The ultimate test of all we learn, know and cherish is life
itself. All morality and spirituality must enter into life and
elevate it to be worth their names. The world will not care or
tarry to study our thoughts and ideas but will all the time look at
our deeds and the way we live. So will the world judge us and in no
other way. We may affirm all we hold in our minds as sacred but the
world will not look into our minds as sacred, which may remain
closed to outside scrutiny. Only our deeds and lives will speak out
for us. Our spoken words become in some intangible way part of our
deeds. No one can mistake our deeds as our deeds will be self-
revealing. Our good deeds and good lives alone can testify whether
we are fearless, wise, honorable, compassionate, love-filled,
truthful, and non-violent and if we are wedded to truth, beauty and
if our worship is genuine. However thorough may be our
comprehension of the great values we have enumerated, if our deeds
and our lives contradict these values, then we become hypocrites who
betray what we profess to believe. Let our lives and deeds
therefore shine out with the luster of these values. Then alone
will our fellowmen trust and honor us. It has often been said that
it is not enough that we are good but the world must look at us and
know we are good. There is the great teaching of one of the human
spirits, Jesus Christ, that many will be called but only few
chosen. Mahatma Gandhi put it in a different way when he said, "I
see Light persists in spite of all darkness, Truth persists in spite
of all untruth and life persists in spite of death." Darkness,
untruth and death typify the imperative contradictions of Truth and
Love and Life. We need not tremble at the thought that though many
are called only few will be chosen. Chosen by whom? Chosen by the
Divine Spirit which creates and sustains life and leads it on
ceaselessly and eternally towards nobler and higher ends. Our aim
must be that we shall all the time be in the minority of the good
and the just, but never giving up the hope that as we ourselves
remain true to the great values of life, more and more companions
will join us in the never ending pilgrimage onward and upward. We
may falter and fall on the way but every time we shall rise up with
renewed faith, strength and devotion to advance further, holding
other hands in high companionship and strengthening each other. It
is the minority of today which becomes the majority of tomorrow.
But in the tantalizing panorama of earthly life, the majority might
sink again into the minority and then renew itself so that the cycle
of life advances like a spiral, advancing, receding and yet
advancing. The eternal flow of life proves the validity of
Paradises Lost and Paradises Regained again and again. The final
word is not one of despair but of hope.