от FrJames Thornton на 13 май 2010 г. в 06:06
PAN-HUMANITY
By St. Nicholai Velimirovich (1880-1956)
[1917]
The Academic Cosmopolitan Club in New York held a "glory meeting" at candle-light. The Serbian Bishop of Ochrid, who during the previous three months had been visiting this place, held the following discourse: ... "
[Remember as you read this, that the year St. Nikolai gave this was 1917.]
I FIND myself tonight speaking here to the entire world. Who can speak to the world except him who loves the world? God alone can do it, for He alone really loves the world. Let us be gods, and we shall be able to say, without speaking a lie: We love humanity. Christ tried His hardest to teach men that they are gods, being the sons of God. Europe throughout the nineteenth century tried its hardest to teach men that they were animals and the sons of animals. The first teaching leads to the love of humanity and of peace; the second teaching leads to a disdain for humanity and to war. Friends, we must train ourselves systematically for the love of humanity: first we must acquire compassion for suffering humanity; then, we must come to respect its efforts and struggles; and finally, out of compassion, respect, and love there will be born in our hearts compassion, respect, love. For either love is a sweet fruit of a long struggle, or it is a feigned fruit which is a lie on too many lips.
Love is luminous. We have lit this evening many candles, though still it is daylight. It is a two-fold symbol. There is sufficient physical light; but we need more than physical light. And every nation lights its candle, even the most uncivilized; that is, each nation has something to contribute to the light of our soul. For if it did not, the world would be so much darker.
This is the second time I gaze, looking at you, into the face of humanity. The first time, was on the Galata Bridge in Constantinople, where the East and the West meet in an inexhaustible variety of forms and colors. And now here in America: ,,,America seems the to me a Galata Bridge between all the continents.
What is this enigma called America? Is it a nation? No. It is more than that. It is pan-humanity. It is the second home of all of us. Therefore, we all must help America, in order that America might help the world.
What do you think of America? Please do not pass judgment before a long study of this complicated human organism. I assure you that the soul of America is even more complex than its external civilization. There is no city in the world in which you can find your orientation so easily as in New York. I warn you; it is not so easy to penetrate into the soul of the Americans. Very often I have found that they themselves do not understand their own soul. Very often they work spontaneously, without understanding. "How do you like America?" With this question you are overwhelmed in this country. Whether you answer. "I like it very much," or "I do not like it at all," it makes no difference to them. They take it for granted that you like America; moreover, that you are charmed with America. I never saw in my life a nation that believed in itself as America does. We all believe in America, though I pray God that America's belief in herself will never become self-conceit. An Englishman in his humbleness often says, "I am so stupid." But you never hear an American say, "I am stupid."
I know Europe fairly well. Though born in Serbia, I received my education in England, Germany, Russia, and Switzerland. Europe is a house divided against itself. The most civilized nation in Europe is doubtless that of the English. How can you prove whether a person or a nation is civilized? Not only by its external achievements and constructions. Here is a simple proof: Tread upon the feet of an Englishman and he will excuse himself first. That represents the victory over oneself and marvelous self-control. And yet the English race represents, above all, willpower, while the Latin-German race represents intellectualism and the Slavic race emotionalism. No one of the three represents perfection, but if they were united in the chemical laboratory of the soul, the three would be perfection. When you have these three united in yourself, then you will be not action alone, not intellect alone, and not sentiment alone. If you want to be perfect, you must have these three in an admixture, and yet distinct. If you read the Gospel of Christ with the intention of finding an intellectual, logical system in it, you will be disappointed. You find there just as much action as logic, and just as much emotion as action. Mighty deeds, mighty words, mighty emotions! All three in one. Whenever a Divine teacher comes to mankind, he comes not to move only the intellect of man, as the university professors do, but to shake mightily the whole of man, like a great wind which does not shake the bloom of the tree alone, and not the twigs and branches alone, but the whole tree.
On the larger scale, however, Africa predominantly represents emotion; Asia, mind power; and Europe willpower. What shall America represent -- America, this Galata Bridge of the world -- if not all three, developed very highly and united very strongly?
Bias is the curse of the world. All things in the world are subtler than they seem to be. We thought the atom was the simplest thing in the world. But recently we learned that every atom consists of two kinds of electron particles. How careful, then, we ought to be in judging such a complicated piece of machinery as a human being, or a nation, or a place! In my village school in Serbia, our schoolmaster startled us one day with a puzzling question. "Children," he said, "can you keep water and fire together in the same vessel?" Of course, we answered, "No." Then he went on, saying: "Then you never will be able to understand life. For life is water and fire put together." So it is, my friends. I know it now. The more you go to the East, the more you find God; the more you go to the West, the more you find man. But neither God nor man is our ideal, but the God-man. Not Jesus alone, nor Christ alone, but Jesus Christ. Your own life is a vessel of both water and fire, or body and spirit. Look after both and take care in right proportion. A Divine humanity should be your ideal, and the goal of your education. A Divine humanity we expect from America, this second home of all of us.
When Christ was born, Wise Men from the East came and offered to Him the best they possessed. With these best gifts of the East, Christ's teaching went to the West: not to the East, because the heart of the East was in it, but to the West. Alas, in the West these Eastern gifts of the Wise Men have been largely lost. We must turn to them once more. They are not lost in the East, but carefully preserved among the Eastern sages. You are wrong if you think that Lao-tze and Confucius, Buddha and Zoroaster have lost their meaning for Christendom. Unfortunately, for present-day Christendom they have. But I hope not forever. There is nowadays everywhere a busy study of Eastern Wisdom going on. And I hope that Christendom soon will rediscover what gifts the wise Men of the East brought to Christ. One of the finest things that Lao-tze said was: "Never is good achieved by evil." This message of Asia has been forgotten in Europe altogether. Those who believe in wars and revolutions as the channels of good are the obscure and ignorant minds, having never been enlightened by the gifts of the Wise Men of Asia.
Now, we hope America will be this long-expected Divine Humanity, as all the world will afterwards be. Nations from the East and West, from the North and South, have poured their gifts into this country at its birth. The question now is whether America is going to use all of these gifts, whether she is going to be both Jesus and Christ, or not.
I have been traveling through this country during the last three months. What have I seen? I have seen wonderful cities, even the names of which I had not known before. Many of them are younger than myself, and still they are more striking than some capitals in Europe or Asia. They are new, like dreams, and like dreams they are fair. This shows the spirit behind them.
America is cosmopolitan. Go down town in New York City and you will see your home art, whatever your home may be. America is cosmopolitan in architecture, in music, in literature, yea, in everything.
The universities of America have not forgotten God. There is a chapel in every educational institute. I hear much of "Young China" being atheistic. Goodness, is it possible? How could one of the wisest peoples on earth lose the vision of God? We are not alone in this world. It is the most urgent need of the world that the intellectual leaders should not forget this. I should like you to have the vision of the spiritual world as Mohammed, Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucius and Moses had: of a world beyond this material world, of a light beyond this physical light. The universities in America have not forgotten God, I repeat. And this is essential. I am glad also that students in America are not divided into political parties. I do not believe much in state universities. I am afraid they will degenerate in America as they have in Europe, on account of their political connections. I believe in colleges, in the collegiate life of students, under spiritual and moral guidance.
America is a money-making, but not a money-saving people. We in Europe are money-saving, a greater curse. One thing that I have learned is that the business people of this country are more spiritual than in any other country. I know. I spoke in the Chamber of Commerce in St. Louis, and St. Louis is not known as a spiritual center. But I spoke on the mere spiritual values of things. The president of the Chamber of Commerce followed me to my room on the fifteenth floor (there are no fifteenth floors in Europe). He wanted to talk. I said, "I am willing to talk, but only on what I have been discussing." He said, "I think you have in Europe the fight between Caesar and Christ." We talked for one and a half hours. He stayed away from business in order to talk spiritual things. Do not speak of America as a materialistic people; you must go much deeper into the thoughts of the people here.
There is general respect for the Church here. The churches are divided, but they cooperate. That was a new experience to me. Then the preachers are not rich men; that is very good. In India, the priests are respected; among Eastern peoples the monks are honored because they are poor. The clergy of America come mostly from poor people. Charity is America's religion. And the clergy are preaching charity.
From many observations -- I mention only a few -- I have found that the chief tendency of the American character is constructiveness and charitableness. This is the most hopeful side of the American civilization. And that is the greatest gift we can all take back home with us.
The best American brains today are plunged into deep considerations. They are making a new program for this new world. They are at a crossroad. They have to decide: Is America going to be America for herself, and the world for America, or is she going to be for the world? The youngest son of Jacob, Joseph, saved all of his family. Is America, this youngest child of human history, going to save the world? "Hurry up! Hurry up!" has been not only a human saying in this country, but God's message to America to spur her and to prepare her to be ready to help all of the world in a case of grave emergency. This emergency has arisen, and America stands on the pinnacle of her power, gird with two belts: constructiveness and charity. Is she going to draw the world up to that pinnacle, or to darken her vision by pride and to fall down to the swamp of the Old World? May God help America! May we all, brothers, help America with whatever gifts we have, in order that she should fulfill her Divine duty. When a Turk asks a blessing from a Serbian bishop (a Mohammedan Turk offered grace at the beginning of this meal), the world is going to be better. I should like the American to bless the Japanese, the Frenchman the German, the Indian the Semite, the Japanese the Chinese. The world would then be much better.
On the gate of a high school in Des Moines, I saw engraved the motto, "For the service of humanity." That is the right motto for all educated people in the world, I thought. Train yourselves not only to be the brains of your nations, but also the hearts and the will of them. Try your hardest to train yourselves first in compassion towards humanity, then in respect for it, and finally in love for it. Love is the highest gift, and you never will reach it unless you have gone through the first two stages: compassion and respect.
Be ready for pan-humanity. The intellectuals of the world are not yet ready; peoples are. The peasants of Serbia, Russia, and India are ready. The intellectuals are not yet ready because they are mere intellectuals. Intellect is a curse of the world: a destructive Shiva, unless it has the light of a noble heart and of goodwill. Today the greatest battle is going on between the capitalists and the proletarians. Do not wish the victory to either of them. Whosoever of them wins, the world will be a den of lions. Be the richest in mind, the noblest in heart, and the most willing; and then -- then I shall pray for your victory. Have compassion with the wealthy of this world, have respect for the poor, and love both of them. They are equally sick, equally unbalanced. Whatever you study here, do not forget to study to be spiritual and moral doctors of your nations. Go back to them with the smile of a peacemaker. As such, you are very much needed there, not otherwise. Do not aspire to become wealthy; do not be shy of poverty. Be the wealthiest inwardly, and do not care for your external attire and position. If you only would heed this word: Be the richest and the poorest at the same time. Such was the Man who had no shelter in this world and yet possessed the command of Heaven. Such was also the royal prince, Gautama. Such was Socrates. Such have tried to be all the best models of human kind. And there is a sentence of such a one, which please do engrave deep into your hearts, "Never is good achieved by evil.
By St. Nicholai Velimirovich (1880-1956)
[1917]
The Academic Cosmopolitan Club in New York held a "glory meeting" at candle-light. The Serbian Bishop of Ochrid, who during the previous three months had been visiting this place, held the following discourse: ... "
[Remember as you read this, that the year St. Nikolai gave this was 1917.]
I FIND myself tonight speaking here to the entire world. Who can speak to the world except him who loves the world? God alone can do it, for He alone really loves the world. Let us be gods, and we shall be able to say, without speaking a lie: We love humanity. Christ tried His hardest to teach men that they are gods, being the sons of God. Europe throughout the nineteenth century tried its hardest to teach men that they were animals and the sons of animals. The first teaching leads to the love of humanity and of peace; the second teaching leads to a disdain for humanity and to war. Friends, we must train ourselves systematically for the love of humanity: first we must acquire compassion for suffering humanity; then, we must come to respect its efforts and struggles; and finally, out of compassion, respect, and love there will be born in our hearts compassion, respect, love. For either love is a sweet fruit of a long struggle, or it is a feigned fruit which is a lie on too many lips.
Love is luminous. We have lit this evening many candles, though still it is daylight. It is a two-fold symbol. There is sufficient physical light; but we need more than physical light. And every nation lights its candle, even the most uncivilized; that is, each nation has something to contribute to the light of our soul. For if it did not, the world would be so much darker.
This is the second time I gaze, looking at you, into the face of humanity. The first time, was on the Galata Bridge in Constantinople, where the East and the West meet in an inexhaustible variety of forms and colors. And now here in America: ,,,America seems the to me a Galata Bridge between all the continents.
What is this enigma called America? Is it a nation? No. It is more than that. It is pan-humanity. It is the second home of all of us. Therefore, we all must help America, in order that America might help the world.
What do you think of America? Please do not pass judgment before a long study of this complicated human organism. I assure you that the soul of America is even more complex than its external civilization. There is no city in the world in which you can find your orientation so easily as in New York. I warn you; it is not so easy to penetrate into the soul of the Americans. Very often I have found that they themselves do not understand their own soul. Very often they work spontaneously, without understanding. "How do you like America?" With this question you are overwhelmed in this country. Whether you answer. "I like it very much," or "I do not like it at all," it makes no difference to them. They take it for granted that you like America; moreover, that you are charmed with America. I never saw in my life a nation that believed in itself as America does. We all believe in America, though I pray God that America's belief in herself will never become self-conceit. An Englishman in his humbleness often says, "I am so stupid." But you never hear an American say, "I am stupid."
I know Europe fairly well. Though born in Serbia, I received my education in England, Germany, Russia, and Switzerland. Europe is a house divided against itself. The most civilized nation in Europe is doubtless that of the English. How can you prove whether a person or a nation is civilized? Not only by its external achievements and constructions. Here is a simple proof: Tread upon the feet of an Englishman and he will excuse himself first. That represents the victory over oneself and marvelous self-control. And yet the English race represents, above all, willpower, while the Latin-German race represents intellectualism and the Slavic race emotionalism. No one of the three represents perfection, but if they were united in the chemical laboratory of the soul, the three would be perfection. When you have these three united in yourself, then you will be not action alone, not intellect alone, and not sentiment alone. If you want to be perfect, you must have these three in an admixture, and yet distinct. If you read the Gospel of Christ with the intention of finding an intellectual, logical system in it, you will be disappointed. You find there just as much action as logic, and just as much emotion as action. Mighty deeds, mighty words, mighty emotions! All three in one. Whenever a Divine teacher comes to mankind, he comes not to move only the intellect of man, as the university professors do, but to shake mightily the whole of man, like a great wind which does not shake the bloom of the tree alone, and not the twigs and branches alone, but the whole tree.
On the larger scale, however, Africa predominantly represents emotion; Asia, mind power; and Europe willpower. What shall America represent -- America, this Galata Bridge of the world -- if not all three, developed very highly and united very strongly?
Bias is the curse of the world. All things in the world are subtler than they seem to be. We thought the atom was the simplest thing in the world. But recently we learned that every atom consists of two kinds of electron particles. How careful, then, we ought to be in judging such a complicated piece of machinery as a human being, or a nation, or a place! In my village school in Serbia, our schoolmaster startled us one day with a puzzling question. "Children," he said, "can you keep water and fire together in the same vessel?" Of course, we answered, "No." Then he went on, saying: "Then you never will be able to understand life. For life is water and fire put together." So it is, my friends. I know it now. The more you go to the East, the more you find God; the more you go to the West, the more you find man. But neither God nor man is our ideal, but the God-man. Not Jesus alone, nor Christ alone, but Jesus Christ. Your own life is a vessel of both water and fire, or body and spirit. Look after both and take care in right proportion. A Divine humanity should be your ideal, and the goal of your education. A Divine humanity we expect from America, this second home of all of us.
When Christ was born, Wise Men from the East came and offered to Him the best they possessed. With these best gifts of the East, Christ's teaching went to the West: not to the East, because the heart of the East was in it, but to the West. Alas, in the West these Eastern gifts of the Wise Men have been largely lost. We must turn to them once more. They are not lost in the East, but carefully preserved among the Eastern sages. You are wrong if you think that Lao-tze and Confucius, Buddha and Zoroaster have lost their meaning for Christendom. Unfortunately, for present-day Christendom they have. But I hope not forever. There is nowadays everywhere a busy study of Eastern Wisdom going on. And I hope that Christendom soon will rediscover what gifts the wise Men of the East brought to Christ. One of the finest things that Lao-tze said was: "Never is good achieved by evil." This message of Asia has been forgotten in Europe altogether. Those who believe in wars and revolutions as the channels of good are the obscure and ignorant minds, having never been enlightened by the gifts of the Wise Men of Asia.
Now, we hope America will be this long-expected Divine Humanity, as all the world will afterwards be. Nations from the East and West, from the North and South, have poured their gifts into this country at its birth. The question now is whether America is going to use all of these gifts, whether she is going to be both Jesus and Christ, or not.
I have been traveling through this country during the last three months. What have I seen? I have seen wonderful cities, even the names of which I had not known before. Many of them are younger than myself, and still they are more striking than some capitals in Europe or Asia. They are new, like dreams, and like dreams they are fair. This shows the spirit behind them.
America is cosmopolitan. Go down town in New York City and you will see your home art, whatever your home may be. America is cosmopolitan in architecture, in music, in literature, yea, in everything.
The universities of America have not forgotten God. There is a chapel in every educational institute. I hear much of "Young China" being atheistic. Goodness, is it possible? How could one of the wisest peoples on earth lose the vision of God? We are not alone in this world. It is the most urgent need of the world that the intellectual leaders should not forget this. I should like you to have the vision of the spiritual world as Mohammed, Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucius and Moses had: of a world beyond this material world, of a light beyond this physical light. The universities in America have not forgotten God, I repeat. And this is essential. I am glad also that students in America are not divided into political parties. I do not believe much in state universities. I am afraid they will degenerate in America as they have in Europe, on account of their political connections. I believe in colleges, in the collegiate life of students, under spiritual and moral guidance.
America is a money-making, but not a money-saving people. We in Europe are money-saving, a greater curse. One thing that I have learned is that the business people of this country are more spiritual than in any other country. I know. I spoke in the Chamber of Commerce in St. Louis, and St. Louis is not known as a spiritual center. But I spoke on the mere spiritual values of things. The president of the Chamber of Commerce followed me to my room on the fifteenth floor (there are no fifteenth floors in Europe). He wanted to talk. I said, "I am willing to talk, but only on what I have been discussing." He said, "I think you have in Europe the fight between Caesar and Christ." We talked for one and a half hours. He stayed away from business in order to talk spiritual things. Do not speak of America as a materialistic people; you must go much deeper into the thoughts of the people here.
There is general respect for the Church here. The churches are divided, but they cooperate. That was a new experience to me. Then the preachers are not rich men; that is very good. In India, the priests are respected; among Eastern peoples the monks are honored because they are poor. The clergy of America come mostly from poor people. Charity is America's religion. And the clergy are preaching charity.
From many observations -- I mention only a few -- I have found that the chief tendency of the American character is constructiveness and charitableness. This is the most hopeful side of the American civilization. And that is the greatest gift we can all take back home with us.
The best American brains today are plunged into deep considerations. They are making a new program for this new world. They are at a crossroad. They have to decide: Is America going to be America for herself, and the world for America, or is she going to be for the world? The youngest son of Jacob, Joseph, saved all of his family. Is America, this youngest child of human history, going to save the world? "Hurry up! Hurry up!" has been not only a human saying in this country, but God's message to America to spur her and to prepare her to be ready to help all of the world in a case of grave emergency. This emergency has arisen, and America stands on the pinnacle of her power, gird with two belts: constructiveness and charity. Is she going to draw the world up to that pinnacle, or to darken her vision by pride and to fall down to the swamp of the Old World? May God help America! May we all, brothers, help America with whatever gifts we have, in order that she should fulfill her Divine duty. When a Turk asks a blessing from a Serbian bishop (a Mohammedan Turk offered grace at the beginning of this meal), the world is going to be better. I should like the American to bless the Japanese, the Frenchman the German, the Indian the Semite, the Japanese the Chinese. The world would then be much better.
On the gate of a high school in Des Moines, I saw engraved the motto, "For the service of humanity." That is the right motto for all educated people in the world, I thought. Train yourselves not only to be the brains of your nations, but also the hearts and the will of them. Try your hardest to train yourselves first in compassion towards humanity, then in respect for it, and finally in love for it. Love is the highest gift, and you never will reach it unless you have gone through the first two stages: compassion and respect.
Be ready for pan-humanity. The intellectuals of the world are not yet ready; peoples are. The peasants of Serbia, Russia, and India are ready. The intellectuals are not yet ready because they are mere intellectuals. Intellect is a curse of the world: a destructive Shiva, unless it has the light of a noble heart and of goodwill. Today the greatest battle is going on between the capitalists and the proletarians. Do not wish the victory to either of them. Whosoever of them wins, the world will be a den of lions. Be the richest in mind, the noblest in heart, and the most willing; and then -- then I shall pray for your victory. Have compassion with the wealthy of this world, have respect for the poor, and love both of them. They are equally sick, equally unbalanced. Whatever you study here, do not forget to study to be spiritual and moral doctors of your nations. Go back to them with the smile of a peacemaker. As such, you are very much needed there, not otherwise. Do not aspire to become wealthy; do not be shy of poverty. Be the wealthiest inwardly, and do not care for your external attire and position. If you only would heed this word: Be the richest and the poorest at the same time. Such was the Man who had no shelter in this world and yet possessed the command of Heaven. Such was also the royal prince, Gautama. Such was Socrates. Such have tried to be all the best models of human kind. And there is a sentence of such a one, which please do engrave deep into your hearts, "Never is good achieved by evil.
From:
Episkop Nikolaj, "Savrana Dela," v. III, pp. 793-799
Episkop Nikolaj, "Savrana Dela," v. III, pp. 793-799
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