WHO CAN BE A YOGI?= CONSTRUCTIVE IDEALISM.

CHAPTER XI.

WHO CAN BE A YOGI?

TRUTH knows no death; no birth. It is Eternal; has always been, will always be. Time cannot exhaust its force, for it carries its power within itself. Deep in the heart of Truth is hidden an object we all are groping for. It is power. It is power from the Divine side of things. It is this you seek: the power to be good; the power to bring relief and joy to suffering humanity; the power to shake yourself free from the bondage of your lower nature.

Man always seeks to act out his good wishes, his good intentions. He is here. He clings to this, to that, to all. The cup of desire was presented to our lips. We drank it deep. Its subtle force became embedded in the matrix of our being. It runs in our blood. We just watch its constant play, and watching, say: 'Ah! the cup was mixed too strongly.'

Are you then satiated? Are you tired of being tossed about? of being manipulated for the accomplishment of impermanent ends? of being in the grip of Death, Despot, and Devil? of being ridden over roughshod by the forces of Evil? of being a slave to fear, a subject to wear and tear? of being the blindworm of Fate, the puppet of adverse conditions; conditions that cut up your opportunities in life into tiny bits and scatter same to the winds of heaven? of being hungry for the fleshpots of gold and greed? of being in the thrall of Fear, of Worry, of animalism, of worldism the most shallow and painful? In fine, have you had your fill of slavery? WOULD YOU BE WHAT YOU WILL TO BE? Then learn to say with dauntless courage "I am Master, not somewhere and sometimes, but everywhere and always. I will put my shoulders to the wheel and hew out my own path. My courage is indomitable. My spirit knows no flagging, no defeat, no despair. I am Fearless and Free"--this you must learn to say with assurance based upon a clear knowledge of the conditions of your existence; existence not outer, but inner; your inner existence, mark you.

That knowledge is self knowledge. No idle boast of the tongue it is to say with utter conviction "I am Master." Your tremendous assertion must be the outcome of knowledge of the Supreme, of austerities, of purity, of love. It must be grounded upon experience; and here are a few suggestions just to put you upon the right path.

Man's nature, like all else in Nature, is bi-polar: it is centrifugal and centripetal; positive and negative: interior and exterior. He is a living, breathing, powerful magnet. There is a magnet lying in the midst of splinters of steel. What is the action going on? It attracts, it repels. So also with man. He draws things to himself; he drives things away from himself.

Again, Man acts upon three planes; physical, mental, spiritual. Some are active upon the first only. They are the lowest type of humanity. They are in the thrall of matter. They are in the things of the earth, earthy. They are tied down to the attractions of the world and the flesh. They have their thoughts bound to the physical and carnal side of life. They do not live to eat but eat to live. Their souls say 'eat,' but they cry aloud 'No, you fool, I will feast.' Their souls say 'Man and woman shall be one in the spirit.' But they say, 'No, man and woman shall be one in the flesh.'

One functioning only on a physical plane cossets his body; he kills harmless animals simply to please his palate; his own senses must be constantly gratified by means fair or foul: he it is who says 'Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die:' 'Ye Gods! I have dined today, tomorrow! do thy worst:' The physical man is the lowest man, the blindworm of fate, the slave of his desire-nature. He is the domestic tyrant; the cruel Shylock insisting upon his pound of flesh; the oppressive ruler; the coarse-fibred, beef-and-beer-bred eater of burnt flesh. The physical man cares little for God except when the wolf is growling at the door. But when pain batters his brow; when his child, whom alone he perhaps loves, is writhing in pain, he thinks of God, goes to church, and prays for the pardon of sins he will commit again, and again and again. How woeful is this state of mind! Yet it is not necessary. We have all been through this experience. So if we come across one such, we must not shun him, but rather we should try our best to give him a lift. He is the object of our compassion and not of hatred. Remember always: Those who hate others for being evil are themselves evil. The face of another man is the mirror in which I dress my own. If I am evil, I shall see others as such. To the jaundiced eye everything yellow. My eyes axe blinded by my own evil tendencies. Perhaps I am beginning to fight evil in myself. Hence when I see another worse than myself, I see evil in a magnified form. I therefore feel my indignation rise up against it and I hate the evil man, for is he not the embodiment of what he appears to be? This repulsion is in me because I myself am struggling with evil. The man who is subject to fits of righteous indignation is really himself very imperfect. He instinctively clings to stern rejection of an evil as the only way to escape it. But when your conquest has risen to a height of assurance, you do not hate; you pity; you help.

Now man not being by any means a finished product of Nature, but only a developing creature, full of immense potentialities, cannot, even if he would, remain a permanent fixture in the narrow sphere of the physical senses. Impacts from without, the slings and arrows of adversity, the ups and downs of life, are dashing up against his sleeping consciousness; they are so many blows to open up his mental horizon. It is sufferings that drive lessons home and propel the dormant consciousness along the endless track of spiritual evolution.

Extremes meet. What is the state of the Zoophite or of the stone. Complete absence of thought. Perhaps a faint, imperceptible vibration. Now, tell me what is the state of the highest man--the adept--in the superconscious stage, in Nirvana;--complete suspension of thought, complete quietude of the otherwise intensely active life-forces. Then is the adept in Samadhi the same as the Zoophite? No! No! No! The difference is wide as the ocean. The first is one of intense bliss, the last is one of total inertia.

From this view-point, we can continue the parallel. Man's physical equipment is played upon by three special forces: Sathva, Rajas, and Tamas; rhythm: mobility: inertia. Taking the last first we see that tamas is inertia. The tamasic man is lazy, dull, inactive, weighed down by his own sensual thoughts. He has no control over himself. He is lifeless. Digestion and sex absorb his vital forces. His formulae of life are Eating, Drinking and Breeding. Having no strength, no inner force of character, resistance of evil is an utter impossibility to him. He plays today to the rich for the loaves and fishes of office. He higgles. He cringes. He weeps. He whines. He goes about trying to please everybody and thus he pleases nobody. The smile of the rich is his sunshine. The empty praise of fools is his crowning victory. When evil presses him down, he cries aloud: "What can I do? I am so weak, such a sinner!" He is thus condemning himself. Unable to resist evil,--for he does not resist but simply sits down and wrings his hands and beats his breast--he hates himself. It is all kismet, is his wail! Ah! this superstition! How vice-like is its grip on the tamasic man!

Once upon a time there lived a Persian king who commanded the angelic as well as the human worlds. Peris, and houries of transcendent charm, slaves, dzins, gods, animals, all obeyed him. This powerful monarch had a very wise physician at his court. This physician was master of all occult knowledge. Vast was his learning--deep his erudition. The finer forces of this tremendous universe had no secrets for him. The king in one of his odd moments sent for him. "Great Master of the Mysterious in Nature, solve me the riddle of birth and death. Solve me the riddle of fate,"--thus spoke the monarch. "Gracious king," replied the physician, "Fate wears an inscrutable face. It sways all, all." "Prove it," challenged the king. The physician then had a jar brought up to him. He prepared certain combinations of herbs, known only to the ancient Kabalists and put them into the jar. He then had the jar hermetically sealed; and handed it to the king: "King! I have gratified your whim. My life's span covers twenty-four hours more. Six months after you shall open this jar in the presence of all your courtiers. Out of the jar shall emerge a bird of royal plumage. Let the bravest man be ready to ride after this bird. Let his steed be of the fleetest and the best in your stud. This bird shall fly over 600 miles. The horseman must follow it alone. It will at last perch itself on a tree of great height. It will then begin to pluck its splendid feathers one by one and eat them up. It will next begin to tear up its legs and eat them up. It will then plunge its beak into its own stomach, and drawing forth the entrails, eat them up, too. Let the horseman stand beneath the tree and watch the bird closely. As soon as the bird has eaten up its whole body except the neck and the head, let him ask it 3 questions and the answers shall be quite correct." Twenty-four hours later this great occultist breathed his last. The king had everything arranged and the physician's son, a young warrior of great prowess, consented to follow the bird. Six months after the jar was opened before the whole court. Up flew a bird of wondrous beauty. Light flashed from its body. With an ear-piercing cry, the bird winged its way through space, the youth riding after him. At last the bird alighted on a tall, stately palm tree and began to eat itself up voraciously. "Now the moment approaches," said the brave youth exultingly. But hardly had he uttered these words than a terrible, acute, unbearable, pain shot through his brain. It was toothache. Whilst the youth was thus writhing in exquisite suffering the bird spoke, "Brave warrior! Be quick. My head and neck remain. Quick! Put the questions or I eat up my neck also." But the youth was crawling in pain. His senses had fled. Yet making an effort he asked, "What is the remedy for toothache?" "Zambur" (the instrument for extracting teeth)--came the ringing reply. "What is the remedy for toothache?" "Zambur," cried the bird again. "What is the remedy for toothache?" "Zambur," sang out the bird for the third time and vanished from sight. The king when he heard it felt deeply chagrined. But what could he say to the youth. "I would have done the same thing!" exclaimed the just monarch sadly, "Who can triumph over fate?"

Therefore conquer the flesh before you question the mysteries of Life. It would be the turning-point in the life of the tamasic man if he could say "I will resist evil." His non-resistance is due to weakness and weakness alone. Then comes the Rajasic man: full of activity: his brain toned up to a tremendous pitch of energy. "Nothing shall stand in my way," is his determined cry. "I will resist." He does not sit down and bemoan his lot. He does not talk of destiny, his evil star, his guardian angel, his fate. He measures his strength by his resistance of all that would bar his progress. He strikes. He resists evil and thereby does the right thing. He passes through much storm and stress, toil and turmoil, but his spirit burns with a steady blaze. Nothing can crush him. At last this severe and continued fighting so toughens and tones his fibres that he has but to lift a finger in order to bring others to his feet. Then comes calmness. He is a lamp burning steadily despite the winds and waves playing around him. At last, he is conscious of tremendous force. He knows he can smite a fellow down easily. Then possessed of this superhuman strength the saint forbears. He has the power, but wields it for good purposes alone. This is the Sathvic man. This is then the supreme stage: Non-resistance of evil.

To resume the thread of our discourse: The physical man would gladly remain in the quagmire, but things go against his wishes. His consciousness is trying to individualize itself, to centre itself; and the result of his effort is that he is being flung about mentally. The mind wanders. It is being tossed about. It is the butter-fly mind. The first stage of consciousness. It is called the kshipta state.

The next stage is brought about by the breaking of the emotions, the passions, the lust of the flesh, the lust of life, the pride of the eye. When these assert themselves, confusion, utter and most desolate follows. A still small voice is constantly telling, "It is bad to lose your temper," but you never try to keep it till you have lost it. The same with other foibles. You wish to control but you cannot just when you ought to. There comes a feeling of utter ignorance, despair and desolation. Life seems insipid. Pleasures have lost their piquant flavour. You are sad-eyed, silent, yet patiently suffering. The crucifixion nails are being driven in. The pain is acute. This is the mudha state. In this transition stage, the individualized consciousness is suffering its birth-pangs. It has yet to cut its wisdom-teeth. The gold is being put into a furnace of fire that the dross may be burnt off and the pure metal come out in all its shining splendour.

But consciousness is a series of sudden awakenings, with a sure belief in its actual existence. Thus at last the man who has been willing earnestly to achieve self-control draws help to himself: Men superior to him mentally and spiritually; books rich with useful information; thoughts laden with force;--all are drawn to him. He hears the great men; receives their higher vibrations; absorbs same. He extracts useful details from books. He pauses in the rush of life when a good thought shines out to him. He is building up an idea] for himself. His life is taking on a coherent shape. He is no more aimless. He has a wider outlook on life. Blissful visions of the perfect man that he is to be one day float before his eyes. Peace comes and folds its wings around his once pain-stricken life for a few moments. No achievement has yet come to him. He is simply surrounded with delicious day-dreams. He is thus vitalizing his ideal. At last the ideal possesses him, entrances him, fascinates him. His is in a state of infatuation. He is mad upon one idea. He is turned inwards. Externality is no more his bane. Thus perhaps he goes through life dominated by one idea. This is the third stage: Vikshipta: the state of preoccupation through love, ambition, etc. "Genius is madness," they say. So it is. This man is approaching Yoga. He is under the magic spell of a fixed idea. He may under its influence reel off into monomania or he may suffer martyrdom. Maniac or martyr, he stands for an idea. This man, who instead of being possessed by one single idea, possesses it and controls it, touches the higher consciousness.

In the third stage this Eternal Traveller learns Viveka: "discrimination between the real and the unreal, between the outer and the inner." In the fourth, he learns Ekagrata:--one-pointedness. He carved out a statuesque ideal of himself. He has to actualise it, to vitalise it, to realise it. Now comes the state of practice, of training, of discipline, of asceticism, of austerities, of vairagya--dispassion,--of solitude, of utter devotion to his ideal. He is unattached. The world is no longer for him. His whole mind is concentrated, focused, upon his ideal. He is a Stoic of stoics. He is above pleasure and pain, praise and blame, virtue and vice, and all the other dualities. He knows that he cannot have the one without the other. No longer does he tremble. "THERE CAN BE NO FALL NOW," he says. "I live in the ETERNAL. I can never die. My ideal is mine already mentally. I shall bring it down to the physical through continued exertion. I have started the fine causes, I have introduced the thin end of the wedge and each stroke shall drive it deeper." This stage is the fifth stage: Nirudha: self-controlled: takes or does not take, chooses as he wills according to the illumined will. This man can effectively practice Yoga. This stage corresponds to activity on the spiritual plane. Further tells in that "these stages of mind are on every plane."

Now, my reader, if you are undergoing training, think well over what I have said. It is but little at the best. Yet, it will help teach you to realize your own state. In the first and second stages, Yoga is impossible. In these, you are in the womb of pain. But take heart, thou brave one! Pain is to be accepted. It will chasten, toughen and strengthen you. Hence flinch not.

If in the third, you are nearly ready for the treading of the higher path. Short indeed is the transition from the third to the fourth, from thence to the fifth, and thence to Samadhi. The last you need hardly aim at; so difficult indeed is its achievement that the mere contemplation of it will dash your spirits. Effort, intensity of the will-to-achieve, earnestness, purity, devotion, tenacity of purpose, will bridge the distance of time for you. The light shining upon us is but a fitful glimmer. We shall strengthen it so that it shall burn steadily, calmly, evenly, right on through life. Do you hear this call? It is not a call to arms: to bloodshed: to manslaughter: to worldism: to sham supernaturalism: to present-day spiritualism. It is a call to ascetism;--stern, self-imposed, and severe: to self-sacrifice; to chastity; to manhood; to continence; to mercy; to brotherhood; to life; keener, harder, fuller, more sensitive; to Love, pure and simple. Here you touch the apex of bliss. Here you drink God's sweet, soothing elixir at the pure fount of life. Here you realise all that you have been hungering for. Here learn to say with the dear blessed Swami:

"Each soul is potentially divine.

The Goal is to manifest this divinity within, by controlling nature, external and internal.

Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy, by one or more, or all of these--and be free.

This is the whole of religion. Doctrines or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms are but secondary details.

--Vivekananda.

Learn to say these blessed, saving words with your heart full of Divine passion. Learn to rest upon them as you would on a rock. They were ground out of the heart's blood of one of India's greatest saints. Meditate upon them. Make them the flesh of your flesh and the bone of your bone. Rest under the protecting wings for ever and ever. You are great. Compared to your nature this world is but a pinch of star-dust. Lightning can but smite your body at worst, not you. The sword can but cut up your body into pieces, not you. The fire can but burn your body, not you. The water can but drown your body, not you. Why fear then? O Thou Soul! You are Master, not somewhere and sometimes. but everywhere and always. YOU ARE OF GOD.

CHAPTER XII.

CONSTRUCTIVE IDEALISM.

What is Constructive Idealism?

It is a process whereby we strive to construct, develop and project an ideal personality on the spiritual, mental and physical rungs of human evolution. It is training, self-imposed and self-directed. Man's immediate developmental conditions are, beyond all doubt, thought-structures materialised on the physical plane, since Man is ever the reflex of his mind. Could we lift the brain-cap of a man and watch the inter-play of Will, Emotion and Intellect, we should in no time become convinced that our thought-life has never lost the grand and stern emphasis of its dignity. But it is given to us to make or mar, to raise or to lower ourselves.

Efforts to call up the resurgence of the spiritual forces that inhere in us and that are interaffinitised to the psychic realms of vibration are so many blood- drops from the core of our being sprinkled upon fertile soil. Our reaction upon Nature determines the centre and turning-point of our life. This reaction is due to the action of the Free-Will. The Will is the pivotal point round which revolve the issues of destiny. Constructive Idealism then is a life-building assimilation of the highest and the best within the reach of our mental and spiritual vision. It is from my point of view a determined effort to intensify ourselves along lines of human uplift by a systematized application of the laws of psychology. It is the putting forth of positive effort to develop and expand our spiritual stature. Life in this world is a gymnasium for the exercise of the will. It matters little how many years you h been here in this world. It matters little how many moments of sense enjoyment you have had. Indeed! You may be as old as Methuselah., Your entire life-span may have been enjoyable. Such things do not count. What is of vital moment is how far you have succeeded in your triumph over your lower Nature, how far your Spirituality, Firmness, Conscientiousness, Veneration, , etc., are developed; how far you feel for suffering humanity; how far your Soul is on the ascendant and your flesh is under your feet. For this last is the crown and climax of all human endeavour along right lines. It is chastity alone that can give us a lift up from the quadruped stage. With ordinary humanity, with even the intellectual classes--in some measure--it is a step forward and then a long stagger backwards to the animal stage. This phenomenon is so constant that the aspiring soul stops, hesitates, and then as if a douche of cold water had been poured upon it, shrivels up in fear and heaves a sigh, "Oh! It is impossible! It is my nature! How can I transcend it? Impossible! Impossible!"

Poor Ignorant Man! How he weeps and wails. He does not know that nothing is impossible to the Divine Spirit; that there is ever a way out; that there is ever a way up, if its vision were a bit wider and better trained. Know, My Reader! What is soul-force inside of yourself is the mighty Law of God outside; and relief and joy are dependent upon pre-established harmony between the two, for at the center they are One.

Is it possible then? What? Self-conquest? Yes. You can conquer, even utterly crush the lower nature. If it be within range of practicability, why then is the major portion of humanity grovelling in carnality. Because, they do so willingly. It is the animal soul that has fastened its grip upon them. The Higher Soul has been almost buried under coating after coating of carnal tendencies. Man has not obeyed his inmost thought. He has ever yielded to his impulses. He has had his face in a bush and ostrich-like he has considered himself safe. The memories of ; the blotted pictures of Heaven and Hell; the preacher of religious dogmas; know-nothing religions, slave-trading and slave-trading religions; the squalor of animal lust, greed, and hard selfism, and every other stripe of absurdity that stalks the land often under the cloak of religion, have so magnetized the eyes of man that he sees nothing better, higher and purer.

Today, materialism has lost not a bit of the old emphasis of its personality, although people struggle hard to dress it up in a clean shirt and present it to the world at large under the guise of religion. Today, more than ever, is the grim hand of the butcher clotted with gore and shambles reek with the blood of innocent animals. The cry transpierces the heavens, yet the ears of man are hermetically sealed. Today, more than ever, does a pious demeanor cover scarlet indulgence. Indeed! Man is lifting the veil from dark proceedings and striving to justify them to our eyes. Hence, more misery, more pain.

Is it possible then to go beyond the lower Nature? Not to flatter the intellect by feeding it upon dirty and unclean garbage, but to expand it to the light of Reason; not to pass the lazy hour but to press it into substantial service; not to pander to the flesh but to render it a clean and fitting temple for the sojourn of the spirit; not to flinch from pain in creep-mouse style, but to face it resolutely, if need be, and make it yield up its last lesson; not to move along lines of least resistance but to set the will against all else; not to wish for and accept ease but to live and breathe for the joy of others:--this line of plain-living and high thinking is a decided step out of a chalk circle of imbecility into strong doing.

You have to develop a life-purpose. Our work is our life-preserver. Remember: "Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose: it resides in the moment of transition from a past state into a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim." You must reach out to the highest and the best within the sphere of your vision. Thus alone can you stand out of the deep rut formed by ages of crass ignorance. Your ideal must compel your entire being. There must be tugging hard at the center of your being and earnest longing to live up to the highest within you.

Perhaps it is the flesh that reacts so viciously upon your efforts, your doings and thinkings. Perhaps it is a hypersensitive nervous system that has dragged you on to a low plane of living. Perhaps it is a weak mind that would neither be coaxed out, nor dragged out, nor be lashed out of its chronic condition of fearfulness, general depression, sluggishness, despair and melancholy, worry, hurry and flurry, jealousy, fretfulness, and all-consuming hatred, that sees obstacles where there are none; that is so delicately hinged that a slight feather's weight tips the beam; or a breath of air flings wide the doors to perdition and you are sent flying into the Slough of Despond. Perhaps anxious thoughts loom large, threaten and then destroy repose.

What a catalogue of weaknesses in human nature! Yet, is it not all fact? Morbid thoughts, impure desires, self-pity, painful introspection, continual anticipation of perpetual loss, constant dwelling on a lazy ideal, pessimism, causeless apprehensions, --all these and many more are the pitiless enemies and lifelong associates of a negative, resistless, nerveless, will-less cast of mind;--a mind void of stamina,--a character out of joint with the laws of right-living and right-thinking. Heredity, environmental conditions, emotion, and ignorance; --all contribute their quota to the emasculation of man's resistant forces. Fact is, men are as lazy as they dare to be. If they work at all, there must be a strong incentive to back up their sudden fit of activity. It is the prospect of an ease-living, lazy life that allures them to activity. It is a long spell of active inactivity that most people want. No wonder their powers of resistance are in a state of atrophy! No wonder they land themselves in a vicious circle! Truly, most truly, has it been said that an idle brain is the devil's workshop. Now, reader, are you one such? I hope not. But, if so, why so? Listen to one of symbolic stories.

In the middle ages there lived a powerful man who was impressed by the fact that each wish that he had conceived had caused him years of toil, struggle, and hard exertion before it could be accomplished and that, too, when he was on the verge of failure. He could not understand why success was so hard to achieve. He thought hard and searched much. At last he felt that there was a secret enemy that constantly antagonised him. He determined to find him out and crush him. The rugged side of life repelled him. He wished to press on to the fascinating by-ways of pleasure and ease. Life under old conditions was not worth living. This barrier removed, he could be happy. One evening while out walking he saw a man approaching him and he "intuitively, identified" him as his evil genius. He resolved to destroy him. When he came closer, his enemy was discovered as being masked so that none could see his features. "You are the man," said he, in resolute tones, "who from my youth has been thwarting my purposes and nearly defeating me. I am resolved to kill you, and yet am constrained to give you a single chance for life. Draw and defend yourself." "I am at your service," replied the stranger, as he drew his sword, "but before we fight, I want you to identify me." Upon which he drew off his mask and the challenger found that he stood before himself: "Thought." So it is with all of us. Do you remember that song of Omar :

I sent my soul into the Invisible,

Some message of the after-life to spell,

And by-and-by my soul returned to me,

And answered 'I myself am heav'n and hell.'

There you are! Nothing could be more pointed. We men and women carry our own racks and stretch ourselves thereupon as often as we dash up against the immutable laws of God. Whose aid would you invoke? The question that I would put to you is: Are you victimisable? Are you willingly so? Are you waiting for things to drop from the skies? Ten to one, you are. Then there is no way out, indeed! The first requisite in Constructive Idealism is self-reliance. You simply must kick away all props. You must stand upon your own feet. Thus poised you are at the top of your condition.

Once you have nerved yourself to fight your battles on your own private strength, I see no limits to your ascending force. This determination will arm you with weapons none can conquer. All depends upon the strength, intensity and elasticity of your resolution to act from your own centre. All power resides in you. This is the first, last and the only lesson the student of Occultism has to master. Locked up in your soul is to be found Infinite Knowledge, Infinite Existence, Infinite Bliss. The more you learn to tap your soul-forces with confidence the surer your power over yourself and hence over others.

Each soul, individually, exists on earth to fulfil a mission which it alone can fulfil. Most wisely does Dr. Sanjivi say "Your existence is no accident but is a representative of Life and what Life is." Quite so. You are here because you are (indeed!) a necessity, an indispensable something which nature requires for the execution of certain designs. No more of foreign supports then. You have to stand alone; thus alone will strength flow into your veins. All power is inborn. It is never an accretion from without. Those that go careering madly into the external world are like men standing upon their heads instead of on their feet. Those that turn ever inwards for inspiration, for strength, stand aright, command their limbs, and work miracles. They are as firm columns sustaining immense fabrics. Yes, cat-like you must ever fall upon your feet. Trust yourself and in the endless mutation of things you shall discover that naught can establish you in peace but yourself. Do you remember Napoleon's masterly advice to his elder brother Joseph? It was compressed in two words: "Be Master." Sturdy natures are not leaning willows. They act from within, from themselves. It is these that shed healing by their mere presence. It is these that have tossed overboard idolatries, customs and conventions. They do not seek for compassion. Indeed they resent all gratis sympathy. With self-trust new powers are born. For everything at the core is wrought out of one hidden stuff. We read in our scriptures how Uddalaka taught his son this truth by salt dissolved in water. The boy was required to take a solution of salt and water. Next day the father asked him for the salt. The boy could not find it. "Taste from the top," said the father. "It is saltish," replied the boy. "Taste from the middle of the water." "It is saltish," replied the boy. "Taste from the bottom," enjoined the father. "It is saltish." Now, so it is with the Universal Soul--the Over-Soul. It is the One, the indivisible Spirit running through entire nature, vivifying all, sustaining all, evolving in all. It is this bridge that spans the "gulf" that Tyndall said could never be bridged over. The salt disappeared but it pervaded the entire water. Then Uddalaka said, "It is the Universal Self, O Svethaketu! Thou art That." True.

The naturalist is right in his tracing of the same type under every metamorphosis. A horse is a running man. A fish is a swimming man. A bird is a flying man. A tree is a rooted man. So says Emerson. Further, to believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men--that is genius. Is it not high time then that you resolved to take yourself for better, for worse? In rejecting yourself, in wishing that you were Mr. or Mrs. So-and-So instead of what you are, in imitating others, in bemoaning your lot, you are denying God in the only form He can ever express in Man--Faith--Faith-in-your-self. Said Vivekananda, 'Have that tremendous faith in yourself which I had when I was a child and I have been working it out in my life! I have quoted from memory. Yet I well remember those words, "Tremendous faith in yourself" Listen again, "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide;--that though the whole universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that piece of ground which is given to him to till." We know ourselves only when we have tried to do so and not before. Therefore say, "Henceforth things must take a new scale from me. I obey no law but what is sanctioned by my own judgment. I am a disembodied spirit working, living and breathing for whatever is related to me by spiritual affinity. I care little for this world with its thousand-cloven tongues of gratis advice, praise and censure. I can but obey my polarity. I want nothing.

I seek strength in chastity. I seek wisdom in the silence of my own heart. Death shall wring from me but one pang and not even that if I can help it. I shall be calm. Naught shall ruffle my calm. For each time I feel the stabs of anxiety and remorse I die. The Lord is my refuge. I can only live under His control." This is the doctrine of fearlessness. For says Zoroaster: "To the persevering mortal the blessed immortals are swift." Some men think they can well afford to be lazy, since everyone is working and so far as 1 am concerned I do not see why all life should be labor. This is a serious self-deception indeed! Our share of work is to persevere in the path of absolute purity.

Once upon a time there was a king who had a very large number of courtiers. Now courtiers are flatterers, born deceivers. They all swore to the king that each one of them was ready to sacrifice his life for the king. The king was mightily pleased. At this time there appeared a Sanyasin from some place at the King's Court. The king, like all vain people, told the Sanyasin that there never before had been a king for whom his entire number of courtiers was ready to sacrifice their lives. The Sanyasin smiled incredulously and told our king that he did not believe it. "Put them to the test," said the king. The Sanyasin then had it proclaimed that he was going to hold a sacrifice whereby great advantages would accrue to the king. His only condition was that each courtier should go alone to a tank and pour a pitcher of milk thereinto in the dark of night. "Is that all?" asked the king in surprise. "Yes," replied the Sanyasin. Next morning the king visited the tank which instead of being full of milk was full of water. Each one of the courtiers had thought he could afford to practice deception and poured in a pitcherful of water.

So also the present generation of India. 'Oh! There are great Yogis in the forest making tapas for the good of the world. I need not trouble. I can well be spared.' No! No! You cannot be spared. There is not one soul that can snap asunder the bond of Divine Brotherhood. If you, who are young and vigorous, are abusing your advantages by letting them slip by through your lazy and selfish propensities, then know that a time will come when you will look for them in vain. If you will not when you may, you shall not when you will. I see young men who have all possible chances allowed them. Nothing weighs upon their minds. Yet these complain loudest. Poor Souls! Instead of working now while the sun shines upon them, they are content to lead aimless lives. Man's work is his inner development and unfoldment. Those who are fully alive to this fact can never be satisfied with living at low pressure. It is the pitch at which a man lives that counts most. Everything concentrates. Diffusion leads to confusion. "Not they that eat most, but they that digest most are the most nourished. Not they that get most but they that keep and give the most, are the richest. So not they that hear most, or read most, but they that meditate most and pray most and in the silent mystic way of Love give out the most are the most edified and nourished and enriched unto everlasting life, here, now, and forever. "Meditate upon these things," and "As thy days pass so shall thy strength be." Therefore, shut yourself up in your room and with strenuous and earnest zeal, go on adding stroke after stroke of steady work for your soul-expression. Results will come in their own good time and that moment is best for you and the world when you get great gleams of light from your higher nature.

MAN--THE MASTER. = SELF-DEVELOPMENT. =DEVELOPING THE SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS.

MAN: ANIMAL AND DIVINE.

THE YOGI CONCEPTION OF LIFE.

योग और ब्रह्मचर्य

प्राचीन आर्य और ब्रह्मचर्य

HOW TO LIVE

THE GOAL OF THE YOGI AND LEVITATION

SURAGHO-THE LONG-LIVED YOGI THE SECRET OF HIS LONGEVITY

THE GREAT EGOIST--BALI

QUEEN CHUNDALAI, THE GREAT YOGIN

CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE

THE WAY TO BLESSED LIBERATION