1 result for (book:nome AND session:868 AND stemmed:idealist)
7/36 (19%)
competition
Idealist
ideal
worthy
unworthy
THE PRACTICING IDEALIST
[... 4 paragraphs ...]
(As we prepared for the session I mentioned that I wouldn’t mind if Seth commented on a particularly vivid dream I’d had last night. I’d written a detailed account of it upon arising, as I do with all dreams I recall, and Jane had read it as we ate breakfast. I wasn’t sure that she heard me now, though. “I think Seth’s going to add a Part 4 to this book,” she said, “and he’s going to call it ‘The Practicing Idealist.’ And I want to keep changing it to ‘Practicing Idealism,’ because his heading sounds too much like it’s already been used. Wasn’t that a book? I think it might have been written by a political figure, though I’m not sure….”
(I could only reply that I didn’t know of a book called The Practicing Idealist. Then:)
[... 2 paragraphs ...]
Dictation. (With humor:) Part 4: “The Practicing Idealist.”
[... 1 paragraph ...]
Give us a moment… Most readers of this book can be considered idealists in one way or another by themselves or others. Yet certainly in these pages we have presented several pictures of social and political realities that are far from ideal. We have tried to outline for you many beliefs that undermine your private integrity as individuals, and contribute to the very definite troubles current in the mass world.
[... 2 paragraphs ...]
You will often condone quite reprehensible acts if you think they were committed for the sake of a greater good. You have a tendency to look for outright evil, to think in terms of “the powers of good and evil,” and I am quite sure that many of my readers are convinced of evil’s force. Evil does not exist in those terms, and that is why so many seemingly idealistic people can be partners in quite reprehensible actions, while telling themselves that such acts are justified, since they are methods toward a good end.
(Long pause at 9:32.) That is why fanatics feel justified in their (underlined) actions. When you indulge in such black-and-white thinking, you treat your ideals shabbily. Each act that is not in keeping with that ideal begins to unravel the ideal at its very core. As I have stated [several times], if you feel unworthy, or powerless to act, and if you are idealistic, you may begin to feel that the ideal exists so far in the future that it is necessary to take steps you might not otherwise take to achieve it. And when this happens, the ideal is always eroded. If you want to be a true practicing idealist, then each step that you take along the way must be worthy of your goal.
[... 19 paragraphs ...]
