In Praise of Virtue

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Virtue is the ultimate organizing principle among men.

 

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Temperance was the next topic of Pythagoras' discourses. Since the desires are most flourishing during youth,
this is the time when control must be effective. While temperance alone is universal in its application to all
ages, boy, virgin, woman, or the aged, yet this special virtue is particularly applicable to youth. Moreover,
this virtue alone applied universally to all goods, those of body and soul, preserving both the health, and studiousness.

Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras

 

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An aspiration for all humanity, put into song, with text, translated from the Chinese Mahayana tradition:

Dedication of Merit | DRBU

 

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We need to be careful about our every thought. If every thought is wholesome, then our lives will be brighter.

Master Hsuan Hua

 

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13. The person who loves God cannot help loving every man as himself, even though he is grieved by the passions of those who are not yet purified. But when they amend their lives, his delight is indescribable and knows no bounds.

14. A soul filled with thoughts of sensual desire and hatred is unpurified.

15. If we detect any trace of hatred in our hearts against any man whatsoever for committing any fault, we are utterly estranged from love for God, since love for God absolutely precludes us from hating any man.

16. He who loves Me, says the Lord, will keep My commandments (cf. John 14: 15, 23); and ‘ this is My commandment, that you love one another’ (John 15: 12). Thus he who does not love his neighbor fails to keep the commandment, and so cannot love the Lord.

17. Blessed is he who can love all men equally.


St. Maximos, from his Four Hundred Texts on Love

 

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Genuine morality is preserved only in the school of adversity; a state of continuous prosperity may easily prove a quicksand to virtue.

Friedrich Schiller

 

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The secret of life, of abundant life, with its strength, its felicity, and its unbroken peace is to find the Divine Centre within oneself, and to live in and from that, instead of in that outer circumference of disturbances -- the clamors, cravings, and argumentations which make up the animal and intellectual man. These selfish elements constitute the mere husks of life, and must be thrown away by him who would penetrate to the Central Heart of things -- to Life itself.

James Allen, Heavenly Life

 

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If men used as much care in uprooting vices and implanting virtues as they do in discussing problems, there would not be so much evil and scandal in the world, or such laxity in religious organizations.

Imitation of Christ, Croft-Bolton translation

 

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All persons can change and improve their life through keeping good company and
exercising their innate power of self-control, and through meditation on God, the Source of their being.
Even a little taste of goodness will stimulate one’s spiritual appetite for the Everlasting Sweetness.

Swami Yogananda

 

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Russell Kirk wonders if Virtue can be taught; intellectually yes. But the practice of Virtue is mainly learned.

Kirk Essay “Virtue: Can It Be Taught?”

 

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Whenever a person raises himself through good
deeds, through a higher stirring of his yearning for godliness,
for wisdom, justice, beauty and equity, he perfects thereby
the spiritual disposition of all existence. All people become
better in their inwardness through the ascendency of the good
in any one of them. . . . Such virtue in any one person is due
to spread among the general populace, to stir each one, according
to his capacity, toward merit, and thus all existence
thereby becomes ennobled and more exalted.

Rabbi A. I. Kook (d. 1935)

 

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A bodhisattva maintains a mind of great compassion toward those who are evil.

Nagarjuna

 

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"Whene’er a noble deed is wrought
Whene’er is spoken a noble thought
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.

Honor to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their overflow
Raise us from what is low!"


Longfellow reminds that simply knowing about noble thoughts, words or deeds inspires & encourages us in the same direction.

 

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Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and
certainty. Crime and punishment grow on one stem; punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the
flower of pleasure which concealed it. You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong. The thief steals from
himself; the swindler swindles himself. Everything in nature, even motes and feathers, goes by law and not by
luck. What a man sows, he reaps.

Emerson

 

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When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. --- Edmund Burke

 

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"The Buddha has taught that there are three roots of evil: greed, hatred and delusion. These three
states comprise the entire range of evil, whether of lesser or greater intensity, from a faint mental
tendency to the coarsest manifestations in action and speech. In whatever way they appear, these
are the basic causes of suffering.

These roots have their opposites: non-greed, non-hatred and non-delusion. These are the three
roots of good: of all acts of unselfishness, liberality and renunciation; of all expressions of loving
kindness and compassion; of all achievements in knowledge and understanding.

These six mental states are the roots from which everything harmful and beneficial sprouts.
They are the roots of the Tree of Life with its sweet and bitter fruits."

Roots of Good and Evil by Nyanaponika Maha Thera.

 

[Newtonian]

The secret of life, of abundant life, with its strength, its felicity, and its unbroken peace is to find the Divine Centre within oneself, and to live in and from that, instead of in that outer circumference of disturbances -- the clamors, cravings, and argumentations which make up the animal and intellectual man. These selfish elements constitute the mere husks of life, and must be thrown away by him who would penetrate to the Central Heart of things -- to Life itself.

James Allen, Heavenly Life

Sounds dangerous to me! We do NOT have a good Divine Centre within us.

 

[Skull]

The secret of life, of abundant life, with its strength, its felicity, and its unbroken peace is to find the Divine Centre within oneself, and to live in and from that, instead of in that outer circumference of disturbances -- the clamors, cravings, and argumentations which make up the animal and intellectual man. These selfish elements constitute the mere husks of life, and must be thrown away by him who would penetrate to the Central Heart of things -- to Life itself.

James Allen, Heavenly Life

Sounds dangerous to me! We do NOT have a good Divine Centre within us.

If the notion of 'within' - meaning confined in the body, relax. It is not that. Think of a link to or connection with, that can be sought for and found by searching the heart and mind, within. If Divine Center bugs, call it God or Christ.
Surely you agree that the selfish husks of life should be "thrown away"?

 

[Newtonian]

The secret of life, of abundant life, with its strength, its felicity, and its unbroken peace is to find the Divine Centre within oneself, and to live in and from that, instead of in that outer circumference of disturbances -- the clamors, cravings, and argumentations which make up the animal and intellectual man. These selfish elements constitute the mere husks of life, and must be thrown away by him who would penetrate to the Central Heart of things -- to Life itself.

James Allen, Heavenly Life

Sounds dangerous to me! We do NOT have a good Divine Centre within us.

If the notion of 'within' - meaning confined in the body, relax. It is not that. Think of a link to or connection with, that can be sought for and found by searching the heart and mind, within. If Divine Center bugs, call it God or Christ.
Surely you agree that the selfish husks of life should be "thrown away"?

Perhaps I am misunderstanding you. The apostle Paul explained:

Romans 7:14-25
For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin.+ 15 For I do not understand what I am doing. For I do not practice what I wish,* but I do what I hate. 16 However, if I do what I do not wish, I agree that the Law is fine. 17 But now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is the sin that resides in me.+ 18 For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, there dwells nothing good; for I have the desire to do what is fine but not the ability to carry it out.+ 19 For I do not do the good that I wish, but the bad that I do not wish is what I practice. 20 If, then, I do what I do not wish, I am no longer the one carrying it out, but it is the sin dwelling in me.

21 I find, then, this law in my case: When I wish to do what is right, what is bad is present with me.+ 22 I really delight in the law of God according to the man I am within,+ 23 but I see in my body another law warring against the law of my mind+ and leading me captive to sin’s law+ that is in my body. 24 Miserable man that I am! Who will rescue me from the body undergoing this death? 25 Thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So, then, with my mind I myself am a slave to God’s law, but with my flesh to sin’s law.+

 

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As Paul says "with my mind I myself am a slave to God’s law." Thus the Divine Center is known in or thru our minds, so we agree, it seems to me.