Book: New Slant on Life: What is Greatness?
Author: Hubbard, L. R.
Book title: Scientology A New Slant on Life
Publication date: 1967
Edition: 2007
Location: Los Angeles
Publisher: Bridge Publications, Inc.
WHAT IS GREATNESS?
The hardest task one can have is to continue to love his fellows despite all reasons he should not.
And the true sign of sanity and greatness is to so continue.
For the one who can achieve this, there is abundant hope.
For those who cannot, there is only sorrow, hatred and despair. And these are not the things of which greatness, or sanity or happiness are made.
A primary trap is to succumb to invitations to hate.
There are those who appoint one their executioners. Sometimes, for the sake of safety of others, it is necessary to act. But it is not necessary to also hate them.
To do one’s task without becoming furious at others who seek to prevent one is a mark of greatness—and sanity. And only then can one be happy.
Seeking to achieve any single desirable quality in life is a noble thing. The one most difficult, and most necessary, to achieve is to love one’s fellows despite all invitations to do otherwise.
If there is any saintly quality, it is not to forgive. “Forgiveness” accepts the badness of the act. There is no reason to accept it. Further, one has to label the act as bad to forgive it. “Forgiveness” is a much lower level action and is rather censorious.
True greatness merely refuses to change in the face of bad actions against one—and a truly great person loves his fellows because he understands them.
After all, they are all in the same trap. Some are oblivious of it, some have gone mad because of it, some act like those who betrayed them. But all, all are in the same trap—the generals, the street sweepers, the presidents, the insane. They act the way they do because they are all subject to the same cruel pressures of this universe.
Some of us are subject to those pressures and still go on doing our jobs. Others have long since succumbed and rave and torture and strut like the demented souls they are.
Hubbard, L. R., (2007) Scientology A New Slant on Life Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, Inc. (Original work published 1965. )