August 4

Self-renunciation is not a renunciation of your self, but only a renunciation of your animal nature.

1

Every individual contains within himself a consciousness of the life of the whole of humankind. It lies deep within the human soul, but it is there. And sooner or later a human being must become conscious of this greater life.

The renunciation of his private aims, which take place within him, are at once rewarded with a more powerful life into which he enters.

Only by renouncing his exclusive personality does a human being become a real, living personality and, by acknowledging the lives of others as his own, he perceives a life within him that has neither limit nor end.

— Carpenter

2

A human being who thinks only of himself and seeks benefit for himself in everything cannot be happy. If you want to live for yourself, live for others.

— Seneca

3

The greatest good a human being can ever know, a state of complete freedom and happiness, is a state of self-denial and love. Reason reveals to a human being the only possible path towards this good, and feeling urges him to walk it.

4

Many people think that if they take away from life their personality and a love for it, then there would be nothing left. They think that there is no life without personality. But it is only the people who have never experienced the joy of self-denial who think this. Cast away personality from life, renounce it, and only then will you discover the greatest good of life—love.

5

True life begins only with self-renunciation.

— Carlyle

6

When the light in your heart fades, darkness conceals your path. Beware this terrible darkness. No light from your mind can destroy the darkness emanating from your heart until all selfish thoughts are expelled from it.

— Brahmin wisdom

7

The pursuit of self-interest is only a continuation of our animality; human life begins only with its renunciation.

— Amiel

8

The more a human being gives to others and the less he demands for himself, the better he is; the less he gives to others and the more he demands for himself, the worse he is. But the people of our time reason otherwise. They come up with the most diverse and cunning rationalizations, just not what an ordinary person would think of. According to their reasoning, it is not at all necessary to refrain from objects of luxury. One can pity the condition of the workers, give speeches and write books for their benefit, and to simultaneously continue to use the labor that we deem ruinous for them.

What we call self-renunciation is only a consequence of transferring our consciousness from our animal into our spiritual self. If this change of consciousness has taken place, then that which appeared to us to be renunciation before the change, no longer seems to be renunciation, but only a natural moving away from what is unnecessary.