When this is fully understood, all things are seen as sacred,
and every act becomes religious. Truth is wrapped up in
infidescimal details. Thoroughness is genius, Possessions vanish and opinions, change
and passions. Whold a fluctuating seat, but by the storms
of circumstance, unshaken and subject neither to eclipse nor wane.
Duty exists. You do not live your life in the mass.
You live it in the fragments, and from these the
mass emerges. You can will to live each fragment nobly
if you choose, and this being done, there can be
no particles of baseness in the finished whole. The saying
take care of the pence, and the pounds will take
care of themselves is seen to be more than worldly
wise when applied spiritually. For to take care of the
present passing act, knowing that by doing the total sum
an amount of life and character will be safely preserved,
is to be divinely wise. Do not long to do
great and laudable things, these will do themselves. If you
do your present task nobly, Do not chafe at the
restrictions and limitations of your present duty, but be nobly
unsa selfish in the doing of it, putting aside discontent, listlessness,
and the foolish contemplation of great deeds which lie beyond you,
and lo already the greatness for which you sighe begins
to appear. There is no weakness like peevishness. Aspire to
the attainment of inward nobility, not outward glory, and begin
to attain it. Where you are now, The irksome and
sting which you feel to be in your task are
in your mind. Only alter your attitude of mind towards it,
and at once the crooked path is made straight, the
unhappiness has turned to joy. See that your every fleeting
moment is strong, pure and purposeful. Put earnestness and unselfishness
into every passing task and duty. Make your every thought
word indeed sweet and true. Thus, learning, by practice and
experience the inestimable value of the small things of life,
you will gather, little by little, abundant and enduring blessedness,