Part IV The Creed of the Open Road.
1921 original text, YOGeBooks typeset transcription; original text extent only
Part IV The Creed of the Open Road.
Feeling that it may serve as a sort of an epitome, or will bind together some of the matters that we have been considering together, I am supplementing or closing this with “The Creed of the Open Road.”
The Creed of the Open Road
To be observed today, to be changed tomorrow, according to
tomorrow’s light.
To live to our highest in all things that pertain to us, and to lend a hand as best we can to all others for this same end.
To aid in righting the wrongs that cross our path by pointing the wrong‑doer to a better way, and thus aid him in becoming a power for good.
To turn toward and keep our faces always to the light, knowing that we are then always safe and that we shall travel with joy the open road.
To love the fields and the wild flowers, the stars, the far‑open sea, the soft, warm earth, and to live much with them alone, but to love struggling and weary men and women and every pulsing, living creature better.
To do our own thinking—listening quietly to the opinions of others, but to be sufficiently men and women to act always upon our own convictions.
To remain in nature always sweet and simple and humble, and therefore strong.
To play the part of neither fool nor knave by attempting to judge another; but to give that same time to living more worthily ourselves.
To get up immediately when we stumble, face again to the light, and travel on without wasting even a moment in regret.
To love and to hold due reverence for all people and all things; but to stand in awe or fear of nothing save our own wrong‑doing.
To recognize the good lying at the heart of all people, of all things, waiting for expression all in its own good way and time.
To know that it is the middle ground that brings pleasure and satisfaction, and that excesses have to be paid for always with heavy and sometimes with frightful costs.
To know that work, occupation, something definite and useful to do, is one of the established conditions of happiness in life.
To realize always clearly that thoughts are forces, that like creates like and like attracts like—and that to determine one’s thinking therefore is to determine his life.
To take and to live always in the attitude of mind that compels gladness, looking for and thus drawing to us continually the best in all people and all things, being thereby the creators of our own good fortunes.
To know that love inspires love, and that hatred breeds hatred—each of its kind—that the wise man is he who through the wonderful alchemy of love transmutes the enemy into the friend.
To realize that faith and hope and courage are great producers, and that we cannot fail if we live always in the brave and cheerful attitude of mind and heart—that he alone fails who gives up and lies down.
To know that all true greatness is the indirect flowering of unselfish love and service for one’s fellow‑men.
To realize always clearly that in a Democracy whenever things go wrong or injustice prevails, it is essentially our own fault, and the fundamental duty therefore of every man and woman giving attention to every affair of government—community and state, national and international.
To know that the ever‑conscious realization of the essential oneness of each life with the Divine Life is the highest of all knowledge, the essence of all religion, and that to open ourselves as opportune channels for the Divine Power to work in and through us, is the open door to the highest attainment, and to the best there is in life.
In brief—to be honest, to be fearless, to be just, joyous, kind. This will make our part in life’s great and as yet not fully understood play one of greatest glory, and we need then stand in fear of nothing—life nor death; for death is life. Or rather, perchance, it is the quick transition to life in another form; the putting off of the old coat and the putting on of the new; a passing not from light to darkness, but from light to light, according as we have lived here—a part in life not to be shunned or dreaded or feared, but to be welcomed with a glad and ready smile when it comes in its own good way and time.
(End)