The Practice of Austerity Strengthens
One’s Moral Authority Over His Own Actions
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
Those who have real knowledge use their words carefully and after due thought.
* Remember these three facts at least once, every day:
1) You were born in order to fulfil an elevated purpose. Your noblest and highest thoughts are blessings to you.
2) At each step, the Law of the Universe leads you, and inspires you and all persons of good will.
3) It is within your reach to accomplish the purpose of your spiritual soul. Bliss belongs to your true self.
* A central element in discipline consists in keeping the rhythm. Victory and the knowledge of the best path to go are in listening to the voice of conscience. Being consistent in the eyes of the world is not as important as being loyal to the voice of the soul.
* If living with self-discipline were an easy thing to do, its spiritual value would not be great. When society around you produces a vast number of crises while stimulating a cult of hurry and the worship of anxiety, you need to have a certain amount of firmness, in the decision to preserve peace across the cycles of daily existence.
* One can expand the quality of life by stopping the personal world. I do that several times a day in order to listen to complete silence. Efficiency in work expands if one reduces his thoughts to zero for a few moments, reestablishing from time to time his central connection with the spiritual realm of life. Wisdom is anonymous. One minute is enough to establish the absence of words. When someone constantly looks to the highest, everything gets renewed from inside out, and all of life is reborn.
* He who thinks too much about the supposed failures of others is afraid of facing his own shortcomings. He adopts a childish attitude before life, as a means to hide from his own duty – which is of course reforming himself. Such an individual largely ignores his soul, and is not acquainted with the philosophy of martial arts. Justice, ethics, and conservation of energy are basic principles for those who know something about conflict and peace. [1]
* It often occurs that he who wishes to have authority over others has no authority over himself. The practice of austerity paves the way to self-control, expands self-knowledge and strengthens one’s moral authority over his own actions. Self-discipline generates contentment. Self-restraint gives the pilgrim liberty. A human being who is free from blind impulses rises above that level of consciousness where suffering exists.
* Those who have real knowledge use their words carefully and after due thought. They are ready to learn from their failures and try to correct their mistakes.
* He who has no true approach to reality prefers having professorial opinions about everything. He projects his own ignorance over his fellow beings. He tries to convince himself – and the others – that he is “very superior” in knowledge.
* Blavatsky quoted a few verses from Charles Churchill with which Sir Winston Churchill, the 20th century historian and statesman, would possibly agree:
“When fiction rises pleasing to the eye,
Men will believe, because they love the lie;
But Truth herself, if clouded with a frown,
Must have some solemn proofs to pass her down.” [2]
* However, there is no reason to get misguided by negative imagination, for Ella Wheeler Wilcox clarifies:
“I know we are building our heaven
As we journey along by the way;
Each thought is a nail that is driven
In structures that cannot decay,
And the mansion at last shall be given
To us as we build it today.” [3]
* Socratic students and truth-seekers try not to delude themselves, in the first place. They use to say:
“All I know is that I know very little, and next to nothing”.
Avoiding personal delusion is important. Humbleness allows the student to be able to learn, and to look up to the sacred Source inside.
NOTES:
[1] On the combination of force and quietness, see “Moral Strength in Judo and Theosophy”.
[2] Quoted by H. P. Blavatsky at the opening of her article “Lodges of Magic”. See “Collected Writings” of H.P.B., TPH, USA, vol. X, p. 124.
[3] From the book “New Thought, Common Sense And What Life Means To Me”, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Gay and Hancock, Ltd., London, 1912, 267 pp. See page 267.
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“Thoughts Along the Road – 56” was published as an independent text on 05 July 2021. An initial version of it, with no indication as to the name of the author, is part of “The Aquarian Theosophist”, March 2020 edition, pp. 8-9.
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See other writings of Carlos Cardoso Aveline.
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