When a person, whoever he is, analyzes the individual causes that hinder and complicate his life, he ultimately comes to one single conclusi...
Material comfort, education, freedom, and civilization in general - these things are just a picture frame. However, the frame can hardly say anything about the picture itself, just like a cassock about a monk or a military uniform about a soldier.
Imagine that the picture depicts a person who has a unique consciousness, character, will, and desires. However, we were so carried away with the development and decoration of the frame that we neglected the picture and disfigured it.
When that which is deep within us begins to stir, feeling the need for love, longing, and fulfillment of its destiny, it feels buried alive - it sinks under the weight of secondary things that oppress it and deprive it of light and air.
We must free ourselves and return to true life, put everything in its proper place, and remember that the center of human progress is moral growth.
A good lamp - what is it? No, not at all the most refined or made of precious metal. A good lamp is one that gives good lighting. We are considered human beings and citizens not because we produce for ourselves a huge amount of goods and pleasures, not because we have an intellectual and artistic culture, not because we can enjoy honors and independence; but because our moral principles are strong. This is the truth of all time.
Not a single era had such external conditions (created by man with the help of industry or his own knowledge) that could free him from the need to develop spiritually. The world around us is changing, its intellectual and material factors differ from each other, and no one is able to influence these changes, the suddenness of which is sometimes not without danger.
But the most important thing is that under any circumstances a person must remain a person, live his life, and strive for his goals. And no matter how difficult his path to his set goals may be, he should not lose himself in the vicissitudes of life, he should not burden his movements with a useless burden. Let him follow his own path while maintaining honesty and integrity and devoting himself to what really matters. As he develops, he will face various difficulties; to solve them, he will have to make some sacrifices and get rid of unnecessary things in order to lighten his baggage.
The Essence of Simplicity
Before considering the question of a practical return to the simplicity that we so much dream of, we first need to define it and understand its essence. In relation to it, people make the same mistake that we mentioned above: they take the secondary for the important, the substance for the form. They tend to believe that simplicity has some external features by which it can be easily recognized and in which its essence lies. Simplicity and low position in society, ordinary dress, modest housing, limited material resources, and poverty - these things seem to go hand in hand. However, this is not the case...
No class has the prerogative of simplicity. Inexpensive dresses or a modest appearance are not her permanent feature. She does not have to live in an attic, in a hut, a hermit's cell, or a fisherman's hut. Regardless of the forms in which life manifests itself, or social status, there are people who live simply and those who do not.
When we say this, we do not mean that simplicity does not have any visible characteristics, habits of its own, distinctive tastes, and ways. However, this is an external manifestation that is easy to fake. It should not be confused with the essence of simplicity and its deep inner source.
Simplicity is a state of mind. It dwells in the main goal of our life.
A person is simple when he is most concerned with the desire to be what he should be, that is, an honest and natural person.
And this is not as easy as it might seem at first glance, but it is possible. In essence, simplicity lies in striving to live in accordance with the law of being, and the Eternal Intention, thanks to which we exist at all. Let a flower be a flower, a swallow, a stone, a man, and not a fox, a hare, a pig, or a bird of prey: this is the essence of all matter.
So we smoothly approached the formulation of the practical ideal of man. Our life is filled with a certain amount of matter and energy, which are associated with specific goals. Substances tend to transform and be transferred to a higher level of organization. The same applies to human life. The human ideal is to turn life into something more beautiful than it is now.
We can compare existence to raw material. What it is means less than what it is made of since the value of the finished work of art lies in revealing the skill of the creative person. We are born with certain gifts: some get a lot of gold, others get granite, and others get marble, but most of us are given either wood or clay. Our task is to give shape to these substances.
Everyone knows that even the most valuable material can be spoiled. However, it is also true that inexpensive material can turn into a masterpiece in skillful hands.
Art is the realization of a permanent idea in an ephemeral form. True life is the realization of the highest virtues - justice, love, truth, freedom, and moral strength - in everyday life, whatever they may be.
And such a life is possible in the presence of a variety of social conditions and natural gifts. It has nothing to do with luck or personal advantage, it has more to do with our awareness of what the value of life is. Quality is more important than fame and popularity.
Is it necessary to say that no one will take this point of view without a struggle? The spirit of simplicity is not an inherited gift, but the result of painstaking conquest... When a person takes action and gives a strict account of his actions, he eventually comes to a better understanding of life, its main law, which sounds like this: "Fulfill your destiny. "
Anyone who pursues a different goal loses the meaning of life. This applies to egoists, people who are in constant search of pleasure, and ambitious personalities: they consume existence; their life does not bear fruit, therefore it seems empty.
The one who, on the contrary, serves a higher purpose, saves life by giving and giving it to others.
Moral commandments, which, if you do not delve into them, seem conditional and only spoil the taste of life, in fact, they have one goal - to prevent us from succumbing to temptation and living life in vain. That is why they constantly bring us back to the same roads; that is why they all have the same meaning: “Don't waste your life! Make it bear fruit. "
Here the experience of mankind is summarized, and this experience, which each person must remake for himself, is invaluable. Illuminated by its light, a person increasingly makes a choice in favor of morality. Now he has a means of orientation, his inner norm, to which he can return whatever he wants. From an indecisive, confused, and complex being, he turns into a simple person. Under the immediate and continuous influence of the same law which expands within him and is confirmed every day, his opinions and habits become different...
Within it, the necessary hierarchy of powers is established: important orders, secondary obediences; and out of all this order comes simplicity.
We can compare this organization of inner life with an army. An army is strong through discipline. This discipline, in turn, consists in the respect shown by the lower to the higher in rank, and the focus of energy on achieving one single goal: as soon as a discipline is broken, the army will be engulfed in chaos.
Don't let a corporal command a general. Carefully analyze your life and the lives of other people. If you notice that something is going wrong in it, there are difficulties and confusion, then the corporal began to give orders to the general. If the heart lives in accordance with natural laws, then there can be no disorder.
I can hardly ever be able to describe simplicity in a decent manner. All the strength of the world and all its beauty, all true joy, everything that consoles and gives hope or illuminates our dark path with a ray of light, everything that makes us see a beautiful goal and an endless future among dull everyday life, comes to us from people of simplicity, those who refused to make the transient satisfaction of selfishness and vanity the object of their desires, and realized that the art of life consists in knowing how to give and give life.
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