The man who is conscious of the nature of pure Being willingly remains in the moment that Heaven has assigned him; he is not feverishly straining towards the future nor lovingly or sadly bent over the past.

Serenity is to keep oneself so to speak above the clouds, in the calm and coolness of emptiness and far from all the dissonances of this lower world; it is never to allow the soul to immerse itself in impasses of disturbances, bitterness, or secret revolt, for it is necessary to beware of implicitly accusing Being when accusing some phenomenon.

 

Serenity is resignation, at once intellectual and moral, to the nature of things: it is patience in relation to All-Possibility insofar as the latter requires, by its very limitlessness, the existence of negative possibilities, those that deny Being and the qualities manifesting It.

 

Serenity consists in resigning oneself to that destiny, at once unique and permanent, which is the present moment: to this itinerant “now” that no one can avoid and that in its substance pertains to the Eternal.

 

The man who is conscious of the nature of pure Being willingly remains in the moment that Heaven has assigned him; he is not feverishly straining towards the future nor lovingly or sadly bent over the past. The pure present is the moment of the Absolute: it is now — neither yesterday nor tomorrow — that we stand before God.

 

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excerpts from Roots of the Human Condition by Frithjof Schuon

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