The Creator himself pre-ordained that the criterion of all human behaviour was not profit but justice, and on the strength of this all efforts to define levels of profit are always useless. Not one person has ever known, or can know, what the final results of a certain action, or series of actions, will be, either for himself or for others. But each one of us can know which action is just and which is not. And likewise, we can all know that the consequences of justice will, at the end of the day, be as good for ourselves as for others, although it is beyond our power to say beforehand what this good will be and of what it will consist.
– John Ruskin
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
– John 8: 32
Man thinks therefore he is. It is clear that he must think rationally. A rationally thinking person thinks first of all about the purpose for which he must live; he thinks about his soul and about God. Just look at what worldly people think about; of anything you like except that. They think about dancing, about music and singing and similar entertainments; they think about buildings, about wealth, about power; they envy kings and the rich. But they never think about what it means to be a man.
– Pascal
All you suffering men of the Christian world, both rulers and rich and poor and oppressed, need only free yourselves from the deception of false Christianity and government (concealing what Christ revealed to you and what is demanded by your reason and your heart) and it will become clear to you that it is in yourselves and only in yourselves that you will find the cause of all the bodily suffering (want), and spiritual suffering (awareness of injustice, envy and annoyance) that torments you – the oppressed and poor. And that it is also in yourselves, the rich and powerful, that you will find the cause of those fears, pangs of conscience and awareness of the sinfulness of your lives, all of which disturbs you, in varying degrees according to your moral sensitivity.
Understand, all of you, that you were born neither to be slaves, nor to be masters; that you are free men, but that you only become free and rational when you fulfil the supreme law of life. This law has been revealed to you, and you need only discard those lies which conceal it from you to be able to see clearly of what this law consists and in what your happiness consists. This law consists in love, and well-being is only found in the fulfilment of this law. Realize it and you will become truly free and acquire everything that you now vainly seek through those complicated means to which you are attracted by confused and corrupted men, who believe in nothing.
‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’ (Matthew 11: 28–30). You will be saved and delivered from the evil you endure and receive the true well-being you so clumsily strive after, not through personal desire, nor envy, nor through adherence to a party programme; nor through hatred, indignation or the pursuit of fame, nor even through a sense of justice, and above all not through troubling yourselves about the organization of other people’s lives. However strange it may seem, it is only through an activity within your own soul, involving no external aim and no consideration of what might come of it.
Understand that the assumption that a man may organize the lives of others is a crude superstition that people have only accepted because of its antiquity. And understand that those who are preoccupied with organizing the lives of others, be they monarchs, presidents and ministers, or spies and executioners, or members and leaders of a party, or dictators, understand that these people manifest nothing worthy – as people seem to think – but, to the contrary, are pitiable, deeply misled people, preoccupied with a task that is not only vain and stupid, but is one of the most horrible things man can choose to do.
People are already recognizing the pitiful degradation of a spy, or executioner, and are starting to feel the same about the police force, police agents, and even to some extent about the army; but they have not yet begun to feel this about judges, senators, ministers, political leaders and revolutionaries. And yet the work of the senator, the minister, the monarch and the leaders of political parties is just as base, vile and alien to human nature and, perhaps, even worse than the task of the executioner or spy, since it is just the same, but covered in hypocrisy.
Understand then, all of you, especially you young ones, that to dedicate your lives, or even to occupy yourselves with the forcible construction of other people’s lives, according to your own ideas, is not just a primitive superstition, but a vile, criminal affair, destructive to the soul. Realize that the desire of an enlightened soul for the welfare of others is in no way satisfied by vainly organizing their lives through violence, but that it is only achieved through one’s own inner work – the only thing where man has complete freedom and control. Only this task, increasing the love within oneself, can enhance the satisfaction of this desire. You must understand that no activity aimed at the organization of other people’s lives through coercion can enhance people’s welfare, but is always a more or less consciously hypocritical deceit used to cover up men’s basest desires: vanity, pride and self-interest, under the guise of personal dedication to mankind.
Understand this, especially you young ones, the generation of the future, and cease, as the majority of us are doing at the moment, to search for illusory happiness in creating people’s welfare by participating in the administration of the State, or judiciary, or by instructing others and, in order to do so, by entering institutions (namely schools and universities) where you are involved in vanity, self-importance and pride, and thus perverted. Cease participating in the various organizations whose aim is supposedly to further the welfare of the masses, and seek only that one thing that is always necessary and within the reach of us all, and which gives the greatest well-being to ourselves, and is the most likely thing to enhance the welfare of our neighbours. Seek this one thing within yourselves: an increase of love through eradicating all the mistakes, sins and passions which hinder its manifestation and you will further the well-being of the people in the most effective way. Understand that for the people of today the fulfilment of the supreme law of love now known to us (which excludes violence) is as unavoidable as is the law of migration and nest-building for birds, and the law of feeding on grass for herbivorous animals, and on meat for carnivorous ones; and that every transgression of this law is detrimental to us.
Just understand this and dedicate your life to this joyous work; only begin to do this and you will instantly realize that it is this, and only this, which can lead to that improvement of life for all, for which you strive so vainly and along such mistaken paths. Realize that man’s welfare lies only in unity and that unity cannot be attained through violent means. Unity will only be achieved when, without thinking about unity, each person thinks only of fulfilling the law of life. And it is only the SUPREME law of life, one and the same for us all, that unites people.
The supreme law of life revealed by Christ is now clear to man and unity will only be achieved through following it, until there appears a new law that is even closer and dearer to the hearts of man.
Some people seek well-being, or happiness, in power, others seek it in science or in sensuality. Those who are truly close to bliss realize that it cannot exist in something that only a few, rather than everyone, can possess. They realize that the genuine well-being of man is such that all people can possess it at once, without division and without jealousy; it is such that no one can lose it unless he wants to.
– Pascal
We have one, and only one, infallible guide: the eternal spirit that penetrates each and every one of us in unity and fills us with the ambition to attain that which we ought; it is the same spirit that urges the tree to grow towards the sun, the flower to drop its seeds in autumn, and which urges us to strive after God, thereby uniting ourselves.
We are not attracted to genuine belief by the well-being the believer is promised, but by something that manifests itself as the only recourse to deliverance from all misfortune and death.
Salvation does not lie in the rituals and profession of faith, but in a lucid understanding of the meaning of one’s life.*
This is all I wanted to say.
I wanted to say that we have now reached a situation in which we can no longer remain, and that whether we like it or not, we must enter a new path of existence and, in order for us to do that, we do not need to invent either a new faith, or new scientific theories, that might explain the meaning of life and guide it. And, above all, we do not need any particular kind of activity, except to free ourselves from the superstitions, of false Christianity and political structures alike.
Simply let everyone understand that he has neither the right nor the possibility of organizing other people’s lives and that the task of each man is only to observe his own life in accordance with the supreme religious law revealed to him, and this in itself will obviate that tortuous, bestial order of life existing amongst the Christian nations which is so contrary to the requirements of our souls, and growing worse and worse.
Whoever you may be: tsar, judge, landowner, craftsman or beggar, think about it and take pity, take pity on your soul… For however obscured and stupefied you may be by your sovereignty, power or wealth, however exhausted and numbed you may be by your needs and grudges, like all of us you possess, or rather you manifest, that spirit of God that exists in us all and which now says to you, clearly and comprehensibly: why and for what purpose do you torment yourselves and all the others with whom you come into contact in this world? Just realize who you are, how insignificant, on the one hand, is that which you mistakenly call yourself, identifying it as your body; and how immensely great is that which is really you: your spiritual being. Just realize this and begin to spend each moment of your life living not for external ideals, but in fulfilling the true purpose of your life, which has been revealed to you through the wisdom of the whole world, the teachings of Christ, and your own personal awareness. Begin to live by seeing the purpose and well-being of your life in the daily progress of your soul’s liberation from the illusions of the flesh, and in the increasing perfection of love (which amounts to one and the same thing). Just begin to do this and from the first day, the first hour, you will experience a new and joyous sensation of the awareness of complete freedom and well-being flowing ever increasingly into your soul. And what will strike you most of all is how those very external circumstances which troubled you so much, but which were nevertheless so far from your desires, cease (whether they leave you in the same external situation, or whether they lead you out of it) to be a hindrance, and become greater and greater joys of your life.
And if you are unhappy – and I know that you are unhappy – remember that what has been suggested here was not invented by me, but is the fruit of the spiritual works of all the best and loftiest minds and hearts of mankind, and is the only means of deliverance from your unhappiness, providing the greatest well-being man can attain in this life.
This is what I wanted to say to my fellow-men before I die.
[Translated by Jane Kentish]