Speaker 1: Calmness and resource. He who has truth is all his
self possessed. Hurry and excitement, anxiety and fear have no
place in the purified mind, and the true life. Self
conquest results in perpetual calm. Calmness is the radiant light
which adds a luster to all the virtues. Like the
numbers round the head of the saint, it surrounds virtue
with its shining halo. Without calmness, a man's greatest strength
is but a kind of exaggerated weakness. Where is a
man's spiritual strength, where indeed is his ordinary manly strength?
Who loses his balance with almost every petty disturbance from without?
And what enduring influence can a man have who forgets
himself in sinful abandonment or unseemly rage in the hour
of temptation and crisis. The virtuous put a check upon
themselves and set a watch upon their passions and emotions.
In this way they gain possession of the mind and
gradually acquire calmness. And as they acquire calmness, they acquire influence, power, greatness, abiding, joy,
and fullness, and completeness of life. Those who do not
put a check upon themselves, whose emotions and passions are
their masters, who crave excitement and race, often unholy pleasures.
These are not yet fit for a life of joyful victory,
and can neither appreciate nor receive the beautiful jewel of calmness.
Such may pray for peace with their lips, but they
do not desire it in their hearts, or the word
quote peace unquote may only mean to them another kind
of periodic pleasure which they desire to enjoy. In the
life of the calm there are no fitful periods of
sinful excitement followed by reactionary hours of sorrow and remorse.
There are no foolish elations followed by equally foolish depressions,
no degrading actions followed by misery and loss of self respect.
All these things are put away, and what remains is truth,
and truth is forever encircled with peace. The calm life
is new, unbroken bliss. Duties which are irksome to the ungoverned,
are things of joy to the calm man. Indeed, in
the calm life, the word quote duty unquote receives a
new meaning. It is no longer opposed to happiness, but
it is one with happiness. The calm man, the right
seeing man, cannot separate joy from duty. Such separation belongs
to the mind and life of the pleasure hunter and
lover of excitement. Calmness is difficult to attain because men
cling blindly to the lower disturbances of the mind for
the passing pleasure which these disturbances are for. Even sorrow
is sometimes selfishly gloated over as a kind of occasional luxury.
But though difficult to attain, the way which leads to
its attainment is simple. It consists of abandoning all those
excitements and disturbances which are opposed to it, and fortifying
oneself in these dead fast virtues, which do not change
with changing events and circumstances, which have no violent reactions,
and which therefore bestow perpetual satisfaction and abiding peace. He
only finds peace who conquers himself, who strives day by
day after self possession, greater self control, greater calmness of mind,
One can only be a joy to himself and a
blessing to others in the measure that he has command
of himself, and such self command is gained only by
persistent practice. A man must conquer his weakness by daily effort.
He must understand them and study how to eliminate them
from his character. If he continues to strive, not giving way,
he will gradually become victorious. Each little victory gained, though
there is a sense in which no victory can be
called little, will be so much more calmness acquired and
added to his character as an eternal position. He will
thus make himself step strong, capable, and blessed, fit to
perform his duties faultlessly and to meet all events with
an untroubled spirit. But even if he does not, in
this life reach that supreme calm which no shock can disturb,
he will become sufficiently self possessed and pure to enable
him to fight the battle of life fearlessly, and to
leave the world a little richer for having known the
goodness of his presence. By constantly overcoming self, a man
gains a knowledge of the subtle intricacies of his mind,
and it is this divine knowledge which enables him to
become established in calmness. Without self knowledge, there can be
no abiding peace of mind, and those who are carried
away by temptuous passions cannot approach the holy place where
calmness reigns. The weak man is like one who, having
mounted a fiery steed, allows it to run away with
him and carry him whithersoever it wills. The strong man
is like one who, having mounted this deed, governs it
with a masterly hand and makes it go in whatever
direction and whatever speed he commands. Calmness is the crowning
beauty of a character that has become or is becoming, divine,
and is RESTful and peace giving to all who come
in contact with it. Those who are still in their
weakness and doubt find the presence of the calm mind
ristful to their troubled minds, inspiring to their faltering feet,
and rich with healing and comfort in the hour of sorrow.
For he who is strong to overcome self is strong
to help others. He who has conquered soul weariness is
strong to help the weary. On the way, that calmness
of mind, which is not disturbed or overthrown by trials
and emergencies, or by the accusations, slanders and misrepresentations of others,
is born of great spiritual strength. It is the true
indication of an enlightened and wise understanding. The calm mind
is the exalted mind, divinely gentle and externally strong. Is
that man who does not lose his serenity nor forget
his peace when falsehoods and indignities are heaped upon him.
Such calmness is the perfect flower of self control. It
has been slowly and laboriously gained by patiently passing through
the fires of suffering, by subjecting the mind to a
long process of purification. The calm man has discovered the
spring of both happiness and knowledge within himself, and it
is a spring that can never run dry. His powers
are at his full command, and there is no limit
to his resources. In whatever direction he employs his energies,
he will manifest the regionality and power. And this is
so because he deals with things as they are, and
not with mere opinions about things. If he has any
opinions left, he is no longer enamored of them, but
sees them as they are mere opinions and therefore of
no intrinsic value. He has abolished egotism, and by obedience
to law, has become one with the power and nature
in the universe. His resources are untrammeled by selfishness, his
energies unhindered by pride. There is a sense in which
he has ceased to regard anything as his own. Even
his virtues belong to truth and not exclusively to his person.
He has become a conscious principle of cosmic power, and
is no longer a mean, dwarfed thing seeking petty personal ends.
And having put away his self, he has put away
the greed, the misery, the troubles and fears which belong
to self. He acts calmly and accepts all consequences with
equal calmness. He is efficient and accurate, and perceives all
that is involved in any undertaking. He does not work blindly.
He knows that there is no chance of favor. The
mind of the calm man is like the surface of
a still lake. It reflects life and the things of
life truly, whereas the troubled mind, like the troubled surface
of the lake, gives back a distorted image of all
things which fall upon it. Gazing into the serene depths
within him, the self conquered man sees just reflection in
the universe. He sees the cosmic perfection, sees the equity
in his own lot. Even those things which are regarded
by the world as unjust and grievous, and which formerly
appeared so to him, are now known to be the
effects of his own past deeds, and are therefore joyfully
accepted as portions of the perfect whole. Thus his calmness
remains with him with its illimitable fund of resource in
joy and enlightenment. The calm man succeeds where the disturbed
man fails. He is fit to deal with any external difficulty,
who has successfully grappled with the most intricate difficulties and
problems within his own heart. He who has succeeded in
governing though within, is best equipped to govern the without.
The calm mind perceives a difficulty in all its bearings
and understands best how to meet it. The disturbed mind
is the lost mind. It has become blind, seeing not
whither to go, but only feeling its own unhappiness and fear.
The resource of the calm man or superior to all
incidents which may befall him. Nothing can alarm him, nothing
can find him unprepared, nothing can shake his strong, insteadfast mind.
Wheresoever duty may call him, there will his strength manifest itself.
There will his mind free from the frictions of self
exhibit its silent and patient power. Whether he be engaged
in things worldly or things spiritual, he will do his
work with concentrated vigor and penetrating insight. Calmness means that
the mind is harmoniously adjusted, perfectly poised. All its extremes,
once so antagonistic and painful, are reconciled, merged into one grand,
central principle with which the mind has identified itself. It
means that the runaway passions are tamed and subjected, the
intellect is purified, and the will is merged into the
cosmic world. That is, it is no longer centered upon
narrow personal ends, but is concerned with the good of all.
A man is not wholly victorious until he is perpetually calm.
While passing things disturb him. His understanding is unripe, his
heart is not altogether pure. A man cannot advance in
the triumph of life while he flatters and deceives himself.
He must awake and be fully alive to the fact
that his sins, sorrows, and troubles are of his own
making and belong to his own imperfect condition. He must
understand that his miseries have their root in his own sins,
and not in the sins of others. He must strive
after calmness as the covetous man strives after riches, and
he must not rest satisfied with any partial attainment. He
will thus grow in grace and wisdom, in strength and peace,
and calmness will descend upon his spirit, as the refreshing
dew descends upon the flowers. Where the calm mind is,
there is strength and rest, there is love and wisdom.
There is one who has fought successfully innumerable battles against self, who,
after long toil and secret against his own failings, has
triumphed at last