"Great man is he who is strongest in the exercise of patience," wrote one of the Mahatmas. Another Master of Wisdom, speaking of the ungrateful and queer attitude of the very ones They had been trying to help, wrote that They were "well trained in patience."

We see from the above how this all-important quality of patience is regarded by the Mahatmas. It is Kshanti, the third of the Seven Paramita-Keys that is needed to unlock the door of Wisdom. It is one of the most difficult to develop, and yet one of the most important, because without it nothing lasting can be achieved or learned.

Mr. Judge makes it clear in his Letters That Have Helped Me:

Nothing is gained, but a good deal is lost, by impatience—not only strength, but also sight and intuition. So decide nothing hastily.

Patience is really the best and most important thing, for it includes many. You cannot have it if you are not calm and ready for the emergency, and as calmness is the one thing necessary for the spirit to be heard, it is evident how important patience is.

The last sentence in the above quotation gives us perhaps the most important hint as to why this virtue of patience is so necessary. For, just as the ruffled surface of a pond cannot reflect accurately any image, so also our minds, if ruffled and rendered impatient by Kama-desire, flit from one idea to another, one emotion to another, and cannot receive or transmit accurately those ideas which reside in our Higher Nature, nor can the all-important quality of insight and intuition be developed. We can easily see this for ourselves when we try to answer a question or to solve a problem when we are upset or "off balance." The best plans may be shattered by one word that bespoke impatience of another's frailty or ignorance.

Therefore, inner contentment and repose are necessary, not only when the body is asleep, or when we are looking at a beautiful view, or when all around us is quiet, but when everything is wrong and nothing right.

We must take the position that each of us is a soul, not that we have a soul. We must learn to regard the soul, and not the personality, as the steadying factor in our lives. Our personality is never the same for two minutes, and it would be an interesting and instructive experience if we could see ourselves in moments of irritation or anger, as in a mirror. We have to learn to regard ourselves "with the calmness of a stranger," as a Mahatma has said, always remembering that the light must come from within to lighten our every thought, word and deed. Just as a darkened house cannot be lit from without, but requires someone from within to light it, so also we must call forth that light from within, but it needs a calm surface to reflect itself on.

It is interesting to note the qualities linked with patience in The Voice of the Silence. The candidate is asked to have not only patience, but with it perseverance "as one who doth forevermore endure." Perseverance is defined in the dictionary as "steadiness." Kshanti, "patience sweet, that nought can ruffle," opens the gate of fortitude, or perseverance through strength and patience. Patience cannot, of course, be divorced from the other virtues, especially the two that precede it, namely, Dana—charity and love immortal, and Shila—harmony in word and act. These three, Dana, Shila and Kshanti, or love immortal, harmony and patience, form a triad. Loves creates harmony, but without patience it is of no avail. The balanced offspring, whether a thought, a word, or an act, has for its father, love, and for its mother, patience.

Our race-mind has become so imbued with false and mixed notions regarding ethics that virtues have come to mean doing certain things and not doing others; in other words, positive or negative attributes or concepts. Theosophy, however, shows that real virtue—and patience is a virtue—can only come from a spiritually positive attitude, not only an attitude of thought, but of will and feeling as well. Conditions do not change of themselves, and while it is true that no effort is lost, still it requires real patience to make any change.

Mr. Judge said that life could be made a contest of smiles if we only knew our business, and H.P.B. said: "One little period passed without doubt, murmuring, and despair; what a gain it would be!" It is essential that in performing any duty there should be, instead of complaints and murmuring, as cheerful and contented an attitude as possible, and this will dispel all doubts and bring enlightenment, and with it, patience. There is no merit in being compelled by Karma to be patient; it is only through self-induced and self-devised ways and means that real patience is developed.

Mr. Judge's words give us encouragement:

...keep right on, and try for patience in all the very smallest things of life every day, and you will find it growing very soon, and with it will come greater strength and influence on and for others, as well as greater and clearer help from the inner side of things.

This is the very least we can do if we are ever to acquire that calmness, perfect equanimity, equal-mindedness and consideration for others which together imply patience and which will grow apace with inner strength and a sense of responsibility. This can only come if we take the firm position of "one who doth forevermore endure." In doing so, we will be able, as Mr. Judge says in his Letters That Have Helped Me, to

lean back and look on at the ebb and flow of life that washes to our feet and away again many things that are not easy to lose or pleasant to welcome. Yet they all belong to Life, to the Self.

It is a great truth, which you should seriously consider, that there is nothing in heaven or upon the earth which does not also exist in Man, and God who is in heaven exists also in Man, and the two are but One.

—Paracelsus