One untainted by egoism and unentangled, remains spiritually unaffected by acts done in discharge of duty. One discharging duties with this mental attitude is not touched by any activity.
He alone can enter the world of activity with its trials and temptations who is not afraid of it but who has already mastered it within his mind. All others had better keep away and remain untempted in peaceful hermitages of monastery retreats.
By what men fall by that they rise. The moment you become obsessed by desire to play a part in society, there is always the danger that those desire will keep you too busy to attend to quiet thought and higher study. Do what you do, but not a bit more.
Your presence is not necessary for the functioning of the universal machine.
Do not stay forever in solitude. Keep up a balance, a rhythm with the world. What you will gain and learn in your solitude you must work out in society and activity. What you work out in activity will be the test of what you have attained within your heart. You must test these inner attainments. In this way you may test continuously in a life of action, the integrity of inner achievement resulting from solitude.
Cut away the roots of a tree and the branches will wither of their own accord, so cut away the root of all vices and they disappear of themselves. We must be balanced. Throughout the events of life you must have wisdom and you must have courage.
As a man thinketh, so is he. If you begin to think steadily about what you really are in your innermost mature, the time will come when you final the answer to the question, ‘What am I?’
What you know of the universe is only your idea of it. Take an example. A copse sitting in a chair has the same physical organs as you. Why then, does he not see the things in the room? Obviously because the mind behind the sense which really perceives the universe, and not the physical organs, the eyes. But the mind, which perceives is made up of the sum total of your ideas. Therefore, it may truly be said that it is only your idea, which represents the universe. Everything exists in mind, and all ideas ultimately exist within the overself, the only thing that truly is.
When you understand that the reality of the universe is not separate from yourself, that is the very depth of yourself; you are beginning to know truth. Knowing this universal soul you will realize that it runs in you and throughout all matter. Deep enquiry is necessary to attain this realization. Having done so you know the real purpose of life. Whether you place your faith in material possession in the form of money, for instance or any other form of apparent security, you will find that the loss and gain in material life are dictated by destiny. Destiny will give and take regardless of your precautions.
Fix thy mind on one thing, be deviated to do, sacrifice for it, bow down to it. Thus steadied, to the supreme goal, you will reach it.
The most essential thing is devotion, then intelligence, which embodies the ability to discriminate between things as they appear to be and as they really are.
Next you must have wisdom, a sense of right proportion. Weigh things well and learn how to give up the fleeting for the eternal. You also need patience, for you are searching for something, which is very subtle. Your patience must be marvelous. Never give up your quest for truth. Learn to value it above everything.
Self-restrain is the next requirement. Bring your body and thoughts under some degree of self-control. You will have to fight yourself because you have built up habits throughout your incarnations, which have shaped your personality. You must learn to resist them and to declare, ‘These habits are not I, they are of the mind and body.’
You must have calmness. Try to be calm in life, especially in the midst of activity, the time when you most need it. Practicing calmness you will find that it brings you other virtues.
While experiencing pleasures and pains, do not be afraid, nor run away from it, nor should you identify yourself with it.
Gradually you will begin to develop sixth sense. Learn to cultivate endurance and indifference to fame and shame. No one can hurt you, no one can injure you. Cultivate indifference to fame and flattery. See life in all creatures.
Gambler, mystic, crook and saints all are looking for one and the same thing, though all have different ideas of what constitutes it. For example: Gambler wants money, and thus happiness…….Saint wants peace and thus happiness……
The ultimate thing for which all life searches is happiness, and it may be found only in the ourself.
Stilling of your mind is very much required. For this the qualities needed are humility, noninjury (helpfulness and compassion), patience, uprightness, service of the teacher, purity, steadfastness and self-control.
If you are enslaved by external objects it is difficult for you to direct the mind into that calm state which it needs in order to find truth.
The gift that is given at a wrong place or time, to unworthy persons, without respect or with insult, is declared to be dictated by ignorance. Use your talents given by God. Do not make a spiritual or intellectual gift to a person who is not ready. If you give instructions to someone who is not ripe for this quest of truth you are being foolish. Cast not thy pearl before swine.
The highest type of action is that which is free from attachment and is therefore a form of spiritual activity. To understand nature is to understand the forces, which are driving man to action. Resorting to a sequestered spot, eating moderately, speech and body and mind subdued, always engaged in action and concentration, endued with dispassion.
The mind must be restrained and brought to its own place in the heart. Self-enquiry is an intellectual exercise in the beginning, but one that leads ultimately to the abolishing of intellects tyranny. You must learn to say no to your thoughts, to refuse continuance of the very process of thinking itself, to reject the endless upheavals of intellect and final peace.
If you find people devoted to the truth, who are seeking for it, and ripe to understand it, then you may teach it to them, for it is your duty. If you do that, you will be rewarded.
If you realize your divine self, you will then automatically demonstrate prosperity, perfect health and everlasting good fortune. You can react to the misfortune of losing all that you love and possess by taking it calmly. You can say, ‘another cycle of my life is finished, and I must begin a new cycle, I will therefore readapt myself to the new cycle without fear. I will do everything that common sense counsels to mend matters, meet results.’ Or in a state of deep depression, believing that you are finished, that life has no future hope for you, you can commit suicide. Both attitudes are the expression of your own choice, but the happenings what you face is one and the same for the two moods.
The chief beneficial contribution of the cults is their encouragement of courageous moods rather than cowardly ones. The movement of today, which set out professedly to spiritualize materialism, has merely succeeded in materializing spirituality. Whether the truth is painful or pleasurable. Let us love truth. Let us accept truth for its own sake. Truth is so like a proud and exclusive lady that she will never give herself to you unless you seek her for her own sake. We here always of the success, they are achieved by the powers of the over mind. We should not fall into black magic and hypnotism. Concentrate hard enough and long enough in your activities.
Trust in the overself. Surrender yourself to it and you will find relief. You will have lost your burdened self, and whatever comes, even death, you will accept. For to know your overself is the hidden reason for your existence. Out of sufferings even beautiful things will be shown to you. Something of the eternal spirit will come to you.
If you want peace of mind, give up fault finding. Learn to accept everyone as your own. No one is alien to you, the whole world is yours. In other words, my favourate quote…There is so much of good in the worst of us, and so much of bad in the best of us, that it ill behoves any of us, to find fault with the rest of us. Also happiness and sorrow are mere states of minds, it takes equal amount of effort to be happy as to be sad.