EACH IS GREAT IN HIS OWN PLACE - 5

These three things he must not talk of. He must not talk in public of his own fame; he must not
preach his own name or his own powers; he must not talk of his wealth, or of anything that has
been told to him privately.
A man must not say he is poor, or that he is wealthy — he must not brag of his wealth. Let him
keep his own counsel; this is his religious duty. This is not mere worldly wisdom; if a man does
not do so, he may be held to be immoral.
The householder is the basis, the prop, of the whole society. He is the principal
earner. The poor, the weak, the children and the women who do not work — all
live upon the householder; so there must be certain duties that he has to
perform, and these duties must make him feel strong to perform them, and not
make him think that he is doing things beneath his ideal. Therefore, if he has
done something weak, or has made some mistake, he must not say so in public;
and if he is engaged in some enterprise and knows he is sure to fail in it, he
must not speak of it. Such self-exposure is not only uncalled for, but also
unnerves the man and makes him unfit for the performance of his legitimate
duties in life. At the same time, he must struggle hard to acquire these things —
firstly, knowledge, and secondly, wealth. It is his duty, and if he does not do his
duty, he is nobody. A householder who does not struggle to get wealth is
immoral. If he is lazy and content to lead an idle life, he is immoral, because
upon him depend hundreds. If he gets riches, hundreds of others will be thereby
supported.
If there were not in this city hundreds who had striven to become rich, and who
had acquired wealth, where would all this civilization, and these alms-houses
and great houses be?
Going after wealth in such a case is not bad, because that wealth is for
distribution. The householder is the centre of life and society. It is a worship for
him to acquire and spend wealth nobly, for the householder who struggles to
become rich by good means and for good purposes is doing practically the
same thing for the attainment of salvation as the anchorite does in his cell when
he is praying; for in them we see only the different aspects of the same virtue of
self-surrender and self-sacrifice prompted by the feeling of devotion to God
and to all that is His.