selfishness

102:3.3Ma­te­rial feel­ings, hu­man emo­tions, lead di­rectly to ma­te­rial ac­tions, self­ish acts. Re­li­gious in­sights, spir­i­tual mo­ti­va­tions, lead di­rectly to re­li­gious ac­tions, un­selfish acts of so­cial ser­vice and al­tru­is­tic benev­o­lence.

103:2.4Ev­ery hu­man be­ing very early ex­pe­ri­ences some­thing of a con­flict be­tween his self-seek­ing and his al­tru­is­tic im­pulses, and many times the first ex­pe­ri­ence of God-con­scious­ness may be at­tained as the re­sult of seek­ing for super­hu­man help in the task of re­solv­ing such moral con­flicts.

103:2.5The psy­chol­ogy of a child is nat­u­rally pos­i­tive, not neg­a­tive. So many mor­tals are neg­a­tive be­cause they were so trained. When it is said that the child is pos­i­tive, ref­er­ence is made to his moral im­pulses, those pow­ers of mind whose emer­gence sig­nals the ar­rival of the Thought Ad­juster.

103:2.6In the ab­sence of wrong teach­ing, the mind of the nor­mal child moves pos­i­tively, in the emer­gence of re­li­gious con­scious­ness, to­ward moral righ­teous­ness and so­cial min­istry, rather than neg­a­tively, away from sin and guilt. There may or may not be con­flict in the de­vel­op­ment of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence, but there are al­ways pres­ent the in­ev­i­ta­ble de­ci­sions, ef­fort, and func­tion of the hu­man will.

103:2.7Moral choos­ing is usu­ally ac­com­pa­nied by more or less moral con­flict. And this very first con­flict in the child mind is be­tween the urges of ego­ism and the im­pulses of al­tru­ism. The Thought Ad­juster does not dis­re­gard the per­son­al­ity val­ues of the ego­is­tic mo­tive but does op­er­ate to place a slight pref­er­ence upon the al­tru­is­tic im­pulse as lead­ing to the goal of hu­man hap­pi­ness and to the joys of the king­dom of heaven.

103:2.8When a moral be­ing chooses to be un­selfish when con­fronted by the urge to be self­ish, that is prim­i­tive re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. No an­i­mal can make such a choice; such a de­ci­sion is both hu­man and re­li­gious. It em­braces the fact of God-con­scious­ness and ex­hibits the im­pulse of so­cial ser­vice, the ba­sis of the broth­er­hood of man. When mind chooses a right moral judg­ment by an act of the free will, such a de­ci­sion con­sti­tutes a re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence.

103:2.9But be­fore a child has de­vel­oped suf­fi­ciently to ac­quire moral ca­pac­ity and there­fore to be able to choose al­tru­is­tic ser­vice, he has al­ready de­vel­oped a strong and well-uni­fied ego­is­tic na­ture. And it is this fac­tual sit­u­a­tion that gives rise to the the­ory of the strug­gle be­tween the “higher” and the “lower” na­tures, be­tween the “old man of sin” and the “new na­ture” of grace. Very early in life the nor­mal child be­gins to learn that it is “more blessed to give than to re­ceive.”

103:2.10Man tends to iden­tify the urge to be self-serv­ing with his ego—him­self. In con­trast he is in­clined to iden­tify the will to be al­tru­is­tic with some in­flu­ence out­side him­self—God. And in­deed is such a judg­ment right, for all such non­self de­sires do ac­tu­ally have their ori­gin in the lead­ings of the in­dwelling Thought Ad­juster, and this Ad­juster is a frag­ment of God. The im­pulse of the spirit Mon­i­tor is re­al­ized in hu­man con­scious­ness as the urge to be al­tru­is­tic, fel­low-crea­ture minded. At least this is the early and fun­da­men­tal ex­pe­ri­ence of the child mind. When the grow­ing child fails of per­son­al­ity uni­fi­ca­tion, the al­tru­is­tic drive may be­come so overde­vel­oped as to work se­ri­ous in­jury to the wel­fare of the self. A mis­guided con­science can be­come re­spon­si­ble for much con­flict, worry, sor­row, and no end of hu­man un­hap­pi­ness.

52:6.42. In­tel­lec­tual cross-fer­til­iza­tion. Broth­er­hood is im­pos­si­ble on a world whose in­hab­i­tants are so prim­i­tive that they fail to rec­og­nize the folly of un­mit­i­gated self­ish­ness. There must oc­cur an ex­change of na­tional and racial lit­er­a­ture. Each race must be­come fa­mil­iar with the thought of all races; each na­tion must know the feel­ings of all na­tions. Ig­no­rance breeds sus­pi­cion, and sus­pi­cion is in­com­pat­i­ble with the es­sen­tial at­ti­tude of sym­pa­thy and love.

52:6.53. Eth­i­cal awak­en­ing. Only eth­i­cal con­scious­ness can un­mask the im­moral­ity of hu­man in­tol­er­ance and the sin­ful­ness of frat­ri­ci­dal strife. Only a moral con­science can con­demn the evils of na­tional envy and racial jeal­ousy. Only moral be­ings will ever seek for that spir­i­tual in­sight which is es­sen­tial to liv­ing the golden rule.

52:6.64. Po­lit­i­cal wis­dom. Emo­tional ma­tu­rity is es­sen­tial to self-con­trol. Only emo­tional ma­tu­rity will in­sure the sub­sti­tu­tion of in­ter­na­tional tech­niques of civ­i­lized ad­ju­di­ca­tion for the bar­barous ar­bitra­ment of war. Wise states­men will some­time work for the wel­fare of hu­man­ity even while they strive to pro­mote the in­ter­est of their na­tional or racial groups. Self­ish po­lit­i­cal sagac­ity is ul­ti­mately sui­ci­dal—de­struc­tive of all those en­dur­ing qual­i­ties which in­sure plan­e­tary group sur­vival.

111:6.9Of all the dan­gers which be­set man’s mor­tal na­ture and jeop­ar­dize his spir­i­tual in­tegrity, pride is the great­est. Cour­age is val­or­ous, but ego­tism is vain­glo­ri­ous and sui­ci­dal. Rea­son­able self-con­fi­dence is not to be de­plored. Man’s abil­ity to tran­scend him­self is the one thing which dis­tin­guishes him from the an­i­mal king­dom.

195:9.7Self­ish men and women sim­ply will not pay such a price for even the great­est spir­i­tual trea­sure ever of­fered mor­tal man. Only when man has be­come suf­fi­ciently dis­il­lu­sioned by the sor­row­ful dis­ap­point­ments at­ten­dant upon the fool­ish and de­cep­tive pur­suits of self­ish­ness, and sub­se­quent to the dis­cov­ery of the bar­ren­ness of for­mal­ized re­li­gion, will he be dis­posed to turn whole­heart­edly to the gospel of the king­dom, the re­li­gion of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth.

166:3.4“But herein is the dan­ger to all who would post­pone their en­trance into the king­dom while they con­tinue to pur­sue the plea­sures of im­ma­tu­rity and in­dulge the sat­is­fac­tions of self­ish­ness: Hav­ing re­fused to en­ter the king­dom as a spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence, they may sub­se­quently seek en­trance thereto when the glory of the bet­ter way be­comes re­vealed in the age to come. And when, there­fore, those who spurned the king­dom when I came in the like­ness of hu­man­ity seek to find an en­trance when it is re­vealed in the like­ness of di­vin­ity, then will I say to all such self­ish ones: I know not whence you are. You had your chance to pre­pare for this heav­enly cit­i­zen­ship, but you re­fused all such prof­fers of mercy; you re­jected all in­vi­ta­tions to come while the door was open. Now, to you who have re­fused sal­va­tion, the door is shut. This door is not open to those who would en­ter the king­dom for self­ish glory. Sal­va­tion is not for those who are un­will­ing to pay the price of whole­hearted ded­i­ca­tion to do­ing my Fa­ther’s will. When in spirit and soul you have turned your backs upon the Fa­ther’s king­dom, it is use­less in mind and body to stand be­fore this door and knock, say­ing, ‘Lord, open to us; we would also be great in the king­dom.’ Then will I de­clare that you are not of my fold. I will not re­ceive you to be among those who have fought the good fight of faith and won the re­ward of un­selfish ser­vice in the king­dom on earth. And when you say, ‘Did we not eat and drink with you, and did you not teach in our streets?’ then shall I again de­clare that you are spir­i­tual strangers; that we were not fel­low ser­vants in the Fa­ther’s min­istry of mercy on earth; that I do not know you; and then shall the Judge of all the earth say to you: ‘De­part from us, all you who have taken de­light in the works of in­iq­uity.’

71:3.1The po­lit­i­cal or ad­min­is­tra­tive form of a gov­ern­ment is of lit­tle con­se­quence pro­vided it af­fords the es­sen­tials of civil prog­ress—lib­erty, se­cu­rity, ed­u­ca­tion, and so­cial co-or­di­na­tion. It is not what a state is but what it does that de­ter­mines the course of so­cial evo­lu­tion. And af­ter all, no state can tran­scend the moral val­ues of its cit­i­zenry as ex­em­pli­fied in their cho­sen lead­ers. Ig­no­rance and self­ish­ness will in­sure the down­fall of even the high­est type of gov­ern­ment.

130:1.2One day af­ter the evening meal Je­sus and the young Phil­is­tine strolled down by the sea, and Ga­diah, not know­ing that this “scribe of Da­mas­cus” was so well versed in the He­brew tra­di­tions, pointed out to Je­sus the ship land­ing from which it was re­puted that Jonah had em­barked on his ill-fated voy­age to Tarshish. And when he had con­cluded his re­marks, he asked Je­sus this ques­tion: “But do you sup­pose the big fish re­ally did swal­low Jonah?” Je­sus per­ceived that this young man’s life had been tremen­dously in­flu­enced by this tra­di­tion, and that its con­tem­pla­tion had im­pressed upon him the folly of try­ing to run away from duty; Je­sus there­fore said noth­ing that would sud­denly de­stroy the foun­da­tions of Ga­diah’s pres­ent mo­ti­va­tion for prac­ti­cal liv­ing. In an­swer­ing this ques­tion, Je­sus said: “My friend, we are all Jon­ahs with lives to live in ac­cor­dance with the will of God, and at all times when we seek to es­cape the pres­ent duty of liv­ing by run­ning away to far-off en­tice­ments, we thereby put our­selves in the im­me­di­ate con­trol of those in­flu­ences which are not di­rected by the pow­ers of truth and the forces of righ­teous­ness. The flight from duty is the sac­ri­fice of truth. The es­cape from the ser­vice of light and life can only re­sult in those dis­tress­ing con­flicts with the dif­fi­cult whales of self­ish­ness which lead even­tu­ally to dark­ness and death un­less such God-for­sak­ing Jon­ahs shall turn their hearts, even when in the very depths of de­spair, to seek af­ter God and his good­ness. And when such dis­heart­ened souls sin­cerely seek for God—hunger for truth and thirst for righ­teous­ness—there is noth­ing that can hold them in fur­ther cap­tiv­ity. No mat­ter into what great depths they may have fallen, when they seek the light with a whole heart, the spirit of the Lord God of heaven will de­liver them from their cap­tiv­ity; the evil cir­cum­stances of life will spew them out upon the dry land of fresh op­por­tu­ni­ties for re­newed ser­vice and wiser liv­ing.”

131:3.6“The fool has said in his heart, ‘Evil shall not over­take me’; but safety is found only when the soul craves re­proof and the mind seeks wis­dom. The wise man is a no­ble soul who is friendly in the midst of his en­e­mies, tran­quil among the tur­bu­lent, and gen­er­ous among the grasp­ing. Love of self is like weeds in a goodly field. Self­ish­ness leads to grief; per­pet­ual care kills. The tamed mind yields hap­pi­ness. He is the great­est of war­riors who over­comes and sub­dues him­self. Re­straint in all things is good. He alone is a su­pe­rior per­son who es­teems virtue and is ob­ser­vant of his duty. Let not anger and hate mas­ter you. Speak harshly of no one. Con­tent­ment is the great­est wealth. What is given wisely is well saved. Do not to oth­ers those things you would not wish done to you. Pay good for evil; over­come evil with the good.

66:8.2It should be noted that both Lu­cifer and Cali­gas­tia had been pa­tiently in­structed and lov­ingly warned re­spect­ing their crit­i­cal ten­den­cies and the sub­tle de­vel­op­ment of their pride of self and its as­so­ci­ated ex­ag­ger­a­tion of the feel­ing of self-im­por­tance. But all of these at­tempts to help had been mis­con­strued as un­war­ranted crit­i­cism and as un­jus­ti­fied in­ter­fer­ence with per­sonal lib­er­ties. Both Cali­gas­tia and Lu­cifer judged their friendly ad­vis­ers as be­ing ac­tu­ated by the very rep­re­hen­si­ble mo­tives which were be­gin­ning to dom­i­nate their own dis­torted think­ing and mis­guided plan­ning. They judged their un­selfish ad­vis­ers by their own evolv­ing self­ish­ness.

111:1.9Mind is your ship, the Ad­juster is your pi­lot, the hu­man will is cap­tain. The mas­ter of the mor­tal ves­sel should have the wis­dom to trust the di­vine pi­lot to guide the as­cend­ing soul into the mor­ontia har­bors of eter­nal sur­vival. Only by self­ish­ness, sloth­ful­ness, and sin­ful­ness can the will of man re­ject the guid­ance of such a lov­ing pi­lot and even­tu­ally wreck the mor­tal ca­reer upon the evil shoals of re­jected mercy and upon the rocks of em­braced sin. With your con­sent, this faith­ful pi­lot will safely carry you across the bar­ri­ers of time and the hand­i­caps of space to the very source of the di­vine mind and on be­yond, even to the Par­a­dise Fa­ther of Ad­justers.

84:1.7The mother and child re­la­tion is nat­u­ral, strong, and in­stinc­tive, and one which, there­fore, con­strained prim­i­tive women to sub­mit to many strange con­di­tions and to en­dure un­told hard­ships. This com­pelling mother love is the hand­i­cap­ping emo­tion which has al­ways placed woman at such a tremen­dous dis­ad­van­tage in all her strug­gles with man. Even at that, ma­ter­nal in­stinct in the hu­man species is not over­pow­er­ing; it may be thwarted by am­bi­tion, self­ish­ness, and re­li­gious con­vic­tion.

71:6.1Pres­ent-day profit-mo­ti­vated eco­nomics is doomed un­less profit mo­tives can be aug­mented by ser­vice mo­tives. Ruth­less com­pe­ti­tion based on nar­row-minded self-in­ter­est is ul­ti­mately de­struc­tive of even those things which it seeks to main­tain. Ex­clu­sive and self-serv­ing profit mo­ti­va­tion is in­com­pat­i­ble with Chris­tian ide­als—much more in­com­pat­i­ble with the teach­ings of Je­sus.

5:4.3God is not only the de­ter­miner of des­tiny; he is man’s eter­nal des­ti­na­tion. All non­re­li­gious hu­man ac­tiv­i­ties seek to bend the uni­verse to the dis­tort­ing ser­vice of self; the truly re­li­gious in­di­vid­ual seeks to iden­tify the self with the uni­verse and then to ded­i­cate the ac­tiv­i­ties of this uni­fied self to the ser­vice of the uni­verse fam­ily of fel­low be­ings, hu­man and super­hu­man.

136:6.9In this de­ci­sion Je­sus of Naz­a­reth por­trayed to an on­look­ing uni­verse the folly and sin of pros­ti­tut­ing di­vine tal­ents and God-given abil­i­ties for per­sonal ag­gran­dize­ment or for purely self­ish gain and glo­ri­fi­ca­tion. That was the sin of Lu­cifer and Cali­gas­tia.

• forsake life of self for divine life

3:5.138. Is un­selfish­ness—the spirit of self-for­get­ful­ness—de­sir­able? Then must mor­tal man live face to face with the in­ces­sant clam­or­ing of an in­escapable self for recog­ni­tion and honor. Man could not dy­nam­i­cally choose the di­vine life if there were no self-life to for­sake. Man could never lay sav­ing hold on right­eous­ness if there were no po­ten­tial evil to ex­alt and dif­fer­en­ti­ate the good by con­trast.

• transcend s. by meditation in presence of sovereignty of God

99:7.4Man can never wisely de­cide tem­po­ral is­sues or tran­scend the self­ish­ness of per­sonal in­ter­ests un­less he med­i­tates in the pres­ence of the sov­er­eignty of God and reck­ons with the re­al­i­ties of di­vine mean­ings and spir­i­tual val­ues.

• avoiding s. favors spiritual growth

100:1.8Re­li­gious habits of think­ing and act­ing are con­trib­u­tory to the econ­omy of spir­i­tual growth. One can de­velop re­li­gious pre­dis­po­si­tions to­ward fa­vor­able re­ac­tion to spir­i­tual stim­uli, a sort of con­di­tioned spir­i­tual re­flex. Habits which fa­vor re­li­gious growth em­brace cul­ti­vated sen­si­tiv­ity to di­vine val­ues, rec­og­ni­tion of re­li­gious liv­ing in oth­ers, re­flec­tive med­i­ta­tion on cos­mic mean­ings, wor­ship­ful prob­lem solv­ing, shar­ing one’s spir­i­tual life with one’s fel­lows, avoid­ance of self­ish­ness, re­fusal to pre­sume on di­vine mercy, liv­ing as in the pres­ence of God. The fac­tors of re­li­gious growth may be in­ten­tional, but the growth it­self is un­vary­ingly un­con­scious.

• when attacked by s., rest in the unassailable citadel of the spirit

100:2.7Je­sus por­trayed the pro­found surety of the God-know­ing mor­tal when he said: “To a God-know­ing king­dom be­liever, what does it mat­ter if all things earthly crash?” Tem­po­ral se­cu­ri­ties are vul­ner­a­ble, but spir­i­tual sureties are im­preg­nable. When the flood tides of hu­man ad­ver­sity, self­ish­ness, cru­elty, hate, mal­ice, and jeal­ousy beat about the mor­tal soul, you may rest in the as­sur­ance that there is one in­ner bas­tion, the citadel of the spirit, which is ab­so­lutely unas­sail­able; at least this is true of ev­ery hu­man be­ing who has ded­i­cated the keep­ing of his soul to the in­dwelling spirit of the eter­nal God.

• be exposed to vast number of other religious experiences to prevent

103:1.3While your re­li­gion is a mat­ter of per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence, it is most im­por­tant that you should be ex­posed to the knowl­edge of a vast num­ber of other re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ences (the di­verse in­ter­pre­ta­tions of other and di­verse mor­tals) to the end that you may pre­vent your re­li­gious life from be­com­ing ego­cen­tric—cir­cum­scribed, self­ish, and unso­cial.

141:3.8Je­sus por­trayed con­quest by sac­ri­fice, the sac­ri­fice of pride and self­ish­ness. By show­ing mercy, he meant to por­tray spir­i­tual de­liv­er­ance from all grudges, grievances, anger, and the lust for self­ish power and re­venge. And when he said, “Re­sist not evil,” he later ex­plained that he did not mean to con­done sin or to coun­sel fra­ter­nity with in­iq­uity. He in­tended the more to teach for­give­ness, to “re­sist not evil treat­ment of one’s per­son­al­ity, evil in­jury to one’s feel­ings of per­sonal dig­nity.”

54:1.5Un­bri­dled self-will and un­reg­u­lated self-ex­pres­sion equal un­mit­i­gated self­ish­ness, the acme of un­god­li­ness. Lib­erty with­out the as­so­ci­ated and ever-in­creas­ing con­quest of self is a fig­ment of ego­is­tic mor­tal imag­i­na­tion. Self-mo­ti­vated lib­erty is a con­cep­tual il­lu­sion, a cruel de­cep­tion. Li­cense mas­querad­ing in the gar­ments of lib­erty is the fore­run­ner of ab­ject bond­age.

28:6.18The uni­ver­sal econ­omy is based on in­take and out­put; through­out the eter­nal ca­reer you will never en­counter mo­not­ony of in­ac­tion or stag­na­tion of per­son­al­ity. Prog­ress is made pos­si­ble by in­her­ent mo­tion, ad­vance­ment grows out of the di­vine ca­pac­ity for ac­tion, and achieve­ment is the child of imag­i­na­tive ad­ven­ture. But in­her­ent in this ca­pac­ity for achieve­ment is the re­spon­si­bil­ity of ethics, the ne­ces­sity for rec­og­niz­ing that the world and the uni­verse are filled with a mul­ti­tude of dif­fer­ing types of be­ings. All of this mag­nif­i­cent cre­ation, in­clud­ing your­self, was not made just for you. This is not an ego­cen­tric uni­verse. The Gods have de­creed, “It is more blessed to give than to re­ceive,” and said your Mas­ter Son, “He who would be great­est among you let him be server of all.”

131:1.6“The man who knows God looks upon all men as equal; they are his breth­ren. Those who are self­ish, those who ig­nore their broth­ers in the flesh, have only weari­ness as their re­ward. Those who love their fel­lows and who have pure hearts shall see God. God never for­gets sin­cer­ity. He will guide the hon­est of heart into the truth, for God is truth.

103:5.6The at­tempt to se­cure equal good for the self and for the great­est num­ber of other selves pre­sents a prob­lem which can­not al­ways be sat­is­fac­to­rily re­solved in a time-space frame. Given an eter­nal life, such an­tag­o­nisms can be worked out, but in one short hu­man life they are in­ca­pable of so­lu­tion. Je­sus re­ferred to such a para­dox when he said: “Whoso­ever shall save his life shall lose it, but whoso­ever shall lose his life for the sake of the king­dom, shall find it.”

140:5.19Chil­dren can eas­ily be taught to func­tion as peace­mak­ers. They en­joy team ac­tiv­i­ties; they like to play to­gether. Said the Mas­ter at an­other time: “Whoso­ever will save his life shall lose it, but whoso­ever will lose his life shall find it.”

158:7.5Af­ter they had re­cov­ered from the first shock of Je­sus’ sting­ing re­buke, and be­fore they re­sumed their jour­ney, the Mas­ter spoke fur­ther: “If any man would come af­ter me, let him dis­re­gard him­self, take up his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties daily, and fol­low me. For whoso­ever would save his life self­ishly, shall lose it, but whoso­ever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s, shall save it. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What would a man give in ex­change for eter­nal life? Be not ashamed of me and my words in this sin­ful and hyp­o­crit­i­cal gen­er­a­tion, even as I will not be ashamed to ac­knowl­edge you when in glory I ap­pear be­fore my Fa­ther in the pres­ence of all the ce­les­tial hosts. Nev­er­the­less, many of you now stand­ing be­fore me shall not taste death till you see this king­dom of God come with power.”

160:5.10I see in the teach­ings of Je­sus, re­li­gion at its best. This gospel en­ables us to seek for the true God and to find him. But are we will­ing to pay the price of this en­trance into the king­dom of heaven? Are we will­ing to be born again? to be re­made? Are we will­ing to be sub­ject to this ter­ri­ble and test­ing pro­cess of self-de­struc­tion and soul re­con­struc­tion? Has not the Mas­ter said: “Whoso would save his life must lose it. Think not that I have come to bring peace but rather a soul strug­gle”? True, af­ter we pay the price of ded­i­ca­tion to the Fa­ther’s will, we do ex­pe­ri­ence great peace pro­vided we con­tinue to walk in these spir­i­tual paths of con­se­crated liv­ing.

7:3.6Con­versely, if your sup­pli­ca­tions are purely ma­te­rial and wholly self-cen­tered, there ex­ists no plan whereby such un­wor­thy prayers can find lodg­ment in the spirit cir­cuit of the Eter­nal Son. The con­tent of any pe­ti­tion which is not “spirit in­dited” can find no place in the uni­ver­sal spir­i­tual cir­cuit; such purely self­ish and ma­te­rial re­quests fall dead; they do not as­cend in the cir­cuits of true spirit val­ues. Such words are as “sound­ing brass and a tin­kling cym­bal.”