Page 6 - All India Magazine Jul-2020

— a little while ago, you told me “faithfulness”.

I said that, but it’s not faithfulness, instead of faithfulness it’s
faith.

But why should there not be faithfulness? I didn’t put it
down, because I didn’t try to recall anything, I simply wrote
down what seemed to me the most important and most
general. But it may be put in various ways.

Sincerity or transparency
In any case, what is always there, in all combinations and
to whomever I give it, the first among them all is sincerity.
For if there is no sincerity, one cannot advance even by half a
step. So that is the first, and it is always there.
But it is possible to translate it by another word, if you
prefer it, which would be “transparency”. I shall explain this
word:
Someone is in front of me and I am looking at him; I look
into his eyes. And if this person is sincere or “transparent”,
through his eyes I go down and I see his soul — clearly. But
— this is precisely the experience — when I look at somebody
and see a little cloud, then I continue, I see a screen, and
then sometimes it is a wall, and afterwards it is something
quite black; and all this must be crossed, and holes bored in
order to go through; and even then I am not sure if at the last
minute I may not find myself before a door of bronze so thick
that I shall never get through and see his soul; so, of such a
person I can immediately say that he is not sincere. But I can
also say, figuratively, that he is not transparent. That is the
first thing.

All India Magazine, July 2020
6