The Fallacy of Individuality
I want to be a great person. I want my individuality to shine out like a brilliant sun. I feel the glory of creation in me. I am inspired to do great things and seek great heights. I want to be new, original, unique, a tower of strength, an oracle of wisdom, and a flowing fountain of knowledge. I feel the inspiration of genius within me. How can I develop it? How can I satisfy my own expectations of myself? How I can be a great individual, a powerful individual? In such words an ardent, thoroughly alive youth, burning with the inner fires of laudable ambition appealed to an older one, who knew the way, to direct him to the road of life which leads to the mountain top.
“You have asked a universal question,” came the answer. “Your desire is an instinctive urge for creative expression which is with every normally ambitious human. It is the age-old search for the power that lies within the individual Self.
“That ceaseless search for the individual Self is the supreme quest of man, the supreme urge of all time. It underlies all religion, all achievement, and all human relations. It is the motivating force which keeps man going, urges him forward, ever forcing him to climb the mountain of life.
“The great majority of people who seek that power make the mistake of seeking for it in but one direction, and there are two. He who has finally succeeded in finding that priceless inner-principle does so only by learning how to lose it.
A fundamental law of Nature demands that one learn how to lose his life in order to find it, or learn to unbind and set free in order to possess, or learn to give in order to be enabled to take. If you make the mistake of seeking greatness in the one direction of your ego instead of balancing that search by seeking in the opposite direction toward the universal ego, you will fail to find it. You cannot multiply yourself by yourself. You must divide yourself and distribute it into all other Selves through service and experiences. You will then take them back multiplied a thousandfold. In other words, if you want to be a rare person, you must learn how to entirely lose the very idea of greatness in humility. You cannot become great by accumulating greatness. You can find it only by learning how to transform humility into greatness.
Instead of contemplating the greatness of your individuality, contemplate your littleness in the universe. It is the meek who inherit the earth. Greatness springs from meekness. Every effect in Nature springs from its opposite effect and never from itself. This principle is universal. It applies to all things, both spiritual and physical.
Heat is accumulated by multiplying cold. Refrigeration necessitates dividing heat by radiating it. High electric potential is stepped up from low by multiplying low. Conversely, low is obtained by dividing the high. All power is multiplied weakness, whether physical or spiritual.
To shorten the journey ahead, you must lengthen the distance behind. To spring, you must first stoop. To concentrate, you must first decentrate. To focus to a multiplied point, you must gather from a divided area. The water you drink also drinks you. The fruit of the tree is gathered from an extensive environment, for the fruit is not in itself. It must be divided and spread out before it can be again gathered. The acorn must disintegrate to reintegrate. It cannot multiply itself into a strong tree without dividing itself into the many parts of the whole universe.
You must learn that lesson from Nature and apply it to your own self-multiplication. Your achievements are not in you. They flow through you from the universe. You must, therefore, open yourself to the universe and invite its flow of power through you. You then gather it to a point within you and weave its new pattern by your thinking. You, yourself, are not Power nor are you Achievement. You are but the focusing point of power, the interpreter of a universal expression. To express your Self by achievement, you must be a focus of the Universe.
You must learn to gather your Light from the darkness, as Nature gathers its suns from space. Nature tells us these things plainly, but there are few thinkers who stop, look, and listen to her teachings.
The greatest individuals in the world are the most universal and the most humble. The genius is one who learns that his power is not in generating that which he has, but in regenerating that which he gives.
The fool who thinks he can generate power by generating himself camouflages his failure with arrogance. Greatness is not the accentuation of self, but of all Selves flowing through one.
Do not, therefore, seek self-expression through your Self alone, for you will find but little to express. But if you lose your Self in the whole universe, you have the whole universe flowing through you to seek expression.
“You have asked a universal question,” came the answer. “Your desire is an instinctive urge for creative expression which is with every normally ambitious human. It is the age-old search for the power that lies within the individual Self.
“That ceaseless search for the individual Self is the supreme quest of man, the supreme urge of all time. It underlies all religion, all achievement, and all human relations. It is the motivating force which keeps man going, urges him forward, ever forcing him to climb the mountain of life.
“The great majority of people who seek that power make the mistake of seeking for it in but one direction, and there are two. He who has finally succeeded in finding that priceless inner-principle does so only by learning how to lose it.
A fundamental law of Nature demands that one learn how to lose his life in order to find it, or learn to unbind and set free in order to possess, or learn to give in order to be enabled to take. If you make the mistake of seeking greatness in the one direction of your ego instead of balancing that search by seeking in the opposite direction toward the universal ego, you will fail to find it. You cannot multiply yourself by yourself. You must divide yourself and distribute it into all other Selves through service and experiences. You will then take them back multiplied a thousandfold. In other words, if you want to be a rare person, you must learn how to entirely lose the very idea of greatness in humility. You cannot become great by accumulating greatness. You can find it only by learning how to transform humility into greatness.
Instead of contemplating the greatness of your individuality, contemplate your littleness in the universe. It is the meek who inherit the earth. Greatness springs from meekness. Every effect in Nature springs from its opposite effect and never from itself. This principle is universal. It applies to all things, both spiritual and physical.
Heat is accumulated by multiplying cold. Refrigeration necessitates dividing heat by radiating it. High electric potential is stepped up from low by multiplying low. Conversely, low is obtained by dividing the high. All power is multiplied weakness, whether physical or spiritual.
To shorten the journey ahead, you must lengthen the distance behind. To spring, you must first stoop. To concentrate, you must first decentrate. To focus to a multiplied point, you must gather from a divided area. The water you drink also drinks you. The fruit of the tree is gathered from an extensive environment, for the fruit is not in itself. It must be divided and spread out before it can be again gathered. The acorn must disintegrate to reintegrate. It cannot multiply itself into a strong tree without dividing itself into the many parts of the whole universe.
You must learn that lesson from Nature and apply it to your own self-multiplication. Your achievements are not in you. They flow through you from the universe. You must, therefore, open yourself to the universe and invite its flow of power through you. You then gather it to a point within you and weave its new pattern by your thinking. You, yourself, are not Power nor are you Achievement. You are but the focusing point of power, the interpreter of a universal expression. To express your Self by achievement, you must be a focus of the Universe.
You must learn to gather your Light from the darkness, as Nature gathers its suns from space. Nature tells us these things plainly, but there are few thinkers who stop, look, and listen to her teachings.
The greatest individuals in the world are the most universal and the most humble. The genius is one who learns that his power is not in generating that which he has, but in regenerating that which he gives.
The fool who thinks he can generate power by generating himself camouflages his failure with arrogance. Greatness is not the accentuation of self, but of all Selves flowing through one.
Do not, therefore, seek self-expression through your Self alone, for you will find but little to express. But if you lose your Self in the whole universe, you have the whole universe flowing through you to seek expression.