TWELFTH MEETING
What is Goodness?
I. Each Life, to be Good or Beautiful, Must be a Symbol of that Perfect or Complete Life for Which We Long:
a. Life—the symbol of complete Self in a definite shape.
b. The good man makes all he knows and touches a complete, harmonious whole:
1. Goodness is always of relation.
2. One cannot be perfect till all are so:
α. Therefore goodness implies modesty.
II. False and True Good:
a. The one law of Love, and its petty, changing codes:
1. True good of changing harmonious relation.
2. False good of outworn custom and rule.
III. The Meaning of Self-expression:
a. The small and large Self:
1. The whole world is the whole of me.
2. Serve, not others only, but others as part of yourself.
b. Self-sacrifice:
1. Giving up one thing for a greater thing.
2. Happiness is whatever we want most.
3. If completeness is the aim of life, then all lesser happiness is sacrificed to it.
4. If life is a drama, a whole, we give up our selfish satisfaction to see that whole self satisfied.
c. Creation is Self-expression, is endless, higher rebirth:
1. All action reveals the actor.
2. Life is a drama, in which we feel ourselves to have equal prominence with others, and conscious power of control:
α. We cannot help having influence.
β. Let us shape our influence for the whole.