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Brotherhood (1937) - 144:
144. The farmer prepares and improves the field, sows it in good time, and patiently awaits the sprouting and the harvest. He puts a fence around the field, so that animals may not trample down the young growth. Every farmer knows causes and effects. But it is not thus in human interrelations; people wish to know neither causes nor effects. They are not concerned about sprouts, and they want everything to be accomplished in their own arbitrarily prescribed way. Notwithstanding all the examples, people do doubt the cosmic law. They quite readily sow the causes, but they will not reflect that weeds may be the sole harvest. Brotherhood (1937) - 144:
Discourses about causes and effects should be introduced in the schools. Let the teacher propose a cause and the pupils think out the effects. In such conversations there will be displayed also the qualities of the students. It is possible to imagine many effects from one cause. Only a broadened consciousness will apprehend what effects will correspond to all the attendant circumstances. One should not be consoled by the fact that even a simple farmer can calculate a harvest. The manifestation of cosmic currents and of mental conflicts is far more complicated. From childhood on, let youth be accustomed to complicated effects and to dependence upon spatial thoughts. It should not be supposed that children need to have safeguards erected against their thinking. Supermundane - The Inner Life - Book 1 (1938) - 212:
A wise person does not necessarily rejoice at unexpected success in his affairs. A farmer knows that a particular tension of currents that is beneficial for his own harvest may provoke harmful repercussions in some distant land. And so it is in everything. Supermundane - The Inner Life - Book 1 (1938) - 246:
Let us take as an example a person who writes many letters. If he writes with only himself in mind, he will not achieve the right results. And he is mistaken if he thinks that he is writing to only one person in particular. A letter full of lofty thoughts does not belong only to the author, or to the one to whom it is addressed, but to all of humanity. We should not be concerned with who will benefit from our thoughts. In addition to our personal intent, the letter is being sent into space, and it is not for us to worry where the thought it contains will find shelter. The only concern we ought to have is that our thought should serve for good. Perhaps it will be received somewhere in an entirely unexpected language, or enter the consciousness of a child and be expressed by him in later years. Perhaps the thought will reach a person who is leaving the earthly state and will be applied in the Subtle World, or it may be of help to that person during the crossing. Perhaps workers will be inspired by the thought, spiritualizing their monotonous work. The thought will help a sick person by giving him faith in his physician, or elevate a woman far beyond the boundaries of her domestic duties. The thought will whisper to the warrior opportunities for heroism. The thought will point out to the farmer the planetary significance of his labor, for the farmer is responsible for the crust of the planet, and a letter to him will be essential. You must write to the architect, to the judge, and to the artist. It does not matter if some letters do not arrive at the intended time. Let him who writes letters remember that he has many readers; so much the worse if the contents of the letter are base or insignificant. Harmful thoughts should not be recorded.
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