40. Should one Refrain from all Criticism?

The following question has been put to me: “It is often said that a person who is undergoing training in the esoteric sense should refrain from all criticism. Does this also mean that all just criticism of real bad deeds by people is to be avoided? Is it not rather our duty to eradicate damage in our environment and wherever else we can exert influence, so that the better can take the place of the worse? And does not a person sink to complete inactivity if he regards everything with absolute indifference?” First of all, it should be said that the rules of conduct for the secret student are requirements that correspond to strict laws. And as such, they only say something about the connection between the fulfillment of a corresponding requirement and the student's ascent into the higher worlds. You should refrain from criticism, which means that, in life, in cases in which circumstances provoke you to censure or condemn, you should not follow this impulse, but work without criticism to improve what is harmful, bad, etc. To the same extent that you refrain from criticism, you will ascend. Abstaining from criticism does not at all imply that you should pass by the bad, evil, etc. with indifference, and that you should leave everything as it is. You should only try to understand the bad to the same extent as you understand the good. By understanding the causes, you will even be best prepared for the work of improvement. It is not blindness to evil that is useful, but understanding tolerance. The third of the four first sayings in Light on the Path expresses most clearly what is to be said about this: “Before the voice can speak in the presence of the Masters it must have lost the power to wound’” This means that beings from a higher world only speak to a person when his words have completely given up the unloving wounding, the rebuke that is capable of hurting or grieving, and are only spoken in the service of loving embrace of the whole world. And the “words” here also mean the unspoken words, the mere thoughts. The point is to be found in the preparation of pain. The master and higher beings do not speak to us from outside; they use our own words and thoughts as a means of communicating with us. The tone of their voice penetrates us, and from there it goes out into the world through these words and thoughts. And only when it finds this path open and unobstructed does it become audible to us. Words and thoughts that cause pain are like pointed arrows that come from us. And at the tip the sound of the master finds an obstacle; it bounces back and remains imperceptible. Words and thoughts, however, that are shaped by love open up like flower corollas to the outside, gently enclosing other beings; and with them the master's voice finds the way open to penetrate the world. Only through this does it become audible to us.