“Woe to you when the world speaks well of you...” *
"For in much wisdom is much grief: and whosoever increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." **
Especially in this time of unprecedented corruption,
pedophilia, and all sorts of wickedness, to be a “success,” in all likelihood,
is no badge of honor:
·
to be a successful politician
·
to be a successful journalist
·
to be a successful clergyman
·
a successful attorney
·
a successful doctor
·
a successful educator
·
a successful writer
·
a successful artist
·
a successful entertainer
·
businessman, scientist, engineer, hi-tech person, et al.
A truly successful person is one who is dedicated to the truth,
goodness and beauty of God, Our Spirit—renouncing Satan, Lucifer, Ahriman and
any aspiration of material gain in and of and for itself—remaining
steadfast to time-tested traditions, such as working with one’s own hands. In
short, one should study and learn from the Blessings and Woes, as set out there
in the Good Book.
As my grandfather once exhorted to me as I was bumbling my way through life:
“Oh ye who still linger on the threshold
Wondering which road to take
You will cry out, but cry out in vain:
'Oh youth return—
Oh give me back my early days!' ”
Yes, very young children know the truth, unsullied as they
are from the pretensions of the world. They have yet to make compromises and concessions to the cult of materialism; they are not yet wrong-headed.
May we learn from children while striving, with love, to model real values, shunning that which is fleetingly "popular" or seemingly "cool."
May we identify with the power of soul and the natural world, not the deceiving mortal pleasures of the body and artificial distractions of mind.
May we embrace our sovereign liberty, our human beingness, and walk in the light of a consciousness that is timeless, ever-present within and without—mirrored back to us beyond the farthest reaches of space.
And may we remain humble in our anticipation of the wonders waiting to be discovered that are presently beyond our ken.
* Luke 6:26
Properly: “Woe to you
when all men speak well of you, for
that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.”
** Ecclesiastes 1:18
Properly: "For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow."; Ecclesiastes speaks of the meaninglessness of everything—not just wisdom, but pleasures, folly, toil, advancement, and riches.
Or as the intellectual dynamo and writer, Thomas Aquinas, lamented: "The end of my labors has come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me."
