What Is Lacking in the World Today is Idealism

What is lacking today in the world is idealism. Where does idealism come from? From deep thought. Today life in general keeps man so busy in his occupation, in his profession, in his work of everyday life, that he has no time to think deeply and better; he does not find his ideal. Among a thousand persons there is perhaps one person who has an ideal and knows what ideal he has. All the others do not know it; they do not have an ideal. Besides, it is not only to have an ideal, but it is necessary to know the ideal and to attain to the ideal, to develop towards it, to unfold oneself towards the ideal. It is that in which lies life’s fulfillment.

And you will ask, “How shall I define what idealism is?” The ideal is something which one keeps before one’s eyes, something which is not easily reached, something which is not easily touched, but which one can always see and keep before one, and try one day to reach. The person who has the ideal naturally has sentiments, his imaginations are graceful, his thoughts wonderful, his actions beautiful, his atmosphere magnetic. For it is the ideal which makes life worth living. If all that the earth can give one, one has, and not the ideal, one will soon be tired of it.

In these days there is the great drawback that when people become very intelligent they lose idealism. If they want to find God they want to find Him in figures. There are many who would rather meditate than worship, than pray. In this way, there has always been conflict between the intellectual person and the idealistic person.

In this material age of ours heart quality is totally forgotten, and great importance is given to reason and logic. When we argue with a person, he wants us to argue with reason; we must be logical. Sentiment and idealism have no place. It is because of this that humanity is getting further and further away from spiritual attainment. That which is the chief and the best quality is ignored; and by ignoring that quality it becomes dead. If a poet happens to live in a village where no one understands poetry, if an artist lives in a town where no one cares for his pictures, if an inventive genius has no opportunity of bringing his inventions out, their faculties and talents become blunted and finally they die; and the same happens to the heart quality: if it is not taken notice of, if it has no opportunity to develop, if it is ignored, then this quality becomes blunted and in the end, it dies. As it is expressed in a song, ‘The light of a whole life dies when love is gone.‘ What remains? There is no sign of life; what remains is intellectuality expressing itself by the power of egoism. It is difficult to live in the world because selfishness is ever on the increase.