Finding Truth Through Self-Transformation

But meanwhile, I was looking in many different directions.

I was looking through science, through politics.

I was thinking that maybe some ideal political system would bring perfection to mankind, until I discovered gradually that mankind is only as perfect as he himself chooses to be, that systems will never make people perfect.

that the best system can be corrupted by bad people, the worst system can somehow go bumbling along happily enough if people have the good will to make it work, that it isn't systems, and that our solution nowadays is not to be found in politics, but in a change of consciousness.

And so I turned away from looking for a political solution to seeking it in the arts.

And I thought through music, through writing, through poetry, and I wanted to become a dramatist.

Through these I thought maybe I could find it.

Or through beautiful paintings and sculpture.

Or perhaps maybe we could be advanced enough scientifically to be able to create a perfectly smooth-flowing society, and then somehow people would feel happy and harmonious.

Isn't it interesting, however, that whenever we see a movie of a future society, let's say dated several two or three centuries from now, isn't it interesting that the people always attempting to depict that perfect future society show it absolutely plastic, sterile, no trees, it's all gadgets.

And it seemed to me that we were going so fast toward gadgetry that we were really losing our souls.

And I realized that was not the answer.

I thought maybe in travel that I would find it.

I thought maybe the trouble with what I was seeing around me was that my country, America, was too... sophisticated, too materialistic, and that if I could go to a simple society, as I suppose many of you know, I was born in Romania, albeit of American parents, and I grew up in Europe, so I'd had an opportunity in school, in Romania, in Switzerland, in England, and living in different parts of the world, to see a variety of societies, and I thought maybe the simple ones, as one always casts sort of an aura of romanticism around one's childhood, and I remembered the beauties of Romania, I didn't remember the ignorance, the stupidity, the folly that is to be found everywhere in the world, wherever you have people.

And so I thought maybe if I went to Mexico and found simple, genuine human beings, stripped of all the false allure, the glamour of modern civilization, that I would find happiness.

And I went there, and for a while I did find happiness, until I realized that I was whipping up this sense of happiness in myself.

and that around me were people doing exactly the same things that people were doing back home in America, living, working, breathing, dying, having the same problems.

And the worst of it all was that I had the same problems.

I could have the same stomachaches and headaches in Mexico City as I could in New York.

And I realized that it wasn't by transporting my body to another part of the world that I would ever find the truths that I was seeking.

In fact, I then remembered rather wryly the saying of Emerson that travel is a fool's paradise.

It is a fool's paradise if you think to find paradise in travel.

Otherwise, Surely there are things to be learned in different parts of the world, but ultimately we discover that it isn't what we learn outwardly, it's what we are prepared to see outwardly by what we have inside.

When mankind was ready for penicillin, we discovered penicillin, and it looked like quite by accident, discovering that mold worked, but it was that people were ready for that, and so the so-called accident happened.

We believe now that we have a society, a modern so-called civilization.

But meanwhile, I was looking in many different directions.

I was looking through science, through politics.

I was thinking that maybe some ideal political system would bring perfection to mankind, until I discovered gradually that mankind is only as perfect as he himself chooses to be, that systems will never make people perfect.

that the best system can be corrupted by bad people, the worst system can somehow go bumbling along happily enough if people have the good will to make it work, that it isn't systems, and that our solution nowadays is not to be found in politics, but in a change of consciousness.

And so I turned away from looking for a political solution to seeking it in the arts.

And I thought through music, through writing, through poetry, and I wanted to become a dramatist.

Through these I thought maybe I could find it.

Or through beautiful paintings and sculpture.

Or perhaps maybe we could be advanced enough scientifically to be able to create a perfectly smooth-flowing society, and then somehow people would feel happy and harmonious.

Isn't it interesting, however, that whenever we see a movie of a future society, let's say dated several two or three centuries from now, isn't it interesting that the people always attempting to depict that perfect future society show it absolutely plastic, sterile, no trees, it's all gadgets.

And it seemed to me that we were going so fast toward gadgetry that we were really losing our souls.

And I realized that was not the answer.

I thought maybe in travel that I would find it.

I thought maybe the trouble with what I was seeing around me was that my country, America, was too... sophisticated, too materialistic, and that if I could go to a simple society, as I suppose many of you know, I was born in Romania, albeit of American parents, and I grew up in Europe, so I'd had an opportunity in school, in Romania, in Switzerland, in England, and living in different parts of the world, to see a variety of societies, and I thought maybe the simple ones, as one always casts sort of an aura of romanticism around one's childhood, and I remembered the beauties of Romania, I didn't remember the ignorance, the stupidity, the folly that is to be found everywhere in the world, wherever you have people.

And so I thought maybe if I went to Mexico and found simple, genuine human beings, stripped of all the false allure, the glamour of modern civilization, that I would find happiness.

And I went there, and for a while I did find happiness, until I realized that I was whipping up this sense of happiness in myself.

and that around me were people doing exactly the same things that people were doing back home in America, living, working, breathing, dying, having the same problems.

And the worst of it all was that I had the same problems.

I could have the same stomachaches and headaches in Mexico City as I could in New York.

And I realized that it wasn't by transporting my body to another part of the world that I would ever find the truths that I was seeking.

In fact, I then remembered rather wryly the saying of Emerson that travel is a fool's paradise.

It is a fool's paradise if you think to find paradise in travel.

Otherwise, Surely there are things to be learned in different parts of the world, but ultimately we discover that it isn't what we learn outwardly, it's what we are prepared to see outwardly by what we have inside.

When mankind was ready for penicillin, we discovered penicillin, and it looked like quite by accident, discovering that mold worked, but it was that people were ready for that, and so the so-called accident happened.

We believe now that we have a society, a modern so-called civilization.