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New Era Community (1926) - 228:
Life has been divided according to periods and to styles, paying tribute to the measures of imperfect days. Who apportioned the constellations? Who apportioned the dialects? Has anyone called to mind the inheritances of all peoples? Style has determined the peculiarities of the age. The external notches of a design bear the prejudices and conventionalities of falsehood. It is time to divide inheritances only according to the inner potential. It is necessary to know the accruements of life. Coffin shapes must be left to the dead. True, one should sense the steps of culture, but disregard the zigzags of effeminateness. Faint-heartedness shut up in awkward armor did not lead to pan-human joy, but the retort of a modest alchemist has often been illumined by the Common Good. Without superstition must we examine the milestones of the growth of humanity under the sign of the community. We must examine how the victory of the community grew, in the kindling fires of knowledge and beauty. True knowledge and beauty contain in themselves the best community. Fiery World - Book 1 (1933) - 223:
223. New thinking does not mean the overthrow of all that is old. Indeed, it will be the best friend of all that already has been discovered. Such thinking does not reject a formula that is not understood merely because it is not clear at the moment. Our friend will carefully lay aside an obscure formula. Often something obscure is not a concealed attainment, it is dependent upon a great number of transitory idioms. Every language is not preserved; even in the course of one century the meaning of expressions is changed, which leads to a growing complexity of ways of thinking. Let us not regret running waters, but let us not forget that we are looking upon old achievements with new eyes. Even a great number of isolated ancient terms may appear strange, because they have been inserted into alien dialects and often are distorted in pronunciation. In antiquity people sang these significant words to memorize them, but the rhythms have been abandoned as something unnecessary. Yet by losing rhythm people have forgotten the significance of vibrations. New thinking does not forget about the basic laws. Fiery World - Book 3 (1935) - 592:
592. Too often are words used in an incorrect meaning. People speak about the supernatural instead of saying the unusual. The supernatural does not exist in any of the Worlds. Perhaps a certain thing is unusual for the ignorant, but even this definition is conditional, as that something is unusual only under certain conditions. Thus it would be possible to revise dictionaries considerably. We have often spoken about this, and in translations into other languages you see how needful are various shades of meaning. People do not like to search for better definitions, yet diverse old dialects demonstrate that it is not easy to rejuvenate a dictionary with befitting expressions. It is especially difficult in the case of concepts of earthly and heavenly Fire. There are so many visible and invisible Fires that far more subtle definitions are needed. AUM (1936) - 455:
Philosophers, physicists, historians, and students of dialects may gather together for useful research. Supermundane - The Inner Life - Book 1 (1938) - 222:
Many examples can also be cited of how people have distorted the essence of the Teaching, because words have different meanings in different languages. There have always been innumerable dialects, with even neighboring clans using their own idioms. In the past there were also so-called sacred languages, which were used by the priests and hierophants. Certain sacred words infiltrated the popular language and were wrongly used. In that way, the breakdown of languages has taken place in all centuries.
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