Approaches to the Inner Life

Lanza del Vasto

1962

Translation:
Flosha, 2026

Table of Content

Warning

You don’t learn to dance from a book.
Nor to meditate.
That is why it is honest to prevent, as far as possible, illusions, disappointments and misunderstandings: it will not be enough to read this book to receive the life teaching to which it relates.
It also requires the presence, supervision, encouragement or moderating restraint, the choice of the moment, the solicitude respectful of the originality of every one, and the warmth of friendship.
These things cannot be said, let alone written, they can only be transmitted by showing them, or by pushing the seeker of truth to discover them himself, in himself.
And then the real subject of all this talk is silence.

These words were addressed to the Companions of a Community, bound by wishes and by a rule of life, or to Groups of Friends living in the city of [everyone’s] life, or to each other, mixed up at the Gatherings of major festivals or summer camps, finally to concerned visitors, who came there to ask what to do with their lives.
They were noted down and kept for years, circulating in closed groups by means of a newsletter entitled Nouvelles de l’Arche (News from the Ark).
It is [not-without-scruple] that we [deliver-them-to-the-chances-of-publication]. We still hope, however, that even the unprepared reader will find something true, good, strong in it, and that he will awaken in him the desire to know more, and above all to move on to practice, to know better, to love better, to serve truth, justice and peace better.
If he feels the call, he will always be able to enter our city groups, participate in our Rallies, our festivals and our camps, and perhaps engage in our non-violent campaigns and in our service projects.
This collection of notes is far from constituting a systematic, methodical and complete presentation of the teaching. Of two of the principal exercises, Fasting and the [Night-Before] [(Watch?] [Guard?)], little is said [except-by] allusion. [Still-part] of this discipline are the Principles and Precepts of the Return to Evidence, the Commentary on the Gospel (collection of notes like these) and The Four Plagues, a study on the nature and destiny of civilizations, and on the civic duties of the inner man.

This teaching is not strictly religious. It does not oppose or replace any religious teaching. We do not place ourselves above, against, or next to, but below. Our business is “to prepare a well-disposed [people]”. The revealed truths cannot germinate on the asphalt that are the morals and the current philosophies. We are asphalt breakers. A much more humble task, but essential, universal and often neglected.

There is nothing personal about this doctrine. Its value is out of proportion to the merits or demerits of the [wearer]. It is not something of him that he gives to his fellow men, it is rather he who has given himself to it and lives from it, and calls others to give themselves to it and live.
What have we done? Planted and watered. “Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but he who gives growth is God” (I Cor., 3, 7).
One will notice the Gospel quotations, the biblical allusions with which these discourses are studded. There could be much more. If we wanted to note the scriptural references that [confirm] each [article] of the teaching, and particularly the most paradoxical ones, we could easily provide a volume equal to this one.
There are sages quoted therein who are not of our [christian] tradition. It should not be concluded that this is a syncretic anthology of maxims, recipes, advice picked up from here and there. There is a common fund of all the traditions of which everyone can find the evidences in himself provided that he submits to an appropriate preparation. The dominant motive of the doctrine is the unity of life and its fundamental character is to form a living unity.
It is a living whole that holds on to all the plans of life and it finds fuller expression in the life of a living community than in a book¹. That is why we cannot take it and leave it without dismembering it and taking its life.

By which sign can you recognize that you are called to this teaching rather than to another?
If when reading these pages you think: “Bah! I know all this!” you are right, because these are simple, clear and self-evident things, and everyone should be right to believe that they know them. You’ll also be right to think that you have to look elsewhere.
If you say on the contrary: “It’s weird, it’s strange, I’ve never heard anything like it”, you’re not saying enough. Instead, say: “It’s scandalous, it throws everything on the floor!” Anyway, this is not for you.
But if, while reading these pages, it is your own thought that you seem to be following, if it is through your inner voice that this book speaks to you, if you not only understand these things, but recognize them for your own good, and yet be struck by it as a completely new thing, if they not only give you the feeling of the new, but also that of being renewed yourself,
so that is the sign, and it’s a call. Come, take, give and do!
– Shantidas (Lanza del Vasto)

¹ see Presentation of the Ark by the same author.