As an individual outwardly passes through five different stages of life so inwardly a soul passes through five different stages. As there is infancy, childhood, youth, middle age and advanced years, so there is an unfoldment of the soul which shows five different stages toward the ripening of the soul. And therefore whatever be the age outwardly, the soul can have its own stage of development; it does not depend upon the outer age.
(1) There is one time when life to a soul is attractive. (2) There is another stage when life to the soul is tempting. (3) There is another stage when life to the soul is a bewilderment. (4) There is another stage when life to the soul is futile, and (5) There is another stage when life to the soul is most beautiful.
It is the soul's infancy when life to the soul is attractive, everything, right or wrong, good or bad, has an attraction for that soul. It is ready to jump in a pit, to fall in a ditch, to run into thorns, to fall in the mud. Everything is attractive, good or bad, which comes along. That is the soul's infancy. The soul at that time is new and vigorous, appreciative and observing, just like an infant.
For an infant even fire is most beautiful. It would like to put some fire in its pocket. And that is the condition of the generality. You must never think that infant souls are seldom to be found. You must know that the largest number of humanity are infant souls.
I shall never forget one day in Calcutta I saw a majdhub standing in the midst of the street laughing wholeheartedly. No one would know what was there for this majdhub to laugh, there was nothing apparent. But it took me some time to find out what made him laugh so, and I found out that everything made him laugh, the rushing of the people, so absorbed and involved in their little fancies and interests in life, the great importance that every person gave to the little things of life which amount to very little in the end, and to see them so excited and so absorbed in their little fancies, that was enough for the majdhub to laugh and amuse himself. Anyone tuned to the pitch, seeing from there how it looks, before him it was a doll's play.
And then comes stage when not everything attracts the soul; all that the soul has taken to heart, it is that which attracts. Their heart is where their treasure is. That is the time when there comes the time of temptation. Everything that one desires one wishes to have, one values, one gives importance to; it is that after which one goes, that is where is his temptation. What very often happens is a disappointment. But still if one thing disappoints there is another thing ready again to make him forget it. And so he goes on, one thing after another, always building hopes, always fixing his mind upon things, always finding it comes to nothing, and again always ready to be given into temptation. And so he goes on through life. There is never an end to his temptations. If not one thing, there is another thing. And there is never satisfaction gained in the things that he is tempted with, for they are only the shadows covering reality.
And there is a third stage, which is likened to the middle age of the soul, when life is not necessarily attractive not tempting, it is wonderful, It offers him an interest to look through it, to study, to understand it. And this very world is which he has lived several years, then begins to change at every moment. His field of study becomes vast. Every experience, every condition, every action, every person, teaches him. What he has learned today he unlearns tomorrow, because there is a new experience, perhaps contradicting what he has known yesterday. And so he goes along the way of unfoldment, and life offers greater and greater wonders in all things one sees.
He observes, and he sees, and he wonders, and at times he is completely bewildered at it. Nature apart, its mystery, its secret, its character aside, human nature that one sees from morning till evening -- the ways of the wise and the ways of the foolish, the ways of the right-doer and the ways of the wrongdoer, and how things change and turn, and hide and manifest -- gives one so much to think about and to study and to observe that not one moment in his life seems to have been wasted; it is filled with a wonderful vision.
And then there is a stage further, when the soul begins to lift the curtain which hides hopes. He begins to lift, so to speak, the curtain which hides human nature. It seems as if a veil is lifted from all things and from all conditions, and that the colors which once seemed bright become faded, the light of gems and jewels becomes pale. He sees behind attachments and detachments, and love and hate, a thin thread sustaining them. He sees, as Omar Khayyam says, "a hair's difference" between right and wrong. Heaven and earth seem to him touching one another. Gulfs between things which are opposed seem removed from his sight. Then he begins to feel indifferent, he begins to feel independent.
He is not hurt by the pinpricks of everyday life nor does he feel exalted by red roses. He builds hopes, but not as every person. He has only one hope, and that hope is in Reality. All other hopes for him mean nothing. His indifference is not unfriendly, his independence is not conceited. By indifference he does not neglect others; only his indifference is his independence. He does not mind if neglected. By his indifference he does not avoid doing all he must do for others, only he is independent of the doing of others for himself. It is that right kind of independence and indifference, which is called in the language of the Hindu Vairagya, that that spirit becomes developed.
And then follows that ideal stage of the soul's unfoldment; when the world with all its limitations and people with all their faults, they are all tolerated, they are all forgiven, there is a continual expansion of sympathy and love, which continues to expand, just like a little pool of water expanding and turning into an ocean. And in this expansion the Divine Spirit expresses, and man with all his limitations stands only as a cover hiding that Divine Perfection which is expressing behind it. To that soul, then, the world is not attractive nor tempting nor is it wonderful nor futile, it is most beautiful. "God is beautiful and He loves beauty."