No More Learning

And above all, Christ is the most supreme of individualists. Humility,
like the artistic, acceptance of all experiences, is merely a mode of
manifestation. It is man's soul that Christ is always looking for. He
calls it 'God's Kingdom,' and finds it in every one. He compares it to
little things, to a tiny seed, to a handful of leaven, to a pearl. That
is because one realises one's soul only by getting rid of all alien
passions, all acquired culture, and all external possessions, be they
good or evil.

I bore up against everything with some stubbornness of will and much
rebellion of nature, till I had absolutely nothing left in the world but
one thing. I had lost my name, my position, my happiness, my freedom, my
wealth. I was a prisoner and a pauper. But I still had my children
left. Suddenly they were taken away from me by the law. It was a blow
so appalling that I did not know what to do, so I flung myself on my
knees, and bowed my head, and wept, and said, 'The body of a child is as
the body of the Lord: I am not worthy of either. ' That moment seemed to
save me. I saw then that the only thing for me was to accept everything.
Since then--curious as it will no doubt sound--I have been happier.
It
was of course my soul in its ultimate essence that I had reached. In
many ways I had been its enemy, but I found it waiting for me as a
friend. When one comes in contact with the soul it makes one simple as a
child, as Christ said one should be.

It is tragic how few people ever 'possess their souls' before they die.
'Nothing is more rare in any man,' says Emerson, 'than an act of his
own. ' It is quite true. Most people are other people. Their thoughts
are some one else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a
quotation. Christ was not merely the supreme individualist, but he was
the first individualist in history. People have tried to make him out an
ordinary philanthropist, or ranked him as an altruist with the scientific
and sentimental. But he was really neither one nor the other. Pity he
has, of course, for the poor, for those who are shut up in prisons, for
the lowly, for the wretched; but he has far more pity for the rich, for
the hard hedonists, for those who waste their freedom in becoming slaves
to things, for those who wear soft raiment and live in kings' houses.
Riches and pleasure seemed to him to be really greater tragedies than
poverty or sorrow. And as for altruism, who knew better than he that it
is vocation not volition that determines us, and that one cannot gather
grapes of thorns or figs from thistles?

To live for others as a definite self-conscious aim was not his creed. It
was not the basis of his creed.