OBSERVERS of the social order of the day are convinced that in all the relations of life there is a strong tendency toward complexity, and that, in consequence, simplicity in thought and habit is becoming more difficult to maintain. This condition arises from the involvement of the age in materiality; that is to say, from the general acceptance of life as material, as having its source in matter, as inherent in matter, and as supported by it. While the avenues for expression by the individual have been vastly increased in number, his mental and spiritual freedom has not been enhanced thereby.
As real progress is spiritual,—that is, since it results only from the gaining of spiritual understanding,—conversely it may be said true progress is made only in the gaining of freedom from material encumbrances. The great need, then, is to counteract the drift toward materialism with its complexities by attaining the spiritual and its attendant simplicity. The simple life connotes that mental state in which one most readily gains and holds the vision of the universe as an expression of the one infinite God, Spirit.
Light is shed on the problem of attaining simplicity by a study of the word "simple," a definition of which is "single, the opposite of double or complex." Accordingly, simplicity is the state of simpleness, singleness of purpose, and directness in all one's ways, whereby one gains freedom from material bondage. Christ Jesus put the case concisely. "If therefore thine eye be single," he declared, "thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness." Thus we are assured that the single or simple vision is observant only of spiritual truth, while materiality, including the beliefs of evil, makes for duplicity and darkness.
