With no failure of action
there could be no weariness. From the varied environment of earthly life
spring, through adaptation, the varied powers and varied sensibilities,
susceptibilities to joy and pain as well as the rest. The greater the
sensitiveness the greater the capacity for suffering. Hence the
"quenching of desire," the "turning toward Nirvana, the, desire to
escape from the hideous bustle of a world in which we are able to take
no part, is a natural impulse with the soul which feels but cannot or
will not act.
"Can it be, O Christ in Heaven,
That the highest suffer most,
That the strongest wander farthest
And most hopelessly are lost? -
That the mark of rank in Nature
Is capacity for pain,
And the anguish of the singer
Marks the sweetness of the strain?
That this must be so rests in the very nature of things. The most
perfect instrument is one most easily thrown out of adjustment. The most
highly developed organism is the most exactly fitted to its functions,
the one most deeply injured when these functions are altered or
suppressed.
Man's sensations and power to act must go together. Man can know nothing
that he cannot somehow weave into action. If he fails to do this in one
form or another, it is through limitations he has placed on himself. Man
cannot suffer for lack of "more worlds to conquer," because his power to
conquer worlds is the product of his own 'past life and his own past
needs. To weave knowledge into action is the antidote for ennui.
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