This subject can be considered from three different points of view. In the first place, we consider our physical body, how it expresses all that it partakes of: food, drink, medicine. If a person has a grosser food it is expressed outwardly; if a person has a finer food, it is expressed outwardly; if a person has a purer food, it is manifested outwardly; or if a person has not the consideration of this, it is also manifested outwardly.
The body shows the same nature that it has inherited from the earth, to which it belongs. For the nature of this earth is such that when it takes the seed of the flowers, it produces flowers; when it takes the seed of fruits, it produces fruits; when it takes the seed of poison, it produces poison. All different things are produced, as what it has taken in determines the result. There is nothing that a person eats or drinks or that this body takes that will be so assimilated altogether that this body will not manifest it outside. With this truth in mind, we can see the meaning of the subject I will discuss today regarding the consideration of our physical body.
When we think still further, we shall find the effect of the body on the mind and the effect of the mind on the body. That must be understood first by considering how intoxicants cause a reaction on the mind—something which is quite material, which is physical. When that happens, it affects the mind, which is not material. The mind, in point of fact, is much greater than what the scientist today considers it, simply the brain.
The word “mind” comes from the Sanskrit word Manas, and from this word the English word “man” comes. Therefore, really speaking what is man? What is the mind? In the words of Jesus Christ, man is as man thinks, man is man’s thought, man is man’s mind. Therefore, it is not always the body with which a person identifies themself; a person’s true identification is their mind.
All that people partake of physically, in either the form of food or intoxicant, has not only an effect upon the body but upon the mind. It is not only what the body partakes of, but also what the mind partakes of through the senses. The mind, which has been influenced also effects the body. For instance, all that we see is impressed upon the mind. We cannot help it. It is mechanically done; impressions are recorded. All that a person hears, smells, tastes or touches not only effects the body, but also effects the mind. That means that a person’s contact with the outer world is such that there is a continual mechanical interchange going on. Every moment of your life you are partaking of all that your senses allow you to take in.
Therefore, very often the person who is looking for the faults of others, who is looking at the evil (though this person may not be a wicked person) is partaking (without knowing it) of all that is evil. The result is this: a deceitful person can make such an impression on you that even when you cast your glance upon an honest person, you will have the impression of deceit. It is from these impressions that all pessimistic attitudes come. A person once deceived is always on the lookout; even with an honest person they look for deceit; they hold that impression within themself. In another instance, when a hunter has come home from the forest with a slap given to him by a lion, he feels that even the caress of his kind mother frightens him. The hunter thinks the lion has come again.
Consider how many impressions, agreeable and disagreeable, we partake of from morning till evening without knowing the consequences of them. In this way, even though a person is not meaning to become wicked, the person turns wicked. In point of fact, nobody is born wicked; for although the body belongs to the earth, the soul belongs to God.
From above, humanity has received nothing except goodness. With the wickedest person in the world, when you can touch the deepest depth of their being, it is nothing but goodness. Therefore, if there is any such thing as wickedness or badness, it is only that we have acquired it. We have not acquired it willingly, but only by being open to all impressions. It is natural that every one is open to impressions.
No doubt the secret of what may be called the superstition of the omen, which exists in the East and sometimes also in the West, is the result of impressions. For instance, there have been beliefs that if you hear the sound of a certain bell, there will be a death in your surroundings, or if you see a certain person, good or bad luck will come to your family. People have sometimes believed blindly and gone on believing for many, many years. Others, intellectual people, thought there was nothing in those superstitions, and have ignored them. But at the end of the study, you will find that the secret of all those superstitions is nothing but the impressions. It is only that what the mind has taken through the senses has its effect not upon your body alone, but also upon your affairs.
The science of physiognomy or phrenology goes as far as saying that what a person has taken in their mind (the impressions they acquire) helps to form the different muscles responsible for forming their facial features and head shape. It is written in the Qur’an that every part of a person’s being will bear witness to their action. I should say that it does not need to bear witness in the hereafter, it bears it every hour of the day. If a person will examine life, they will find that the mind and body are formed from what they take from the outer world. There are the words of Christ: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” All that you value is that which you make in yourself; you create in yourself all that you value. No doubt when you are an admirer of beauty, you will always partake of all that you see as beauty, beauty of form, of colour, of line, and beyond, the beauty of manner, of attitude, which is a greater beauty still.
No doubt, at this time and condition of the world, humanity ignores very much the beauty of culture and fineness. No doubt that the current conditions give a warning that the world, instead of going forward, is going backward, as civilization is not only an industrial development or a material culture. If industrialism and materialism is called civilization, that is not the right word for the right thing. Civilization is not very difficult to explain. It is progress towards harmony, beauty, and love. When someone retreats from these three great principles of life, they may be very creative, but it does not reflect civilization.
No doubt every race and every creed have their principles of right and wrong, but there is one fundamental principle of religion, and one in which all creeds and all people can meet. And that principle is to see beauty in action, in attitude, in thought and feeling. There is no action upon which there is a stamp that this is wrong or right. But what can be wrong, what can be wicked, is what our mind is accustomed to see as wrong or wicked, because it is void of beauty. Those who therefore seek beauty in all its forms, in action, in feeling, in manner, they will impress their hearts with beauty.
All the great ones who have come into the world from time to time to waken humanity to a greater truth, what did they teach, what did they bring? They brought beauty. It is not what they taught; it is what they were themselves. The intellectual understanding of beauty is talking about beauty. You cannot talk, you cannot speak enough about it; words are too inadequate to express either goodness or beauty. You can say a thousand words, yet never be able to express it. For it is something which is beyond words, and the soul alone can understand it. Those who will always follow in their life, in every little thing they do, the rule of beauty, they will always succeed, and will always be able to discriminate between right and wrong and between good and bad.
October 31, 1923
CW 1922, Vol. II, pp. 366-371.
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