LIGHT ON THE PATH - 86 : Desire power ardently. - 4

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 86 🌹

🍀 For those WHO DESIRE TO ENTER WITHIN - For DISCIPLES 🍀

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj


CHAPTER 7 - THE 13th RULE

🌻 13. Desire power ardently. - 4 🌻


342. A man who works without any regard to his own interests and is always willing to remain in the background is inevitably misunderstood by the world.

People understand and admire a man of strong will, who sets out to make a name for himself, to make an impression, and pushes his way to the front. Such a man has succeeded, from their point of view; he has shown the world that he is a strong man. The occultist may be in reality much more forceful, but he would not show his power in that way.

He seeks generally to efface himself. He realizes that one of the greatest qualifications is to know when to get out of the way, to know when to let the divine power do its work without spoiling and hindering it by putting himself in the way of it. It seems so simple, and yet the fact that there are hundreds of workers who cannot do it shows that it is really a great difficulty.


343. The man of the world is apt to regard the occultist as a person of no particular will-power, as one who is always ready to give way. So he is, as regards the minor details of life.

He lets others have their way in things which do not matter, and is even willing to be managed up to a certain point; but when it comes to a question of principle, he takes a firm stand. He cares nothing about what people say. People who talk and speculate about others are wrong in nine cases out of ten, so what does it matter what they happen to think about us? As Tennyson says, “Let them rave.”

Of course, I do not mean that we should utterly ignore all worldly conventions. In the early days some of our members felt that it was right to appear different from other people in the matter of wearing evening dress, and so on. We need not outrage the customs of society in this way. Moreover, it seems to me that if we wish to recommend our beliefs we must avoid offending the world unnecessarily.

It is not good policy to set ourselves violently against other people’s ideas. When there comes a point in which no principle is involved we must give way, merely because there is no sense in flying in the face of the usages of the world.

Continues...
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25 Jan 2021