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New Era Community (1926) - 245:
245. Adaptability is the best means for conservation of forces. Often it is asked how to develop this quality. The development of adaptability actually takes place in the current of life. To all is known the sensation of the boundaries of spheres. When you go out of a playhouse into a gray street, it seems to you that you have fallen into a lower sphere. When after solemn festivities you turn to ordinary toil, you become struck with the sad everydayness. When out of the dismal cold you enter a beautiful building, it appears to be the crown of perfection. A sluggish adaptability produces a series of false concepts. This falseness makes you timid and awkward. People cringe before the mirage of an effect. They constrict their own concepts before something unexpected, whereas everything must take place in an opposite manner. Sternly accustom yourselves to the reception of contrasting sensations, to the grasping of unexpectedness. All is expected, because all is realized. New Era Community (1926) - 245:
The falseness of a mirage compels one to be afraid of certain expressions. You begin to fear the word "spirit," although you know that this is a certain state of matter. You fearfully avoid the word "Creator," although you will know that each material formation has its creator. Falsehood and fear are poor advisers. A great number of superstitions can be cited which make adults comparable to children. We urge that you abandon all superstitions and learn reality in everything. Pity those who jump on one foot. This spectacle calls to mind a fairy tale wherein the nurse, in order to prevent the child from running away, suggested to him that it was a sign of high birth to walk on one leg. Fiery World - Book 1 (1933) - 194:
194. Upon cognizing the Fiery World, one must forever forget the small, since it does not exist. As a physician does not regard anything as insignificant while mixing a curative compound, so, too, a grain of gun-powder in a powder magazine is not small in effect. We sensitize ourselves by examples of that which exists. What good is education if the brain remains crafty and the tongue false? People can be divided according to refinement of heart, but not according to falseness of consciousness. Do not think that falseness of consciousness has no significance for the Fiery World. Thus again from morals we come to chemistry. Fiery World - Book 2 (1934) - 281:
281. Fear of the future is the horror of the World. It breaks in upon life under different concepts. It gradually decomposes the mind and deadens the heart. Such fear is false in its nature. People know that none of their situations are permanent, consequently it is sensible to prepare without delay something for the future. But formless and immobile factors of chaos attach the consciousness to illusory places. One must intensify one's realization of reality in order to recognize the falseness of Maya, and to understand that truth lies only in the future, when we draw near to the Abode of Fire. It is impossible to describe how people try to conceal their fear before the future. They attempt to prove that not the future, but the past must occupy their thinking. They shamefully avoid everything that reminds about the advancement into the future. They forget that this attitude constitutes a dangerous poisoning of space. Even in the purest places waves of such poison can be observed. People also poison each other. But the most health-giving and beautiful thought is about the future. It conforms with the Fiery World. Brotherhood (1937) - 247:
247. We never advise feigning a smile. As each unjust pronouncement is repellent, so, too, a hypocritical mask will be an indicator of falseness and of sickness of the aura. But we ask you to be more good in heart - this is the very best balm.
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