Speaker 1: Greatness and goodness. Goodness simplicity greatness. These three are one,
and this trinity of perfection cannot be separated. All greatness
springs from goodness, and all goodness is profoundly simple. Without goodness,
there is no greatness. Some men pass through the world
as destructive forces, like the tornado or the avalanche, but
these are not great. They are to greatness as the
avalanche is to the mountain. The work of greatness is
enduring and preservative, and not violent and destructive. The greatest
souls are the most gentle. Greatness is never obtrusive. It
works in silence, seeking no recognition. This is why it
is not easily perceived and recognized. Like the mountain, it
towers up in its vastness, so that those in its
immediate vicinyity, who receive its shelter and shade, do not
see it. Its sublime grandeur is only beheld as they
recede from it. The great man is not seen by
his contemporaries. The majesty of his form is only outlined
by its recession in time. This is the awe and
enchantment of distance. Men occupy themselves with the small things,
their houses, trees, lands, few contemplate the mountain at whose
base they live, and fewer still explore it. But in
the distance these small things disappear, and then the solitary
beauty of the mountain is perceived. Popularity, noisy, obtrusiveness, and
shallow show. These superficialities rapidly disappear and leave behind no
enduring mark, whereas greatness slowly emerges from obscurity and endures forever.
Jewish rabbi and rabble alike saw not the divine beauty
of Jesus. They saw only an unlettered carpenter. To his acquaintances,
Homer was only a blind beggar. But the centuries reveal
him as Homer, the immortal poet. Two hundred years after
the farmer of Stratford, and all that is known of
him has disappeared. The real Shakespeare is discerned. All true
genius is impersonal. It belongs not to the man through
whom it is manifested. It belongs to all. It is
a diffusion of pure truth, the light of Heaven descending
on all mankind. Every work of genius, in whatsoever department
of art, is a symbolic manifestation of impersonal truth. It
is universal and finds a response in every heart, in
every age and race. Anything short of this is not genius,
is not greatness. That work which defends a religion perishes.
It is religion that lives. Theories about immortality fade away,
and mortal man endures. Commentaries upon truth come to dust.
Truth alone remains. That only is true in art, which
represents the true, That only is great in life, which
is universally and eternally true. And the true is the good,
and the good is the true. Every immortal work springs
from the eternal goodness in the human heart, and is
clothed with the sweet and unaffected simplicity of goodness. The
greatest art is like nature, artless. It knows no trick,
no pose, no studied effort. There are no stage tricks
in Shakespeare. And he is the greatest of dramatists because
he is the simplest. The critics, not understanding the wise
simplicity of greatness, always condemn the loftiest work. They cannot
discriminate between the childish and the childlike, the true, the beautiful.
The great is always childlike, and it is perennially fresh
and young. The great man is always the good man.
He is always simple. He draws from nay, lives in
the inexhaustible fountain of divine goodness. Within he inhabits the
heavenly places, communes with the vanquished great ones, lives with
the invisible. He is inspired and breathes the airs of heaven.
He who would be great, let him learn to be good.
He will therefore become great. By not seeking greatness aiming
at greatness, a man arrives at nothingness. Aiming at nothingness,
he arrives at greatness. The desire to be great is
an indication of littleness, of personal vanity and obtrusiveness, The
willingness to disappear from gaze, the utter absence of self
aggrandizement is the witness of greatness. Littleness seeks and love's authority.
Greatness is never authoritative, and it thereby becomes the authority
to which the after ages appeal. He who seeks loses.
He who is willing to lose wins All men. Be
thy simple self, thy better self, thy impersonal self, and
lo thou art great. He who selfishly seeks authority shall
succeed only in becoming a trembling apologist, courting protection behind
the back of acknowledged greatness. He who will become the
servant of all men desiring no personal authority, shall live
as a man, and shall be called great. Abide in
the simple and noble regions of thy life, Obey thy heart,
and thou shalt reproduce the foreworld again. Forget thine own
little self and fall back upon the universal self, and
thou shalt reproduce in living and enduring forms a thousand
beautiful experiences. Thou shalt find within thyself that simple goodness
which is greatness. It is as easy to be great
as to be small, says Emerson, and he utters a
profound truth. Forgetfulness of self is the whole of greatness,
as it is the whole of goodness and happiness. In
a fleeting moment of self forgetfulness, the smallest soul becomes great.
Extend that moment indefinitely, and there is a great soul,
a great life. Cast away thy personality, thy petty cravings, vanities,
and ambitions as a worthless garment, and dwell in the loving, compassion,
selfless regions of thy soul, and thou art no longer small,
Thou art great. Claiming personal authority, a man descends into littleness.
Practicing goodness, a man ascends into greatness. The presumptuousness of
the small may for a time obscure the humility of
the great, but it is at last swallowed up by it.
As the noisy river is lost in the calm motion.
The vulgarity of ignorance and the pride of learning must disappear.
Their worthlessness is equal. They have no part in the
soul of goodness. If thou wouldest do, thou must be.
Thou shalt not mistaken information for knowledge. Thou must know
thyself as pure knowledge. Thou shalt not confuse learning with wisdom.
Thou must apprehend thyself as undefiled wisdom. Wouldst thou right
a living book, Thou must first live. Thou shalt draw
round thee the mystic garment of a manifold experience, and
shalt learn in enjoyment and suffering, gladness and sorrow, conquest
and defeat, that which no book and no teacher can teach. Thee.
Thou shalt learn of life of thy soul. Thou shalt
dread the lonely road, and thou shalt become. Thou shalt be.
Thou shalt then write thy book, and it shall live.
It shall be more than a book let. Thy book
first live in THEE. Then shalt thou live in thy book.
Wouldst Thou carve a statue that shall captivate the ages,
or paint a picture that shall endure? Thou shalt acquaint
thyself with the divine beauty within thee. Thou shalt comprehend
and adore the invisible beauty. Thou shalt know the principles
which are the soul of form. Thou shalt receive the
matchless symmetry and faultless proportions of life, of being of
the universe. Thus knowing thee eternally true, thou shalt carve
or in paint the indescribably beautiful. Wouldst Thou produce an
imperishable poem. Thou shalt first live thy poem. Thou shalt
think and act rhythmically. Thou shalt find the never failing
source of inspiration in the loving places of thy heart.
Then shall immortal lines flow from THEE without effort. And
as the flowers of wood and fields spontaneously spring, so
shall beautiful thoughts grow up in thine heart and enshrined
in words as molds to their beauty, shall subdue the
hearts of men. Wouldst Thou compose such music as shall
gladden and uplift the world, Thou shalt adjust thy soul
to the heavenly harmonies. Thou shalt know that thyself, that
life and the universe is music. Thou shalt touch the
chords of life. Thou shalt know that music is everywhere,
that it is the heart of being. Then shalt thou
hear with thy spiritual ear the deathless symphonies. Wouldst Thou
preach the living word, Thou shalt forego thyself and become
that word. Thou shalt know one thing, that the human
heart is good, is divine. Thou shalt live on one thing. Love.
Thou shalt love all, seeing no evil, thinking no evil,
believing no evil. Then, though thou speak but little, thy
every act shall be a power, thy every word, a
precept by thy pure thought, thy selfless deed, though it
appear hidden, Thou shalt preach down the ages to untold
multitudes of aspiring soul. To him who chooses goodness, sacrificing
all is given that which is more than and includes all,
he becomes the possessor of the best communes with the highest,
and enters the company of the great. The greatness that
is flawless, rounded and complete, is above and beyond all art.
It is perfect goodness and manifestation. Therefore, the greatest souls
are always teachers.