Some have lavish garments, carry sharp swords, and feast on food and drink. They possess more than they can spend. This is called the vanity of robbers. It is certainly not the Way.
Just as bones, tissues, intestines, and blood vessels are enclosed in a skin that makes it possible to bear the sight of a human being, so the agitations and passions of the soul are wrapped up in vanity: it is the soul's skin.
The majority of mankind is lazyminded, incurious, absorbed in vanities, and tepid in emotion, and is therefore incapable of either much doubt or much faith.
Bhakti is the one essential thing.
To be sure, God exists in all beings.
Who, then is a devotee? He whose mind dwells on God.
But this is not possible as long as one has egotism and vanity.
The water of God's grace cannot collect
on the high mound of egotism. It runs down.
I do not know
What kind of my obedience I should tender.
More than my all is nothing; nor my prayers
Are not words holy hallowed, nor my wishes
More worth than empty vanities; yet prayers and wishes
Are all I can return.
We must put up with our clothes as they are - they have their reason for existing. They are on us to expose us - to advertise what we wear them to conceal. They are a sign; a sign of insincerity; a sign of suppressed vanity; a pretense that we desire gorgeous colors and the graces of harmony and form; and we put them on to propagate that lie and back it up.
Ecclesiastes said that "all is vanity," Most modern preachers say the same, or show it By their examples of true Christianity: In short, all know, or very short may know it.