Part 83

1. Each acts according to his desire or needs.

2. Punishment as preventive and cure.

III. TRUTH IN PERSONAL RELATIONS:

a. Truth-telling not the whole of Truth:

1. Malicious truth-telling is not truth.

2. Worth of kind, true criticism and praise.

b. Our judgments of people judge us:

1. Our limited understanding.

2. Say: “I am one who hates, or loves,” etc.

c. Whom shall we please, and how?

1. The morality of good manners.

2. Vanity, the pretended worth; and true worth or loveableness.

3. “Prettiness” in manner, pleasing those who cannot understand us.

4. Social frivolity, overdress and luxury, and its result of friendship.

α. Show is for those we do not love. (Resembles “costly material” in art.)

a. The true preparation for marriage.

b. Social life and service.

c. Knowledge as mere show; or as power.]

SEVENTEENTH MEETING

Aloofness and Creation

I. SEEING LIFE AS A SPECTATOR, FROM GOD’S POINT OF VIEW:

a. The collective personality:

1. Psychological fact: We are often outside ourselves in tense moments.

2. Getting far away from oneself in self-criticism and judgment.

3. Our reasonableness in crises.

4. All heroism is self-forgetfulness for the sake of the whole.

II. RESULT IN ACTION AND CREATIVE LIVING:

a. Partnership with whole, or God: