Man, however, does not have faith in the divine. Whether one believes in God or not, one can see, from moment to moment, evidence of the presence of Divinity wherever one turns. Without Divinity, humanness will not blossom. A man's life shines amidst enormous vicissitudes only when he displays qualities like equanimity and compassion. Because man covers his mind in a cloak of ignorance, blinkers his eyes with egoism, and closes his heart with the doors of pride, he forgets the Lord who created him and protects him.
Such a man is unable to listen to any teaching. He worships at the shrine of the sense organs. As his desires go on mounting, he is unable to listen to what is wholesome for him. He has no relish for the company of the good. He has no awareness of the transience of life. He does not realize that his life and all that he enjoys may pass away in a moment. He does not recognize the passing nature of both joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, success and failure. Obsessed with the acquisition of wealth and power, he does not realize the Divinity that is his essential nature. Immersed in ignorance, he wastes his life in the pursuit of impermanent things.
(SSS Vol XVII - Chap 12)
