The Pathway to Greatness

By G. S. Arundale

A Lecture given in Sydney, Australia

Reprinted from The Theosophist May 1927.

I believe and have believed for a very long time, that in greatness, or at least in a definite, sustained and determined approach to greatness, is to be found the solution of all the problems confronting us so hopelessly in the world today. 

I want here in this city to start with a definite pursuit of greatness. What is this note of greatness each one of us has to endeavour to sound in his heart and in his life? Greatness from my standpoint implies two things: first the capacity to attain it, and secondly the certainty of its attainment. To quote Henry Wordsworth Longfellow:

“Lives of great men all remind us 

We can make our lives sublime.”

And we can. That is the whole point. Not necessarily as sublime as the lives of the greatest men and women of the world, but we can make them sublime in a small way, perhaps not recognized as sublime in the outer world. The outer world has great difficulty in recognizing greatness, but we can lead great lives in our own small surroundings and so definitely affect the whole of the world. It is what we do in the little field of our own personal activity that has the most effect. It is little things, sometimes done with difficulty, often performed with sacrifice – that build up a great civilization, because they come from a great heart, a noble soul, a dedicated life. Each one of us is divine in origin, in nature, in purpose, in goal, and has therefore the greatness of divinity implicit, inherent within; and because we have that spark in us it is merely a question of fanning it into a great flame. We have to take hold of ourselves, to grip ourselves with determination, and then begin to pursue that determination regardless of all outer circumstances, regardless of consequences. But we can do that because there is certainty, a divine nature and capacity within us. Great men and women there have been in the world. God is justice and God is love, and therefore if there have been great men and women in the world it is divine logic, that because there have been, therefore there are; therefore we can be; therefore we shall be. 

Now let us look at one or two definitions of greatness to see what it is that we are driving at. One definition, a familiar one, is: ` An infinite capacity for taking pains.  `   An excellent definition so far as it goes. But it is rather the drab, drudgery side of greatness that is stressed. ` An infinite capacity for taking pains. `  That is the thing that people does not want to do. People generally wants to get there without taking pains. ` An infinite capacity for taking pains `. sounds rather a hopeless proposition.  Most people say, not unnaturally: `Then I will not trouble about it. I will leave it alone. ` A better definition – my own private one of course – is that greatness consists in the future laying hands on the present, the ideal clutching, attacking, permeating the present. One or two more definitions may be in order. One of the poets said: “A present intimation of immortality.” A beautiful definition. Perhaps I ought to bow before that. An intimation in the present of immortality, of the certainty of a glorious future, an including of it, an intimation, a sensing, a feeling of it. Another definition. ` An anticipation in the present of the future. `  The coming greatness casting its brightness on the present. 

However, I will take my own: the ideal laying hands on, clutching, shaking up the present. That, practically speaking, means that to be great you must live in the world of ideals. You must have ideals. You must live in a world of purpose, of noble ambitions, of pure, fine self-sacrificing, generous intentions. If you can live in a world of that kind you have no idea how happy it makes you, how peaceful. The troubles of life matter so little, because you are living in the world of ideals. Then the obstacles, the difficulties in the present do not matter. You take them in your stride. You remember how Kipling tells in his poem entitled Nurses of a young child driving a train, he has a chair for the engine and a row of chairs for the carriages; the train goes roaring through the tunnel. There is a great. Fuss and noise and hurry and everything else, and in the midst of the roar and rush of the express train, he sings. He has complete control of the situation. That is the whole point. If you live in a world of ideals you will see that it has far more power, it is far more real than the actual. It does not make you less effective in the outer world but more effective, because you cannot know despair. Comparing the ideal with the actual, does it not seem hopeless? No, because you know that sooner or later the idea must become a reality. And since it is only a question of time, of energy, your energy and the energy of your comrades, you pour your self into your work, no matter what the result, no matter how your efforts are met. So you pour your self into your ideal; you stand for it. And either that ideal as it is, or some improvement or modification of it in your experience, will come down into the actual; and if in your particular life you do not see success or achievement, success or achievement of one kind or another shall still be yours, or better still it shall be the success or achievement of the whole world. 

It is that type of individual that we need, the one who has his everyday pleasures, who enjoys life, works hard; but works from the future. He works in the spirit of the ideal. He does everything from the idealistic standpoint, no matter how much what he has to do may to the ordinary person appear to be drudgery. If he is a clerk in an office with tedious work, he does not find it tedious because he is building his character, he is thinking of the power that he is going to wield someday, and every stroke of the pen, every sentence that he writes, and every addition that he makes in the account books is a means to an end. Some day he will go out into the world and become a leader of men. Sooner or later because of his carefulness and efficiency and application and all those things done in an idealistic spirit he triumphs over the small things; he makes them great. There is nothing small; everything is great if you can give it the greatness, or if you can see the greatness that is in it. So it is not a question of changing, of not doing what you are doing, but of doing things in a big way, with a sense of determination and power, a sense of purpose, working clearly and definitely to a great end – be it in one`s own individual life, home, office, pleasures – a discontent with the small things and satisfaction in the big things that represent ideals. In that way a great purification might take place in our lives, a purification of our home, in our work, a purification of our pleasures and in our political life. And in that way it might be possible to do away with party politics – not at one stroke – but because in the course of time we shall become able to choose the type of people we want to be our leaders, our statesmen and politicians. 

Now, going a little more into detail. There are three main types of greatness, to one or other of which each one of us probably belongs. Professor Jung classifies the first as the man of genius, the wisdom type, and the pathway to it is through wisdom. The second is the hero type, the type of the man of action, and his is the pathway of action. The third is the martyr or saint, the devotion type, and his path is that of devotion. The great people of the world fall variously under the wisdom type – they are geniuses, or the men of action, or the martyr  spirits – the saintly who dream dreams and have their wonderful ecstasies. 

Most of us think a good deal about ourselves, think a good deal of ourselves, individually perhaps. But do we analyse ourselves, do we know ourselves so as to take the path of least resistance, so as to have some idea of the line along which we are going? Everyone of us is potentially a genius or a hero or a saint. Well, we may prefer not to be the martyr type at all events because that is rather messy and unpleasant. But the martyr does not think so. Some martyrs seem very unnecessarily to court martyrdom! Some people want to be martyrs at all costs. They are small great people, and if they cannot find anybody to make martyrs of them they make martyrs of themselves. 

We are all martyrs, saints, heroes and geniuses, not perhaps having achieved those eminences, but at least working towards them in small ways. That is what we want. We want to fan into flame the spirit of greatness in each. 

Remember that the hero stage, the martyr stage, the genius stage are merely stages. There is something beyond that you cannot well reach, that we can hardly dream about, but which is the combination of all three. That is the ultimate goal – the great man, the hero, the martyr, the saint, the genius, all rolled into one. The very greatest are of that type – those on the summit. We need not bother about that. Let us take something smaller. Let us take one type and work towards that in our everyday life. Please do not think it is necessary to speak on a public platform to achieve greatness. Anybody can speak from a public platform if he has a little experience. 

Anyone can utter high-sounding phrases; it may help if there is real sincerity behind the utterance. But the real value lies in everyday life. If you live in the world of ideals you can do the difficult things joyfully. Nothing that happens to you from outside matters in the ideal world because those things do not come into it. So if a person is abusive to you, you do not care, because you are very sorry for him and not for yourself. We are supposed, I believe, to knock a man down if he abuses us. The really manly thing to do is to let those things go. What do they matter? If a man reviles me I am not going to answer him. I have my work to do and I am going to do it no matter what other people think or say or do. We need not bother about public opinion. We need only bother about our own business, and then we shall be really helpful, because then we shall never return evil for evil.  If a person abuses or persecutes us the only way to deal with it is to have positive goodwill. We do not listen to all these others – that only intensifies the evil. Our business is to stand against these things by not allowing them to have any shelter in our own hearts, in our own lives. So let people say what they like. If we return good will, goodwill must conquer over the distress and the doubts and the suspicions and the hatreds. 

The goal beyond – all three types rolled into one – is the spiritual man with something extraordinary inside, something  that is well of power and of purpose. Let us become spiritual people. And the way to become spiritual people is to see how great men have led spiritual lives. 

Now the essence of spirituality is wonderful. I do not know how far people as a whole have attempted to grasp what it really means, what the science of it is. Spirituality is a difficult word and it sometimes means so little. But I have a definition for spirituality which makes it a definite practical thing which you can get hold of and use. I put it in this way. Spirituality is not a matter of belief in or even approach to God. It is a matter of belief in and approach to man. If you can believe in your fellow man it is far more important than to believe in God. Anyone can believe in God because it is worthwhile to do so. There is no credit in that. But it is creditable to believe in your fellow man, so that your concern is to serve him. If as much of the attention we pay to God were paid to our fellow man the world would be much happier and more peaceful place to live in; for the simple reason that God is not elsewhere: he is Here. God is in our fellow man and we are paying attention to God  when we pay attention to our fellow man, and only then effectually. That is spirituality. The most spiritual men and women in the world are those who are supremely concentrated to the service of God- yes. But God in their fellow men. That is the way to greatness: to believe in your fellow men and know what awaits them, not to be disturbed or depressed or shocked or pained, not to be troubled by the exterior, but to realize the nature of the fire within, which is gradually burning away all the dross and leaving at last the refined gold. 

Whomsoever you see has divinity in him and is approaching along his pathway to God. Supposing that a person is not congenial to you and you do not like him – well then, he ought to be congenial to you. Everyone who is not a friend of yours ought to become one, and it is your business, if you are treading the path of greatness, not so much to make friends amongst the people you do not know but rather amongst the people you do know and do not like and so enlarge the circle of your friends. If you do not like somebody, for very good reasons of course which you can no doubt express at considerable length, he most probably dislikes you for just as valid reasons. You may be quite certain that when you are talking against another person over there he is just doing exactly the same to a friend about you. We are six of one and have dozen of the other. Every time that you say something unkind about someone else, every time you criticizes someone else, take it for granted there is going on a criticism of you by someone else. We waste a lot of time discussing other people. It is not worth it. Let other people discuss themselves. Let us get on with the job. If only we could make up our minds to say a good word about everybody, if could only find out some good point and stress that point and fan it, not into a point but into a circle, we should be doing that individual a great kindness and purifying ourselves at the same time. Try for a week not to say an unkind word, not a cruel word, nor a word of harsh criticism – excepting in the course of very definite duty. Try that for a week and you will get out of the habit. 

One is then so much occupied in the world in the search for the good, that one begins to find it even in those one does not like nor approve of. If a person says: “I do not approve of such and such a thing,” I feel a little shudder, seeing the primness about it. It is so small to say: “I do not approve.” Who are you not to approve? It does not matter whether you do or not. The person who says “I do approve,” or tries to understand, that person is treading the path to greatness. It sounds a strange thing to say, but it does not matter whether you believe in God or not. It does not matter whether you attend church or not, or regard yourself as orthodox. Those things are merely crutches to lean on; they may have their value. They are only forms and ceremonies. I am a believer in forms and ceremonies. I believe that lame people need crutches. Throw them away or use them, the forms and ceremonies, but realize they are but reflections, shadows of the bright light within. And the bright light within is the Brotherhood of all men, the unity of all life. That is the thing that matters. 

Never forget that the recognition of greatness depends on its being aroused in ourselves. Emerson says: “That only which we have within, can we have without. If we meet no gods it is because we harbour none.” Like attracts like. People say: “Oh well, this is not an age of greatness. We have outstanding great figures today.” Part the answer may be: “Is there anything in you of the nature of greatness? Have you the beginnings of greatness in you, So that you can recognise greatness in others?”  There is greatness in all parts of the world, and never so much as at such a time as this. Emerson again says: “It is easy in the world to live after the worlds opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own. But the great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” He keeps in the crowd his ideals undimmed, and he makes them in the crowd the inspiration and motive power of all his activity.  

Arundale, G.S., (1927), “ The Pathway to Greatness,” The Theosophist, May 1927.