Chapter V: Review and Conclusion

_a._ Each smallest thing can symbolize the whole:

1. Each human life is a symbol of the complete Self, in
a definite shape.

2. Each is deserving of reverence:

α. Reverence is the small self awed before its
own vastness.

[Note.—As the eleventh meeting was somewhat of a digression,
and as the notes taken were covered in later meetings, it is
here omitted.]

TWELFTH MEETING

_What is Goodness?_

I. EACH LIFE, TO BE GOOD OR BEAUTIFUL, MUST BE A SYMBOL OF THAT PERFECT OR COMPLETE LIFE FOR WHICH WE LONG:

_a._ Life—the symbol of complete Self in a definite shape.

_b._ The good man makes all he knows and touches a complete,
harmonious whole:

1. Goodness is always of relation.

2. One cannot be perfect till all are so:

α. Therefore goodness implies modesty.

II. FALSE AND TRUE GOOD:

_a._ The one law of Love, and its petty, changing codes:

1. True good of changing harmonious relation.

2. False good of outworn custom and rule.

III. THE MEANING OF SELF-EXPRESSION:

_a._ The small and large Self:

1. The whole world is the whole of me.

2. Serve, not others only, but others as part of
yourself.

_b._ Self-sacrifice:

1. Giving up one thing for a greater thing.

2. Happiness is whatever we want most.

3. If completeness is the aim of life, then all lesser
happiness is sacrificed to it.

4. If life is a drama, a whole, we give up our selfish
satisfaction to see that whole self satisfied.

_c._ Creation is Self-expression, is endless, higher rebirth:

1. All action reveals the actor.

2. Life is a drama, in which we feel ourselves to have
equal prominence with others, and conscious power of
control:

α. We cannot help having influence.

β. Let us shape our influence for the whole.

THIRTEENTH MEETING

_Self-fulfilment Through Overcoming Limitations_

I. ENVY, ITS NARROWNESS AND BLINDNESS:

_a._ Every man serves me who does for me what I cannot do for
myself:

1. Each one fills out my shortcomings.

_b._ Use, instead of coveting.

II. SELF-REGULATION IN DESPITE OF SELF:

_a._ The moral sense of beauty, an intellectual sense of
completeness, makes us regulate and suppress our desires:

1. Hence we make laws which are substitutes for
understanding love.

_b._ The substitutes necessary until love conquers, are:

1. Justice.

2. Honesty.

3. Duty.

4. Binding by promise.

5. Obedience.

_c._ Conventions, their changes and their convenience.

III. SOME VIRTUES CHANGED BY LOVE’S DEMANDS:

_a._ Revenge, the first expression of Loyalty:

1. Our admiration for such expression in its own early
time.

_b._ Pity, the developer of Feeling:

1. Degenerates into Weakness and Impotence.

2. Is an Insult:

α. A strong man does not pity himself. Should
not pity other strong selves.

3. Strong Sympathy, and our common Working for the great
Happiness, should replace pity.

_c._ Reverence for special people, with Fear:

1. Self-reverence means reverence for all selves.

2. Reverence the old—and the young, too.

3. The reverence with love replaces the reverence with
fear.

FOURTEENTH MEETING

_Loyalty, and Conscious Allegiance to our Individual Aspiration_

I. PATRIOTISM; ITS MEANING:

_a._ We are children of all we can love and serve:

1. The growth of loyalty, from the family to the world:

α. War as a fighting for peace.

_b._ Patriotism in its growth, like all progress, must include
the small in the large, though in seeming disloyalty:

1. Disloyalty to one’s country cannot be loyalty to the
world.

2. But wholesome criticism often seems disloyal:

α. The loyalty of revolutionists.

II. CONSCIOUS CHOICE IN SELF-DEVELOPMENT:

_a._ Know what you want most to be.

_b._ Eliminate whatever interferes with your choice; make life a
work of art, not a haphazard photograph.

1. Concentration.

2. Choose and subordinate your studies for their worth
to you.

3. Prefer friends to acquaintances.

4. Do the work at hand (charity at home), and be sure
your service harmonizes with your knowledge and your
whole life.

5. Never degrade the end by making an _end_ out of the
_means_. (Business, athletics, study, must always be
means.)

_c._ Dare to desire the utmost, unflinchingly:

1. Greatness comes from persistent desire rather than
from inborn skill.

_d._ Youth and old age:

1. Desire and service can continue throughout life.

III. VARIETY AND RHYTHM:

_a._ Varied life with single Aim:

1. Concentrate on one thing at a time, but not on one
thing all the time.

2. The meaning and worth of Knowledge.

3. Never be bored, or bore:

α. Sense of humor; and use of silence.

4. Work and play, exertion and rest, must harmonize:

α. Even your pleasures will reflect your
character, or taste.

_b._ Be a rhythm, a measure, a force like music in the life all
about you.

[Note.—The fifteenth meeting was spent on Christian Science,
and is therefore omitted from the notes.]

SIXTEENTH MEETING

_Social Relations_

I. THE AVOIDANCE OF BITTER PARTISANSHIP:

_a._ Take sides, not with persons, but with causes.

_b._ Use all. Be for all, and against none.

II. SOCIAL SYMPATHY:

_a._ Humanity as a vast Self:

1. Democracy means we have all the right to be equal:

α. Faith and reverence for self in all.

β. Service is larger self-service.

γ. Each does his part; hand and head.

2. To keep well, to be satisfied, we must care for the
sick and miserable:

α. Starvation.

β. Old age.

γ. Contagion.

_b._ To care for the weak strengthens the strong:

1. To destroy the weak is dangerous loss. (Rome and
Sparta.)

_c._ In passing judgment on crimes, hate not persons but their
acts:

1. Each acts according to his desire or needs.

2. Punishment as preventive and cure.

III. TRUTH IN PERSONAL RELATIONS:

_a._ Truth-telling not the whole of Truth:

1. Malicious truth-telling is not truth.

2. Worth of kind, true criticism and praise.

_b._ Our judgments of people judge us:

1. Our limited understanding.

2. Say: “I am one who hates, or loves,” etc.

_c._ Whom shall we please, and how?

1. The morality of good manners.

2. Vanity, the pretended worth; and true worth or
loveableness.

3. “Prettiness” in manner, pleasing those who cannot
understand us.

4. Social frivolity, overdress and luxury, and its
result of friendship.

α. Show is for those we do not love. (Resembles
“costly material” in art.)

[IV. WOMEN AND WORK:

_a._ The true preparation for marriage.

_b._ Social life and service.

_c._ Knowledge as mere show; or as power.]

SEVENTEENTH MEETING

_Aloofness and Creation_