And try also to get rid of personal property.
It involves sordid preoccupation, endless industry,
continual wrong. Personal property hinders Individualism
at every step.’ It is to be noted that
Jesus never says that impoverished people are necessarily
good, or wealthy people necessarily bad. That
would not have been true. Wealthy people are,
as a class, better than impoverished people, more
moral, more intellectual, more well-behaved.
There is only one class in the community that thinks
more about money than the rich, and that is the poor.
The poor can think of nothing else. That is
the misery of being poor. What Jesus does say
is that man reaches his perfection, not through what
he has, not even through what he does, but entirely
through what he is. And so the wealthy young
man who comes to Jesus is represented as a thoroughly
good citizen, who has broken none of the laws of his
state, none of the commandments of his religion.
He is quite respectable, in the ordinary sense of
that extraordinary word. Jesus says to him, ’You
should give up private property. It hinders you
from realising your perfection. It is a drag
upon you. It is a burden. Your personality
does not need it. It is within you, and not outside
of you, that you will find what you really are, and
what you really want.’ To his own friends
he says the same thing. He tells them to be
themselves, and not to be always worrying about other
things. What do other things matter? Man
is complete in himself. When they go into the
world, the world will disagree with them. That
is inevitable. The world hates Individualism.
But that is not to trouble them. They are to
be calm and self-centred. If a man takes their
cloak, they are to give him their coat, just to show
that material things are of no importance. If
people abuse them, they are not to answer back.
What does it signify? The things people say
of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is.
Public opinion is of no value whatsoever. Even
if people employ actual violence, they are not to
be violent in turn. That would be to fall to
the same low level. After all, even in prison,
a man can be quite free. His soul can be free.
His personality can be untroubled. He can be
at peace. And, above all things, they are not
to interfere with other people or judge them in any
way. Personality is a very mysterious thing.
A man cannot always be estimated by what he does.
He may keep the law, and yet be worthless.
He may break the law, and yet be fine. He may
be bad, without ever doing anything bad. He
may commit a sin against society, and yet realise
through that sin his true perfection.