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New Era Community (1926) - 164:
164. The physician foresees the trend of the disease and you take the prescribed measures. The astronomer foresees the solar eclipse and you provide yourselves with the necessary dark glass. The social psychologist foresees the trend of events and you, crying "Prophet!" in terror hide yourselves in the darkest corners. You do this ostensibly in preservation of scientific methods, but in reality hypocrisy and fear prevent you from deliberating as to where is the greater actual knowledge - in the short-sighted opinion of the physician who judges only by external touching or in the far-sighted marksmanship of the social prophet in whom experience is coupled with immutability. Remember your social prophets who hundreds of years in advance indicated coming events to humanity. You call them neither mystics nor hypocrites. Together with Us you call them far-sighted psychologists. In this definition We shall agree with you, and pause. Besides, remember that the censured "Prophet" means "one who prognosticates." Social prophets have foretold the trend of events, which means that this concept is not less real than medicine and astronomy. New Era Community (1926) - 164:
"Mahatma" denotes a great soul which encompasses the manifestations of the New World. But let us not be intrusive; this peculiarity is censured in the community. Agreement is attained not by jostlings but by a whisper in a sensitive ear. Manifest the understanding that there is a sensitive ear for which Infinity is transformed into the limits of human possibilities. He is right who can completely cover the judgments of his adversary without touching upon the beginning or end. For this one has to be - if only in small measure - a prophet, or rather a truly far-sighted one. Supermundane - The Inner Life - Book 1 (1938) - 115:
It is regrettable that most people do not realize how much of their strength is wasted in attempts to depress the mood of those intimately connected with them. Some day people will be censured for trying to spoil the mood of others. It is reprehensible enough to break a musical instrument, but how much more valuable is the human mind! It is impossible to restore a broken mood.
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