So many men, so many cat­egor­ies. People can be lined up in a thou­sand ways, and for now let us choose a single meas­ure: the degree of faith. Faith is a very del­ic­ate sub­ject to begin with: from blind bigotry to enlight­en­ment, com­mon opin­ion calls a great many things faith. Fun­da­ment­al­ism is not the same as the recog­ni­tion of fun­da­ment­al laws.

Some define faith as the hope of things unknown. Oth­ers under­stand it as obed­i­ence to the divine laws. When we under­stand it as one of man's greatest powers, we come near­er to real­ity, but let us agree that faith is a cer­tainty won through love, or an ever-grow­ing spir­itu­al hap­pi­ness drawn from the meet­ing of divine Beauty and Love. Now, by these degrees of faith, the faith­ful can be classed in three main groups: the begin­ner, the advanced and the mature.

Whatever a man is a begin­ner in, he shows him­self at once weak and strong. The former is the con­duct offi­cially on dis­play, for humil­ity is expec­ted of every neo­phyte. No real­isa­tion, no true humil­ity stands behind the weak­ness on show; rather, it serves to veil spir­itu­al con­ceit. The con­scious­ness of being chosen is a lurk­ing adversary that haunts for a long time. The strong man dares to show his weak­ness, the begin­ner would rather show his strength. This strength springs partly from enthu­si­asm, which is its genu­ine side, and partly from fears and uncer­tainty, which is its sham side. The begin­ner tries to shut him­self off from everything, for that is how he feels safe, but this strength is in truth weak­ness. His faith is unsteady, and he may eas­ily fall back. He meas­ures everything against his rudi­ment­ary insights, and because his exper­i­ence is slight, his beha­viour eas­ily becomes dis­respect­ful.

Once someone gave the aged apostle John a live part­ridge, and he stroked and pet­ted the creature with love. One of his dis­ciples saw this, laughed at it, and said to his com­pan­ion: ‘Just look, the old man is play­ing with that bird like a child!’ Then John turned to him: ‘What are you car­ry­ing in your hand, my son?’ ‘A bow.’ ‘And what do you do with it?’ – came the next ques­tion. ‘I hunt birds and game with it!’ – said the dis­ciple. ‘How do you do it?’ – asked John. Then the dis­ciple drew the bow, held it taut for a little while, then let it slack­en. John asked him why he did not keep it taut all the time. He answered that it was because he would tire, and when he had to shoot, there would be no strength in his arm. Then the apostle taught him thus: ‘You see, so it is with man too. He can­not gaze upon God all the time, but must some­times rest as well. The eagle may soar high­er than any other bird, yet even it must come down to the earth. When the human soul has res­ted, it can rise up to heav­en with new fire.’

The advanced spir­itu­al man is a seasoned prac­ti­tion­er, versed in the teach­ing and firm in his con­vic­tion, one who recog­nises dif­fer­ences in com­pet­ence and gladly learns from those more developed than him­self. A cor­di­al man, an open-hearted friend to his com­pan­ions, he helps those in need but avoids those who are hos­tile. He sees the dif­fer­ence between good and bad, and is stead­fastly com­pas­sion­ate and mer­ci­ful. By vir­tue of his middle pos­i­tion he enjoys the atten­tion of his super­i­ors and the trust of those who fol­low behind him; he learns and serves.

The man mature in his faith is unshake­able. His under­stand­ing is thor­ough, his con­vic­tion pro­found, and his real­isa­tion is a help to oth­ers too. His faith does not wait for proofs; rather, it is a proof for oth­ers. He no longer shows him­self strong and humble, but is strong and humble. Since he is fully con­scious of his own spir­itu­al nature, he sees it in oth­ers too. Indeed, at the highest level he no longer per­ceives even short­com­ings in his fel­low men, and hon­ours every­one as a spir­itu­al being. And yet the great souls return to help their fel­low men, to serve them. Human, so very human…