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Ariadne/Chapter Sixteen: Pythagoras on Diligence and Inspiration

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Chapter Sixteen:
Pythagoras on Diligence
and Inspiration

Usually, Ariadne, Hamilcar, and all the students who lived in Ariadne’s house would go to the School building before sunrise.

Together, they would greet the sunrise.

Then, after breakfast, there would be talks by Pythagoras, and then classes would continue in groups.

On this day, Pythagoras also spoke to the students.

Kondratos asked:

“I was asked a question yesterday: what is boredom and why can it arise? And I found it difficult to answer. Tell us about this, Pythagoras!”

“Well, let’s try to figure it out!

“Have you ever met anyone who seeks only entertainment and pleasure as a remedy for boredom?

“What is boredom? It is the emptiness in the spiritual heart and the hunger of the small human mind that has forgotten about the Divine, about the fact that man is but a tiny particle of the Great Whole!

“An undeveloped mind is just like a stomach — when it is empty — it needs food. Such a mind needs to be constantly occupied with something. Otherwise, the emptiness inside begins to be unbearable. This emptiness has to be filled with God.

“In the depths of the soul, there is a place for the Divine in the multidimensionality of human nature. There, the Oneness with the Primordial must be cognized. This Unity then carries over to all other aspects of one’s life!

“The skill of calming the mind and directing it to the Creator of all things comes after long practice. The only exceptions are those souls who learned it in past earthly lives and who, therefore, find it easy to remember the bliss of a quiet mind and the immersion into love and dissolution.

“When the mind is immersed in a spiritual heart filled with love, the soul is raised to life with God.

“In the meantime, while the mind is still undeveloped and prone to wandering, it can be developed by useful insights and concentration exercises rather than by idle entertainment that requires no effort on its part.”

… Leonardos asked:

“Tell us about inspiration: why is it that sometimes we are seized by the rapture, the bliss of creativity, but there are days when we don’t experience inspiration. What to do in these cases?”

“Here we come to another important topic.

“Let’s talk about inspiration, and about diligence, about the need for spiritual efforts and also about the ability to relax and dissolve, and about surrendering ourselves to the Will and Wisdom of the Primordial.

“How should we work and live for God?

“For this, we need both diligence and inspiration.

“We have already talked a lot about inspiration, and you all know how easy it is to do everything when the energy of Divine Inspiration lights up our work. Everything becomes sublime and beautiful!

“But what should we do when we cannot achieve this state?

“First, we must not let ourselves idly daydream about the sublime!

“Let’s talk a little bit about hard work, my friends!

“A great help in the development and growth of spiritual abilities is diligence!

“It is a very important quality — the ability to work with love!

“I am not talking about forced labor, when work is performed under compulsion, but about labor performed with conscious, joyful, and pure energy of the soul!

“It is important to cultivate a love of labor! This is when one performs any work with love, in a state of love.

“It would seem that it is so simple…

“But it often happens that the most capable students turn out to be lazy, while those who are less capable achieve wonderful results through hard work!

“It is difficult for Divine Souls to teach those who wallow in laziness, which such people sometimes consider as the freedom to do whatever they want…

“But freedom is not a life of idleness!

“When a person who is able to work hard acquires both the Goal to become One with God and the freedom of will to reach Him, his or her diligence yields visible successes.

“One cannot ‘rest on the laurels’ of one’s past achievements for a long time! One needs new achievements!

“Meditations are also work: the work on oneself-soul. With the help of exercises for the development of the consciousness we learn gradually to enter the Unity with the Divine. It is the contact with It that allows one to experience what is usually called inspiration.

“This can also lead to feeling the Divine Energy — as if it were one’s own.

“A body accustomed to laziness accustoms both the mind and soul to laziness. This is how the lower can negatively affect the higher in man.

“But there is also the opposite effect: when the soul intensively perfects itself, it encourages both the mind and body to be diligent as well.

“We can become parts of the Stream of Grace, Rays of the One Light, when we bear in ourselves-souls Love and Beauty for people, for the entire world!

“But we should remember that the Gods give us knowledge according to our rationality.

“A mind that is uneducated and that has not been developed through various exercises cannot draw Wisdom from the Universal Divine Knowledge!

“A body untrained in dance cannot transmit through movements all the beauty and grace of the Divine Light as It flows through the body. So also, an undeveloped mind perceives only fragments of the Totality. It cannot immediately grasp the depths of cognition!

“Another important quality that we can cultivate in ourselves, which goes hand in hand with diligence, is patience.

“It happens that people are often inspired by good intentions, but abandon their efforts before the results are noticeable even to themselves.

“Look: we sowed flower seeds here along the stone-lined steps to the sea. But it took a while before the flowers bloomed. While there were no sprouts, we could think that our work was in vain. But today, we can see the result!

“It is the same with spiritual efforts: we gradually master the life in Oneness with the Whole.

“It is important for us to remember the Main Goal in life. And we should not allow ourselves to focus solely on achieving temporary successes and victories, beautiful skills, or even certain abilities, which for many people are so desirable.

“The ability to preach eloquently, the ability to create and play wondrous music, enchanting listeners, or any other mastered creative display — is also not an end in itself.

“And by the way, I note that we should not exalt ourselves above other people if we have acquired skills that others do not possess.

“We do all this so that — in the end — we can become similar to the Gods, Who live in the most subtle state of the multidimensional universe! We, too, must try to become Divine Souls, Whose entire work is in helping those who walk the Path and in using Divine Creativity to help with the development and perfection of many souls.

“If a person becomes a Conduit of Divine Love, Wisdom, and Power — it changes many things in the world around him or her.

“To learn to use one’s soul power wisely, one must gain control over one’s desires, emotions, and thoughts, and master dissolution of oneself as separate from the Whole.

“Now it’s time for the classes that Hamilcar, Leonardos, and Konstantinos will conduct today.”