A Calendar of Wisdom

Learn what to do, think, and say the truth at all times. Only when you start to learn this can you understand how far we are from real truth.

Lies are always harmful to all living things.

No person is without sin; no person is completely truthful. It is not that one person is virtuous and truthful and another is sinful and deceitful; rather it’s that one person strives to move toward truth and virtue and the other does not.

Only the spread of love between people can improve the existing social structure.

Love gives meaning to human life. This we have known since antiquity. But what is love? Many wise people throughout the ages have tried to solve this question.

If you raise people to praise only wealth, power, and glory, then naturally they will praise only these things. If you raise people to love the feeling of love, they will start to live in love.

Only one clear quality marks an action as either good or evil: If it increases the amount of love in the world, it is good. If it separates people and creates animosity among them, it is bad.

The time is coming, a time of concord, harmony, forgiveness, and love. Depend on it. We must do everything in our power to bring this time closer, and to stop those things which delay its arrival.

Our understanding of ourselves as discrete beings separate from each other grows out of the conditions of our life in time and space. The less we feel this separation, the more we feel our unification with all other living creatures, the lighter our load, and the more joyful our life will be.

A small branch cut off from a big limb is separated from the whole tree. In the same way when a person is in an argument with another person, he is separated from all humanity.

God created heaven and earth, but they lacked the ability to understand the happiness of their existence. Then God made creatures who could understand the happiness of their existence, and who could create a single body from all of its thinking parts. All people are members of this one body; in order to be happy, they should live in harmony with the will that governs its life. We should live in harmony with this great soul and love it more than we love ourselves.

We manifest in love our understanding of the unity of our being with others, and in so doing we make our life greater. The more we love, the wider, larger, and more joyful our life becomes.

Mankind moves ceaselessly toward perfection, not of every person’s accord, but through the efforts that some particular individuals make toward their personal perfection. The kingdom of God will be created by these individual efforts.

Do not be embarrassed by all your bad deeds, by all your misfortunes. Do not be embarrassed, but fight ceaselessly, bravely, and without hesitation, because the kingdom of God will come.

We hear often that there is no use in working to improve our life, to fight evil, or to establish justice, because progress will occur by itself. Imagine that a boat floats along a river. Imagine that those who have sat by the oars and rowed tirelessly have stopped and gone ashore; and that the travelers who remain in the boat do not bother to take up the oars and push the boat further, but think that it will travel by itself, as before, into the future.

Life has no meaning without purpose. To lack purpose is to deny the existence of God and to admit that our life is an evil, stupidjoke.

All our history proves that God may he understood, not by reasoning, but by submission to Him and obeyance to His laws. Only by doing this can we understand His will on earth.

Every person should make a small effort, even the smallest effort, to improve the general well-being of humanity.

Real goodness is in your hands. It follows a good person as a shadow follows its object.

Everything which can make us better and happier was given to us by God. If our conscience is clear, then nothing can harm us.

Those who have decided to dedicate their lives to spiritual perfection will never be dissatisfied or unhappy, because all that they want is in their power.

Happiness, pure happiness, is a virtue in itself.

The greater the effort a person makes to achieve pleasure, the less possible it is for him to possess real goodness, or love.

They who say that doing good causes them unhappiness either don’t believe in God or aren’t doing something that is truly good.

The real purpose of Christianity is obvious to all, and it is stronger than the lies which try to pervert it.

We should separate the religion that was taught by Jesus from the religion whose subject is Jesus. Then we will understand the real meaning of the New Testament and follow It.

I see a new religion based on mutual trust, which appeals to our deepest selves, and which teaches that a person should love goodness without reward, and that the divine exists in everyone.

In different ways and in different tongues, all humanity repeats the words of the Lord’s prayer, “Let thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”

Do not think that you will personally see the coming of the kingdom of God. But have no doubt that it will come soon: it is coming closer and closer, without hesitation.

At the highest level of consciousness, an individual is alone. Such solitude can seem strange, unusual, even difficult. Foolish people try to escape it by means of various dissipations in order to get away from this high point, to some point lower, but wise people remain at this high point, with the help of prayer.