One is busy struggling with himself and with conditions before him and around him. Why should he struggle? The answer is that there is always a conflict between the person who wishes to go upward and the wind that blows him downward. The wind that blows a person downward is continually felt by anyone who takes a step on the path of progress. This wind is conflict with the self, it is conflict with others, it is conflict with conditions; conflicts that come from all around, till every part of that Mahatma is tested and tried, till his patience is almost exhausted and his ego is crushed. It is a hard rock that is turned into a soft paste.

Just as a soldier in war may receive many wounds, and still more impressions which remain in his heart as wounds, so is the condition of this warrior who walks on the spiritual path; for everything is against him; his friends though they may not know it, his foes, conditions, the atmosphere, the self. And the wounds that he has to experience and the impressions that he receives in the struggle, make him into a spiritual personality, a personality which is difficult to resist, which is overwhelming.
The next category of Mahatma is the one who learns his lesson by passiveness, resignation, sacrifice, love, devotion, and sympathy.
- There is a kind of love that is like the flame of a candle: blow, and it is gone. It can only remain as long as it is not blown out; it cannot withstand blowing.
- And there is a love that is like the sun that rises and reaches the zenith, and then sets and disappears; this love endures longer.
- But then there is a love that is like the divine Intelligence, that was and is and will be. The closing and the opening of the eyes will not take away intelligence; the rising and the setting of the sun will not affect intelligence. When that love is created which endures wind and storm, and stands firm through rise and fall, then a person's language becomes different; the world cannot understand it.
When love has once reached the Sovereign of love, it is like the water of the sea that has arisen as vapor and has formed the clouds over the earth and then pours down as rainfall. The continual outpouring of such a heart is unimaginable; not only human beings but even birds and beasts must feel its influence, its effect. It is a love that cannot be put into words, a love that radiates, proving its warmth by the atmosphere it creates. The resigned soul of the Mahatma may appear weak to someone who does not understand him, for he takes praise and blame in the same way, and he accepts all that is given to him, favor or disfavor, pleasure or pain. All that comes he accepts with resignation.
For the third category of these highly evolved souls there is struggle on the one hand and resignation on the other. And this is a most difficult way to progress: to go one step forward, and another step backward, and so on. There is no mobility in the progress because the one thing is contrary to the other. On one side power is working, on the other side love; on one side kingliness, on the other side slavery.

As the Emperor Ghasnavi said in a Persian poem, "I as an emperor have thousands of slaves ready at my call. But since love has kindled my heart, I have become the slave of my slaves."

On the one hand there is activity, on the other hand passivity.

The first example of the Mahatma may be called the Master, the next the Saint, and the third the Prophet.