To the Youth
The inaugural address delivered under the auspices
of the Young Men's Association
It is a great pleasure for me to be here tonight and help to inaugurate what, I sincerely hope, will be one of many cultural and social events held under the auspices of this Association. By developing a social consciousness, the consciousness of good neighbourliness, we create that future social co-operation which, perchance, will supersede the chaos of these days. One must become socially minded in the broadcast sense of this word, one must realize that education as such is a necessity not primarily for improving our physical well-being, but for our own spiritual and moral upliftment whereby we can better serve our neighbours and humanity in general. Once we clearly establish this factor, education and its position in life find its own proper place, and it should not, as we unfortunately too often see, produce those millions, I should say, of unemployed educated young men. Of necessity, there will always be only a limited number of opportunities along the special branches of knowledge. And only a very highly civilized society can produce a sufficient number of opportunities for every branch of knowledge. The youth of today holds the golden keys of the future. Who knows where may be the future leaders destined to lead humanity to a better future.
By constantly improving ourselves, we serve best the cause of humanity in general. One of the rules for success is hard work. I do not think that any success achieved without hard work can be of a lasting nature. There may be a stroke of luck, but it will hardly last and can very seldom be of great consequence. There is no work actually below our dignity. After all, everything is determined only by our attitude. Our attitude to outside factors and circumstances is and can be the only determining standard. Once we are open-minded, everything is within our grasp if we but apply ourselves. The main problem is to free our mind of prejudices and everyday habits which tend very often to hinder our further progress. We must feel free, we must feel the urge to do things, improve ourselves, and be ready to sacrifice our comforts in this struggle for achievement. If we approach our problems in a half-hearted way, we can hardly expect success. It would hardly be just to expect success to come our way when success is so hard to win. The young men of today have tremendous opportunities before them, more, as a matter of fact, than they ever had before. Study the lives of great men — contemplate their struggles, and you will see there was no short cut to success for them, but they were always willing to work where others wanted to play. The ease, with which ideas are made to spread and encompass the world, tends to quicken the process of evolution. Hence — there are more opportunities and more fields for activity. By always being ready for further study and being prepared to do extra work, we qualify ourselves to be better and more useful members of society, and success may be expected in one way or another. One can hardly say with fairness that hard work has not justified itself — never be afraid to try. It is in our powers to create for ourselves a better life. Let us spread our wings, success lies within our grasp if we but apply ourselves.
In many countries, especially in America, we find numerous organizations endeavouring to bring closer together the youth of the world, creating thereby a better understanding of the psychological factors underlying every nationality. I believe it to be of the greatest importance for every individual to know as much as possible about the world at large — the various conditions which underlie the various customs and characteristics of countries and nationalities as well as the biographies of the great men they have produced. We must impartially study the history and development of nations, and we shall glean through it a better understanding of factors to apply and factors to avoid in our own life. The importance of social life cannot be too strongly emphasised, by greater interchange of ideas, we broaden our consciousness, and those ideas serve very often as a catalizer to bring out some of our own, yet dormant thoughts. It is also for this reason that I am so happy to assist at the inauguration of what should be an extensive programmer of social and cultural activities.
Цит.
по:
Creative Thought. Articles by Svetoslav Roerich. – Moscow: ICR, Master-Bank,
2004; pp. 44-46.
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