The Library
These teachings have appeared in the world in their present form and at the present time because they correspond to a genuine need of a certain section of humanity.
13.20.2.1Listen These truths, which were formerly kept wholly esoteric and narrowly confined to an intellectually privileged elite, must now be given to the widest possible audience because humanity's position is so precarious. The old secrecy has outlived its usefulness.
13.20.2.4Listen The work done by science and rationalism has been a necessary one, but it was destructive of religious codes and consequently of moralities based on those codes. Mankind must now perform a piece of constructive work in the sphere of ethics or it may experience a social collapse of colossal magnitude. It is here that the hidden teaching can step in and offer a valuable contribution.
13.20.2.11Listen The duty to which we are called is not to propagate ideas but to offer them, not to convert reluctant minds but to satisfy hungry ones... There are individuals today to whom these teachings are unknown but who possess in the deeper levels of their mind latent tendencies and beliefs, acquired in former lives, which will leap into forceful activity as soon as the teaching is presented to them.
13.20.2.16… We live in times when the old evil forces are so active only because they feel the approach of new and good ones.
13.20.2.19,Listen Will the masses ever come of cultural and spiritual age? Can the common man ever find enough nourishment in true philosophic ideas? Yes, this can happen if those at the top accept truth, for sooner or later their ideas filter downward, even if somewhat thinned by the process of popularization.
13.20.2.21Listen In the end philosophy is not only for the minority of well-educated minds or for the elite of the persons refined by culture, upbringing, innate sensitivity, but also for the majority who can take it in partially; here and there some points can be grasped and accepted …
13.20.2.23,Listen If it is to be popularized, this must be done under some reserves, to protect its own purity and integrity. But these reserves need not and ought not be as large and forbidding as they often have been in the past. The extraordinary times in which we live, the world-wide area of the crisis, and the nature of the crisis itself require this liberalization.
13.20.2.30Listen We do not need to persuade or convert others to philosophy but we ought to offer them the material which they can investigate as and when they feel inclined to do so.
13.20.2.38Listen Those who do not like philosophy and cannot understand it are simply not ready for it. We cannot compel them to take it up. But we can keep it available for them, whenever the time comes that they do feel a need for it.
13.20.2.45Listen … The lack of spiritual reverence and the lowness of moral tone, the ignorance of karmic consequences and the violence of greed and hatred--these are the things today which are immensely dangerous to humanity …
13.20.2.48,Listen The whole of philosophy cannot be disseminated quickly and easily to the masses. But this is not to be used as an excuse to do nothing at all for them.
13.20.2.49Listen The immediate task today is for philosophy to deliver its message. The secondary task is to assist those who accept this message to come to a proper and adequate understanding of it. The first is for the multitude and hence public. The second is for the individual and hence private.
13.20.2.63Listen Today the seeker finds offered to him the culture of the whole world. The wisdom of many civilizations has been bequeathed to him from the past, from long-gone eras as also those more recent in time or distant in space. How fortunate is his position in these ways!
13.20.2.68Listen The needs of this age emphatically demand action in the outer world. Quite a few people of talent, position, vision, or influence have adopted these views, and will take their place in the forefront of things when the destined hour of the New Age sweeps down.
13.20.2.73Listen These ideas are not really new, but they have been half-forgotten or wholly overlooked. Anyway, the time is ripe to restate them…
13.20.2.90,Listen Philosophy may be--indeed must be--written afresh for every fresh generation but its principles are imperishable. They cannot change. Only the methods of expounding them, only the phraseology of expressing them can change.
13.20.2.94Listen The truths which were known by Lao Tzu, Buddha, and Jesus are still valid in the conditions of today--which are so different--otherwise they would not be true. But the form of expressing them may well be different.
13.20.2.99Listen If a life of inward beauty and emotional serenity appeals to a man, he is ready for philosophy.
13.20.2.130Listen If there is any future for a teaching it belongs to the present one. It does not have to stand on the defensive just as it does not have to use loud-speaking propagandists. Its existence is justified by humanity’s essential need of knowing what it is, what the world is, and what to make of its own life …
13.20.2.146,Listen Philosophy does not have to defend itself, nor even to explain itself. It is only for those who have grown and grown until they are ready for it. They will appreciate its worth and perceive its truth without argument.
13.20.2.153Listen The interest in philosophy develops out of different motives. The need of finding inner peace is one man’s motive; the wish to understand life is another’s.
13.20.2.160Listen They come to philosophy when they have exhausted other sources, paths, and directions, only when their search is prolonged enough and intelligent enough to show, with time, that the truth is not findable elsewhere.
13.20.2.162Listen This teaching will only be of interest to those who have long felt an aspiration towards higher-than-ordinary experience.
13.20.2.164Listen Philosophy will have little interest for those who are eager only for animal satisfactions and human selfishnesses. It is for more evolved types, who understand that a higher life is possible and worth working for.
13.20.2.165Listen If people are so determined to become the victims of their own egos that no words, no sage counsel, can stop them, there is no other course left except to leave them to suffer the consequences of their actions and thus learn the hard way.
13.20.2.177Listen Although more men are ready to receive it than ever before, philosophy's time has not yet come. There is still only a tiny minority which can recognize its truth, appreciate its worth, and practise its ethic.
13.20.2.189Listen Even many of those who have had the good fortune to come into contact with philosophy have either misunderstood it and so missed their opportunity, or neglected it because its disciplines seemed too troublesome.
13.20.2.238Listen The incapacity of some persons to receive the teaching is illusory. The fault lies really in the inefficiency of those who present it--in their failure to make it clear enough, vivid enough, logical enough, to render it intelligible…
13.20.2.267,Listen Such an exalted teaching is never to be forced on others; they must first feel the desire for truth, and that strongly enough to begin to seek for it. Each man therefore obtains the truths to which he is entitled. It is all a matter of ripeness.
13.20.2.295Listen Because they sought to help the multitude for whom they came, rather than the elite, sages used the popular language to deliver their teachings. Hence Buddha spoke in Prakrit rather than in Sanskrit, Jesus in Aramaic rather than Hebrew.
13.20.2.310Listen Adherence to philosophy is the most fundamental act of a man’s life. He cannot be emotionally rushed into it, as he can into adherence to a religious cult. It is the result of growth.
13.20.2.324Listen
1 Jun 2018
1 Jan 2014
31 Dec 2016
28 Apr 2011
30 Apr 2019
4 Sep 2015
6 Dec 2024
30 Apr 2014
7 Nov 2018
20 Feb 2013
7 Apr 2019
27 Jul 2016
1 Jan 2013
24 Dec 2018
29 Aug 2012
14 Jan 2020
23 Aug 2018
19 Dec 2017
7 Dec 2017
19 Dec 2021
17 Oct 2016
25 Aug 2022
5 Feb 2021
24 Nov 2020
26 Jul 2019
25 Jan 2020
27 Oct 2016
11 Jun 2019
19 Jun 2019
7 Sep 2016
27 Jun 2020
26 Apr 2024
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