Truth Definitions 2
TRUTH
The truth is warm, kindly, healthy. It is something you feel independent of friends and environment; you know it all by yourself. The truth inspires because it connects what is real in you with what is real in the universe. The truth is all you really need because it includes everything you really need, which you can know by experience. The truth inspires because it is the truth.
GOODNESS
A man who is good does not go around contriving to do good. His own goodness does good, wherever he goes, though few realize it. Being one with goodness, he has no separate self-image of being a good man who can help the bad to be good. He leaves such imaginary and ego-centered goodness to the self-deceived. The bad man thinks about goodness with personal gain in mind, while the truly good man impersonally expresses goodness. Because a rose is a rose, it never needs to think of itself as one.
ESOTERIC SCHOOL
An esoteric school is not a place; it is an alert mind. You can be profitably enrolled in school day and night, wherever you go. You are in school when you notice a slight change in the face of an apparently cheerful friend, which reveals his deep depression. Your schooling is proceeding nicely when you suddenly realize that the person who clings to a false idea is the same person who is punished by it. Unfortunately, this kind of school is not glamorous enough for many people. They want impressive teachers in saffron robes and incense filled chapels.
ACCEPTANCE BY OTHERS
The man who needs to be accepted by others still lives under several wrong impressions. He still thinks there is value in self-pleasing human associations and in reassuring words which come from people who appear self-assured. He still thinks he can escape the agony of his own emptiness by filling it with the neurotic noise of society. The awakened man has no attachment to the opposite terms of “acceptance” and
“rejection.” Living above mere words, he comes and goes among people in a quiet contentment which is unknown by those who still seek acceptance.
AGITATION
Hold every thought and action up to the light of the question. ‘Does this increase my agitation or does it suspend my agitation?’ After doing this you can make a great decision in your favor. You can decide to no longer enjoy agitation. Yes, the enjoyment of agitation and sensation is the nervous life of most people. Whoever screams back when screamed at enjoys his screaming. Agitation is false life, so you will decide in favor of true life by no longer paying the dreadful price of agitation.
NO NEED TO WIN
No one can win over the man who has no need to win over anyone. And there is no need to win over anyone. To not win is to win. Try it. After enduring and ignoring the complaint of the old nature which frantically insists it must win, you will win. This is a new kind of victory, in which you do not win over people and events, but in which you win over the false belief that you must win. That is complete victory.
NON-ATTACHMENT
Our freedom can be measured by the number of things we can walk away from. We cannot walk away from anything we falsely value, including exciting but pointless involvements. Non-attachment is the secret, and the non-attachment is a product of valuing true life above all else. What a difference it would make if human beings loved their own lives, but instead they love their unconscious illusions, like children who hide forbidden and dangerous toys in the cellar. The spiritual adult knows how to walk casually away from all that is not worth his attention.