The idea of democracy is wrongly understood by many today. The principle that "I am as good as you" is a wrong principle of democracy. It takes away humbleness, gentleness, and the high ideal. Besides how childish to think that camphor and bone, chalk and sugar are all equal! It seems a very kind idea that everybody is equal; but when you tune the piano with all the notes at the same pitch there is no more music. This wrong conception of democracy is like tuning the whole piano to the same note; then the music of the soul becomes dull. It is more an obsession with democracy than democracy itself.

Real democracy is raising oneself higher by appreciating the ideal one meets. In this way one rises to a higher ideal; but many people do not appreciate a high ideal. Democracy means being equal on a higher plane instead of being ignorant. Pulling a high person down to the earth and then speaking of democracy is wrong democracy; it is the spirit of the revolutionary, of people who are obsessed by one particular idea, regardless of anything else, as has been seen in many places.

For instance, when there came a revolt against the Catholic Church, what happened? The revolt was not only against the Church, but against the ideals of the Church. Every good aspect was disregarded. It was not only a revolt against what was not desirable, but against everything connected with it. It is from that time that the sense and depth of religion which existed in the Western world seem to have been diminishing, and they are diminishing further every day. In spite of the many churches there is less idealism. The ideal which is necessary in some form or other for every soul has been drowned. It is drowned because people have revolted against something regardless of what is good in it.

When a person disregards the God-ideal his tendency is to disregard everything that is related to it. And so the art of personality has been lost in the obsession with democracy, instead of being realized as a higher spiritual evolution. It is the spiritual outlook alone that gives man real democratic feeling; it means that for such a person any other man, be it his enemy or his great friend, is his parent, his brother. The spiritual man sees everyone as himself. He sees his own spirit, his own soul reflected in the other; that is real democracy, when one sees oneself in both a higher and a lower person. That is the highest ideal of spiritual attainment, and that is what makes man really democratic.

One only rises to such an ideal by degrees. And the first degree is gentleness. That is why in the English language the word gentleman was used. Why gentle? Because he had taken the first step towards the art of personality. It is not necessary for a person to be rich, or to be in a good position, or to hold a high rank; that does not necessarily make him gentle. However high the position and rank one may have, one may still not be gentle. Once a person has become thoughtful his first step is to become gentle; as soon as thoughtfulness is developed in him, he takes his first step towards real evolution. Gentleness is the greatest power of all. Gentleness is like the power of water: water is purifying, and if there is a rock in the path of a stream of water it will surround the rock; it will not break it, for water is pliable, and so is the one who is gentle. Gentleness in the long run will always purify everything.

We might imagine that everyone tries to be thoughtful. And yet when we consider two things in our daily life -- when silence is needed and when speech -- we find that we make a thousand mistakes. Often we speak more than we need to speak; or we give our confidence to someone to whom it would have been better not to have given it, or we have spoken to someone and we should not have done it. But it is too late when we think of it afterwards. Sometimes in a mood of haste, or opposition, or in a distressed condition, a person might say something hurtful without meaning it. He says it and then he repents. By speaking he has not gained anything, except that it might have been a pastime, it has released a desire to say something. But afterwards it has a result just the same.

The heart of man is so delicate; it is just like a fragile glass, and once it is broken is very difficult to mend. Any hurt and harm once given is never really mended. One can apologize and ask forgiveness; but what is done is done; what is said is said. The word is not lost. Every word we speak remains somewhere: in the heart of the one listening, in space or in the ground, it stays and has some result. Moreover, by learning to be thoughtful one develops dignity in one's nature. The more one thinks of others the more dignified one becomes, because dignity springs from thoughtfulness.

Then very often a person makes a habit of being talkative. He wastes his own time, his own thought, and the thought and time of the other person; and very often it ends in confusion. One accomplishes nothing by useless arguments. It is amusing to notice that very often a person argues because he lacks knowledge. He goes on arguing because he does not know, he wants to find out from the other person what he knows about it. Besides, how can one understand by discussing or arguing that which one can only understand by one's own wisdom, by the intuition within? It is very often a loss of time.

Some have a real passion for talking; to them it is an amusement, a pastime. But in the end they exhaust themselves and become nervous, and nothing is gained. Silence seems sometimes very hard to keep, but surely it has great advantages, as disagreement and inharmony can often be avoided by it. Silence is good for both the wise and the foolish. For the wise man it is good because it avoids unnecessary talk; he can keep his precious thought well cherished within himself; and so he rears the good thought which is like a plant. And the foolish one covers up his stupidity as long as he keeps silent, and so much the better. Silence raises the dignity of the wise and hides the stupidity of the foolish.

Besides the more one evolves the more one will discover the different grades of people, just like the different keys on the piano. One is lower, another is higher; every person has a different grade of evolution. Also, the higher you evolve the more you will find that you cannot drive everyone with the same whip. You have to speak to everyone differently, in fact in his own language. If you speak a language he does not understand, it will be gibberish to him. If he is less evolved he will abuse you for what you have said. If he is highly evolved and you say something which does not reach his state of evolution it will make you small in his eyes. What is the use? Besides you will always find that inharmony is caused unnecessarily by words. On the other hand, however inharmonious the atmosphere created by other persons may be, if you have the words of wisdom you can dissolve the clouds of inharmony.

Once when traveling I met a man of a very dense evolution, a soldier who always lived in military surroundings and who had very fixed ideas of his own. And when we were talking together and it appeared that we thought differently about something, I happened to say in order to preserve harmony, "Well, we are brothers!" He looked at me with great anger, and said, "Brothers! How dare you say such a thing!" I said, "I forgot. I am your servant, Sir." He was very pleased. I could have argued, but this would have created disharmony without reason. The foolishness of that man blazed up just like fire; I put water on it and extinguished it. I did not diminish myself; we are all servants of one another; and it pleased and satisfied him.

There is a story of a wise healer. A woman went to him and asked, "Can you tell me what to do? I am having a difficult time with my husband. There is a quarrel at home every day." He said, "That is very easy." She said, "I would be so grateful." He said, "I will give you these lozenges, these sweets. You keep them in your mouth when your husband comes home and all will be well. They are magnetized sweets." And every day she noticed that there was no quarrel any more.

After ten days when the sweets were finished she went back to the healer and said, "I would give anything if you could let me have some more of those sweets. They were wonderful." Then the teacher said, "My friend, you must understand after eating the sweets for ten days, that your husband, having toiled all day, is nervous and tired and weary when he comes home. Naturally he is not in tune; and you made him worse by talking. By keeping silent you gave him nothing to quarrel about, and your home became more harmonious. This should teach you a lesson: that silence is the key to harmony.'