Conversations held at Eerde Castle, the Netherlands, in 1926
I can expose you my ideal of Truth, of perfect peace and loving tenderness, but you must strive to achieve it for yourself. I can explain to you the principles of truth, but you, through your own Voice, and obedient to that Voice, must develop your Intuition, your own ideas, and thus reach the goal where We all have to meet.
This is for me the most important thing in life. I do not want to obey anyone, whoever it is, as long as I am not convinced that he is right. I do not want to have beliefs to which I cannot respond or give them my soul, my heart, and my whole being. You must listen to your Voice, cultivate Intuition, and discover new paths of life, instead of going on an adventure on other people's paths
The Kingdom of Happiness
Chapter 1 - The Voice of Intuition
I wish, as soon as it is reached, to expose certain ideas that you must study and that would give you a definite and intelligible concept of true spiritual life. It seems to me that all of you understand that to create, as you have to create if you want to live, you need struggle and discontent; and to turn them into fruition, you must cultivate your own point of view, your own tendencies, your own abilities, and therefore I wish to awaken in each one of you, that Voice, that Tyrant, the only guide capable of helping you create. Most of you prefer, because it is easier to walk, copy. Most of you like to imitate. For many of you it is much more comfortable not to cultivate your own tendencies, your own qualities, your own nature, but rather to blindly imitate. And I think you will agree with me that this is fatal for the development of the Voice. The most noble guide of each one of you is this Voice, this Tyrant, this Intuition; and cultivating it, ennobling it and perfecting it, we will reach the goal; Our own goal.
Cultivating this voice until it becomes the only Tyrant, the only Voice we obey, we must discover our goal and work incessantly to achieve it. Now what goal is this? For me, it consists in knowing the final Truth. I look forward to reaching a state where I know what I have achieved by myself, that I am the personification of that Truth. And by achieving this Truth, I achieve my desire at the same time: peace, the perfect tranquility of mind and emotions. Such is the goal for me. First of all the essential thing is to strengthen in each one of you this Voice that asserts itself from time to time. And cultivate and ennoble the Intuition; We must learn to think and act for ourselves. The cultivation of this Voice of intuition requires behavior in accordance with its dictates.
Imitation has nothing to do with beauty. Art does not consist in copying Nature as it is, but in the dignity of the symbol that represents it. Thus, each of us must be an artist; an artist who believes for himself because he has been touched by a glimpse of the Vision. You will observe that the true and distinguished artists, the genuine and excellent instructors do not have the feeling of exclusivity, but that they embody all things, they are part of all things. We must have several aspects in order to produce the perfect. A garden full of roses, there may be in it the most perfect roses of all varieties and colors, but if everything is pink, the garden will lack beauty.
We all tend to be like others. We want to accommodate a certain type and adapt to molds that are not of our make. This is fatal for the development of perfect intuition. However, we must not forget that we will all meet in the Kingdom of Happiness.
Because of our nationalism or our mode of religious worship we tend to think that we are different from other people; We treat the world as if it were independent of us and we became exclusive in our perspectives. We will destroy instead of creating if we have so limited vision and such narrow ideas. I wish, as soon as it reaches me, to awaken in each one of you this Voice, which will guide you along the path that you want to follow, which is your own life, the path you have drawn. And as long as you obey this Voice, this Intuition, you cannot err; but you will err if you try to obey and follow the orders, the ideas, the visions of others.
I can expose you my ideal of Truth, of perfect peace and loving tenderness, but you must strive to achieve it for yourself. I can expose the principles of Truth, but you, through your own Voice and obedient to this Voice, must develop your own Intuition, your own ideas, and thus you will reach the goal where we all meet.
This is for me the most important thing in life. I do not want to obey anyone, whoever it is, as long as I am not convinced that he is right. I don't want to hide behind the screen that watches the Truth. I do not want to have beliefs to which I cannot respond or give them my soul, my heart and my whole being. Instead of being vulgar and mediocre, you must listen to this Voice, cultivate this Intuition, and discover new paths of life, instead of going on an adventure on other paths.
As I said, to realize this ideal you must develop your Intuition, essential is the perfect harmony of emotions and mind for the Intuition to manifest, the Voice of your true being.
Intuition is the whisper of the soul. Intuition is the guiding word of your life. The more we harmonize by perfecting and purifying our intense emotions and acute thoughts, the more apt we will be to hear this Voice, Intuition, which is common to all, Intuition, which belongs collectively to humanity and not to a particular individual. You must have living feelings of love, of intense bliss or sincere goodness. Those who lack emotions are useless, while those who are intense have them, although sinister in nature, they can always try to refine and perfect them. The insensitive and indifferent person cannot create, destroy or build. You will observe that a great destroyer is never a mean person but that there is something admirable about him. Neither a great lover is mediocre nor flimsy. The more feelings and emotions you have, the better; but at the same time you have to learn to dominate them, because emotions are like weeds, which if not sculpted will infect the garden. If you have weak emotions, but you feed them day after day, they will eventually grow and invigorate. The idea that we should not have feelings or emotions is absurd and contrary to spirituality. The more fervent your feelings are, the better; but you will have to dominate them under pain of suffering. If you do not dominate them, you will depart from your Intuition and you will go astray instead of following the straight path towards your ideal.
Have formidable feelings and enjoy them. Don't be negative, but boldly enterprising. I say this with such vehemence, because we all have a propensity to be of the same type, to think in the same way, to congregate around the same person, and we fear we cannot move forward if we do not belong to this or that activity. But what is advancement? It is your own happiness. Advancement is just a word. I would rather be happy to how many petty satisfactions the world can give. What does the religion to which you belong or the fame that you enjoy as long as you feel truly happy and can keep your ideal absolutely clear and distinct belong?
Imagine for a moment the Lord Buddha and His disciples. They were the great exceptions of his time. Everyone had only one Master, only one goal, one ideal: Him. And yet, each of them had the spark of genius. They were not mediocre because they followed Who was the exception, the flower of humanity, and everyone must become such an example.
