Perspective

When a man can see only from a narrow perspective, he believes that things will not work out. But it is enough to step back a single pace to see how the things of life do work after all. And the wider, the broader the horizon, the more clearly the divine arrangement can be seen behind phenomena. And perhaps the fewer trifles, the fewer negligible details, stay caught in the mind. The mind is also likened to a net in whose meshes the things of life get caught: joys, failures, successes, desires, attachments, hurts, love… If the net is too fine, every trifle is caught in it, even things not worth remembering, things that are only needless ballast. Widen the meshes of the net, let all that is insignificant, fragmentary and splintered fall through. Less burden remains. The wiser you are, the less you carry, and this holds true not only on a journey.

The details may well be troublesome, but if the outcome is good, then all is well. All's well that ends well. And the details may be promising, but if the end result is not good, then nothing is well. You can examine things from two directions: setting out from the causes, or tracing back from the results, the consequences. If you start from the causes, the outcome is sometimes hard to fathom, for the causal web of consequences is intricate. But if you trace back from the results, or from the goals, the picture may seem clearer. As long as you are swept along in the current of events, you cannot survey the flow of your own life. Contemplate! Examine not only your failures but also your successes from the perspective of contemplation. You can see into other people's lives, you know full well the right way for another to act – why should you not find the right solutions in your own life as well? A certain perspective is needed: if you are too close, you do not see well; if you are too far away, again you do not see well. First the perspectives are lost, then the details, and it is hard to see clearly. If the saying is true that you should not get too close to others, because you will see their faults as well, this may be true of yourself too: lacking the proper distance, you see accurately neither the virtues you have nor the faults you could overcome.

And if you manage to step back mentally as far as possible from the picture of the moment, it is then that the arrangement must be most transparent. This is insight, personal realisation.

The young man clambered up the steep slope. He had left everything behind him, and his toilsome way was lined with thorns and clods, scorched by sun, torn by wind, beaten by rain. He clambered on up a grey, desolate scree. Little by little everything fell away from his side, until he reached the monastery. Its door opened, and golden light streamed out. It trickled down the steps and gilded first his feet, then his body, his face, and as he turned round in this golden light, he saw the precipice flaring with light, the climb wrapped in gold, and all the endless distance from which he had set out. Gold was all his toil.

With his deeds man can serve two ideals, either the fulfilment of the divine will – of the cosmic order – or the work of divine love. If one gives even a little, the response is there at once. That is why the remark is so apt: ‘May providence grant you a thousandfold, that you may give of it a hundredfold.’ So everyone will be content, and we have practised the art of accepting and passing it on as well. And yet this is only the material aspect… The great question is whether spirituality condenses into material blessing, or matter is ennobled into the spiritual? Put another way: take care not to move from spirituality towards materialism, for it is rather material things that must be ennobled in the fire of spirituality.

I have found by experience, and concluded in the course of my inquiries, that two moving forces are at work in the universe: one is the divine will, the other divine love. And so, beyond individual spiritual striving as a task, I see two possibilities: serving the divine will – to me this is a heroic, active path – and furthering the work of divine love – this is a tender service, rich in feeling.