spotlight, that people admire and flatter you, and that they are
absorbed in you and that they shower you with pleasures, presents
and attention. Vanity manifests itself as a tendency to transform reality
in order to make you and others believe that you need to possess
everything you see around you, both things and people, in order to be
happy. Vanity is like a vacuum cleaner which sucks up everything that
it finds in its path, keeping it all for itself, but failing to appreciate
anything that it has. It is like children who have a tantrum and protest
so that their parents buy them a toy, apparently the most wonderful in
the world and without which they cannot ever be happy. And when
they obtain it, they scarcely play with it for more than a few minutes,
and then tire of it and pull it apart.
Therefore, whilst the vain continue to expect to attract attention in
order to satisfy their own whims, if they do not work at arousing feelings
within themselves, they will always feel dissatisfied, empty, unhappy,
even though they are loved by others, because they will neither know
how to recognise it, nor know how to appreciate it. What is not
achieved through your own efforts, through your own will, cannot be
understood, or appreciated, or enjoyed, and vain spirits hardly ever
fight for anything, but rather try to get others to achieve everything for
them. When they have objectives they tend to be always external,
materialistic objectives, solely for appearance, hardly ever objectives
from the spiritual interior.
The vain are like those who always warm themselves with the fire in
their neighbours' hearth, through not wanting to make an effort to light
their own fire. They will always be dependent on others and will not be
able to do anything for themselves. Light your own fire inside yourself
and you will not depend on anyone else to warm you. That fire on a
spiritual level is the flame of love, which comforts and warms you and
gives you strength to go forward and to be genuinely happy.
But there are many people who seek success as a form of achieving
happiness. What would you say to them?
That they deceive themselves. Success is a gratification for vanity, but
it is a trap for the feeling. The only way to achieve happiness is by filling
yourself with love.
Could you give some brief advice which summarises everything you
have said in order to conquer vanity through comprehension?
Yes. The step that the vain should take to overcome their defect is to
understand that happiness does not depend on the exterior but rather
on the interior. This is the great lesson that we must all learn. True
happiness does not depend on others loving us, but rather that you