Attainment

Character

Dimensions

Dreams

Ego

Elements

Guidance

Healing

Heart

Immortality

Initiation

Mastery

Meditation

Physical Body

Planes

Power

Prayers

Purpose

Relationships

Religions

School

Speaking

Sufism

World

Among Sufis many attain to the God-ideal through Rasul, the ideal man; and one reaches the door of Rasul through Shaikh, the spiritual guide, whose soul owing to devotion is focused on the spirit of Rasul and so is impressed with his qualities. This graduated way becomes clear to the traveller on the path of the attainment of the divine Beloved.

The friendship with Shaikh has no other motive than guidance in seeking God. As long as your individuality lasts it will last, as long as you are seeking God it will last, as long as a guidance is needed it will last. The friendship with Shaikh is called Fana-fi-Shaikh, and it then merges into the friendship with Rasul. When the mureed realizes the existence of the spiritual qualities beyond the earthly being of the murshid, that is the time when he is ready for Fana-fi-Rasul.

The friendship with the Shaikh is friendship with a form, and the form may disappear. A person may say, "I had a father, but now he is no more." In fact, the impression of the father whom he has idealized remains in his mind. The devotion to Rasul is like this; his name and qualities remain though the earthly form is no more on earth. Rasul is the personification of the light of guidance, which a mureed, according to his evolution, idealizes. Whenever the devotee remembers him, on the earth, in the air, at the bottom of the sea, he is with him. Devotion to Rasul is a stage that cannot be omitted in the attainment of divine love. This stage is called Fana-fi-Rasul.

After this comes Fana-fi-Allah, when the love of Rasul merges in the love of Allah. Rasul is the Master who is idealized for his lovable attributes, his kindness, goodness, holiness, mercy; his merits are intelligible; his form is not known, only the name which constitutes his qualities; but Allah is the name given to that ideal of perfection where all limitation ceases, and in Allah the ideal ends.

A person does not lose the friendship with the Pir nor with Rasul, but he beholds murshid in Rasul and Rasul in Allah. Then for guidance, for advice, he looks to Allah alone.

There is a story of Rabia, the great Sufi, that once she beheld Mohammed in a vision and he asked her, "O Rabia, whom dost thou love?" She answered, "Allah." He said, "Not His Rasul?" She said, "O blessed Master, who in the world could know thee and not love thee? But now my heart is so occupied with Allah alone that I can see no one but Him."

From those who see Allah, Rasul and Shaikh disappear. They see only Allah in the Pir and Rasul. They see everything as Allah and see nothing else.

A mureed by devotion to the murshid learns the manner of love, standing with childlike humility, seeing in the face of every being on earth his Pir's blessed image reflected. When Rasul is idealized he sees all that is beautiful reflected in the unseen ideal of Rasul. Then he becomes independent even of merit, which also has an opposite pole, and in reality does not exist, for it is comparison that makes one thing appear better than the other, and he loves only Allah, the perfect ideal, who is free from all comparison, beyond all merits and attributes. But when a mureed has risen beyond this ideal, then he himself becomes love, and the work of love has been accomplished. Then the lover himself becomes the source of love, the origin of love, and he lives the life of Allah, which is called Baqi bi-Allah. His personality becomes divine personality. Then his thought is the thought of God, his word the word of God, his action the action of God, and he himself becomes love, lover, and beloved.

Farid-ud-din-Attar was one of the earliest Sufi poets of Persia, and there is no doubt that the work of Attar was the inspiration of Rumi and of many other spiritual souls and poets of Persia. He showed the way to the ultimate aim of life by making a sort of picture in a poetic form. Almost all the great teachers of the world, when they have pointed out the right way to seeking souls, have had to adopt a symbolical form of expression, such as a story or legend which could give a key to the one who is ready to understand and at the same time interest the one who is not yet ready. Thus both may rejoice, the one who sleeps and the one who is already awakened. This method has been followed by the poets of Persia and India, especially the Hindustani poets, and they have told their stories in a form which would be acceptable, not only to the seekers after truth, but to those in all the different stages of evolution.

Attar's best known work is called Mantiq-ut-Tayr; or the Colloquy of the Birds, from which the idea of the Blue Bird has been taken today. Very few have understood the idea of the Blue Bird, or the Bird of the Sky. It contains a very ancient teaching, through the use of the Persian word for sky. This teaching points out that every soul has a capacity which may be called the sky, and this capacity can accommodate the earth or heaven, whichever it partakes of and holds within itself. When one walks in a crowd what does one see? One sees numerous faces, but one might better call them various attitudes. All that we see in individuals, all that presents itself to us, has expression, atmosphere and form. If we give it one name, it is the attitude, whatever attitude they have towards life, right or wrong, good or bad; they are themselves that attitude. Does this not show how appropriate the word sky is?

In point of fact, whatever one makes of oneself, one becomes that. The source of happiness or unhappiness is all in man himself. When he is unaware of this, he is not able to arrange his life, but as he becomes more acquainted with this secret he gains mastery, and the process by which this mastery is attained is the only fulfillment of the purpose of this life. It is this process which is explained by Attar in his description of the seven valleys through which this Bird of the Sky has passed.

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.

There is one time when life to a soul is attractive, there is another stage when life to the soul is tempting, there is another stage when life to the soul is a bewilderment, there is another stage when life to the soul is futile, and there is another stage when life to the soul is most beautiful.

Infancy - Attraction 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.

Childhood - Temptation And then comes stage when everything does not attract 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 in 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.

Middle Age - Bewilderment 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, that the ways of the wise and the ways of the foolish, and the ways of the right-doer and the ways of the wrongdoer, and how things change and turn, and hide and manifest, it 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.

Advanced Age - Vairagya 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.

Ideal Stage - World of Beauty 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."

There are several steps on the path. This is a vast subject, but condensing it I would say that there are five principal steps.

1. The first is responsiveness to beauty of all kinds, in music, in poetry, in color or line.
2. The second is one's exaltation by beauty, the feeling of ecstasy.
3. The third step is tolerance and forgiveness, when these come naturally without striving for them.
4. The fourth is that one accepts as if they were a pleasure things one dislikes and cannot stand: in the place of a bowl of wine, the bowl of poison.
5. And the fifth step is taken when one feels the rein of one's mind in one's hand; for then one begins to feel tranquillity and peace at will. This is just like riding on a very vigorous and lively horse, yet holding the reins firmly and making it walk at the speed one desires. When this step is taken the mureed becomes a master.

The time of initiation is meant to be a time for clearing away all the sins of the past. The cleansing of sins is like a bathe in the Ganges. It is the bath of the spirit in the light of knowledge. From this day the page is turned. The mureed makes his vow to the murshid that he will treasure the teachings of the masters in the past and keep them secret, that he will make good use of the teachings and of the powers gained by them, and that he will try to crush his Nafs, his ego. He vows that he will respect all the masters of humanity as the one embodiment of the ideal man, and will consider himself the brother not only of all the Sufis in the Order to which he belongs, but also outside that order of all those who are Sufis in spirit although they may call themselves differently, and of all mankind, without distinction of caste, creed, race, nation, or religion. Sufis engage in Halka, a circle of Sufis sitting and practicing Zikr and Fikr so that the power of the one helps the other. Furthermore they practice Tawajoh, a method of receiving knowledge and power from the teacher in silence. This way is considered by Sufis to be the most essential and desirable.

Sometimes a receptive mureed attains in a moment greater perfection than he might attain in many years by study or practice, because it is not only his own knowledge and power that the murshid imparts, but sometimes it is the knowledge and power of Rasul; and sometimes even of God. It all depends upon the time and upon how the expressive and receptive souls are focused.

The task of the Sufi teacher is not to force a belief on a mureed, but to train him so that he may become illuminated enough to receive revelations himself.

There are four different stages of God-realization of the Sufi.

1. Make a God

The first and primitive stage is to make a God. If he does not make Him out of a rock or out of wood he makes Him out of his thought. He does not mind, as an idolater would not mind, worshipping the God that he has made himself. Out of what does he make Him? Out of his imagination. The man who has no imagination stands on the ground; he has no wings, he cannot fly. The Sufi imagines that in spite of all the injustice of human nature there is one just Being, and he worships this Being whom he has imagined as his God. In spite of all the unreliable lovers and beloveds, he imagines that there is a Lover and a Beloved upon whom he can always depend. He thinks,

"Notwithstanding this ever-changing and unreliable human nature that surrounds me there is a reliable, unchangeable source of love and of life before me.

He hears not only my words but every thought I have, He feels all my feelings.

He is continually with me and within me; to whichever side I turn I meet Him.

He protects me when I am asleep, when I am not conscious of protecting myself.

He is the source of my support, and He is the center of all wisdom.

He is mercy, He is compassion.

God is the greatest friend, upon whom I can always depend; and if the whole world turns away from me I shall still have that friend, a friend who will not turn away as the friends of this earthly life do after having buried their beloved friend or relation, a friend whom I shall find even in my grave. Wherever I exist I will always have this friend with me."

2. The Lover of God

And when he has passed through this stage then there comes another stage, the stage of the lover of God. In this stage he begins to look upon God as his Beloved, and only then does he begin to learn the manner of true love; for love begins in man and culminates in God, the perfect ideal and object of love. A Hindustani poet says that the first step on the path of love teaches a person to say, "I am not." As long as he thinks, "I am," he is far away from the path of love; his claim of love is false. Naturally, just as a lover is resigned to the will of the beloved, to suffer or to go through any test, so the Sufi at this stage takes all things in life as they come, courageously and bravely, meeting all difficulties and all circumstances, realizing that it all comes from the beloved God. It is in this way that contentment and resignation are learnt, that a willing surrender in love is practiced, and that love, which is a divine quality, naturally raises man to a higher standard.

One might say, how can one love God, God whom one does not know, does not see? But the one who says this wants to take the second step instead of the first; he must first make God a reality, and then God will make him the truth. This stage is so beautiful; it makes the personality so tender and gentle; it gives such patience to the worshipper of God; and together with this gentleness and patience he becomes so powerful and strong that there is nothing that he will not face courageously: illness, difficulties, loss of money, opposition--there is nothing that he is afraid of. With all his gentleness and tenderness, inwardly he becomes strong.

3. All is God

When a man has passed through this stage then there comes a third stage, and it is that he considers all earthly sources, whether favorable or unfavorable, all that comes to him, as God. If a friend comes to meet him, to the Sufi it is God who is coming to meet him; if a beggar is asking for a penny, it is God whom the Sufi recognizes in that form; if a wretched man is suffering misery, he sees also in this the existence of God. Only, the difference is that in some he sees God unconscious, in others he sees God conscious.

All those who love him, who hate him, who like or dislike him, who look upon him with admiration or contempt, he looks at with the eyes of the worshipper of God, who sees his Beloved in all aspects. Naturally when this attitude is developed he develops a saintly spirit. Then he begins to see in this world of variety the only Being playing His role as various beings, and for him every moment of his life is full of worship.

But even with this realization he will never say that he is more evolved than those who worship God in an ordinary form; he can stand with them and worship in the same manner as they, although he stands above it all; but he will never claim to do so.

4. Loss of the Self

The fourth development of the God-ideal is in the loss of the self. But which self is lost? The false self is lost, and the true self is gained. In this stage the Sufi hears through the ears of God, sees through the eyes of God, works with the hands of God, walks with the feet of God; then his thought is the thought of God and his feeling is the feeling of God. For him there is no longer that difference which a worshipper makes between himself and God.

As Khusrau the Indian poet says, "When I have become Thee and Thou hast become me, when I have become body and Thou hast become soul, then, Beloved, there is no difference between 'I' and 'Thou'."

What profit does the Sufi derive from this loss of what he calls his outer personality? It is not really a loss of outer personality, it is an expansion of the outer personality to the width and height of the inner personality. Then man becomes God-man, Godconscious; outwardly he is in the universe, inwardly the universe is in him. Outwardly he is smaller than a drop, inwardly he is larger than the ocean; and in this realization the purpose of belief in God, of worshipping God, and of loving God is accomplished.

The Sufi says that since the whole of manifestation is the manifestation of love, and since God Himself is love, then it is natural that the same love which comes from the source returns to the source, and that the purpose of life is accomplished by it. Somebody asked a Sufi, "Why did God create the world?" and he said, "In order to break the monotony of loneliness." And how is that monotony broken? It is broken through God loving His creation and through His creatures loving God. We see the same love of God in all things: in the love of a mother for her child, in the love of a friend for his friend, in all the different aspects it is the same love manifesting. Outwardly it may seem human, but inwardly it is all divine.

If we come face to face with truth, it is one and the same. One may look at it from the Christian, from the Buddhist, or from the Hindu point of view, but in reality it is one point of view. One can either be small or large, either be false or true, either not know or know. As long as a person says, "When I look at the horizon from the top of the mountain I become dizzy; this immensity of space frightens me," he should not look at it. But if it does not make one dizzy it is a great joy to look at life from above; and from that position a Christian, Jew, Muslim, and Buddhist will all see the same immensity. It is not limited to those of any one faith or creed. Gradually, as they unfold themselves and give proof of their response to the immensity of the knowledge, they are asked to go forward, face to face with their Lord.

One should remember, however, that there are very few who enjoy reality compared with those who are afraid of it, and who, standing on the top of a high mountain, are afraid of looking at the immensity of space. It is the same sensation. What frightens them is the immensity of things; they seem lost and they hold on to their little self. The difficulty of this is that they not only die in the thought of mortality, but that even while they live it culminates in a kind of disease; and this disease is called self-obsession, obsession by the self. They can think of nothing but themselves, of their fears, doubts, and confusions, of all things pertaining to themselves; and in the end it turns them into their own enemy. First they look upon everybody else as their enemy because they are out of harmony with everybody, and in the end they are a burden to themselves. Such cases are not rare. Whatever religion they have, whatever faith they claim, they do not yet know what religion is. A man who professed to have no religion once said to me very profoundly, "I am happy, I have no fear!" He was spiritual though he did not know it.

One might ask if someone who has this realization can still have weaknesses. The weaknesses of the one who has gone along this path do not make him weak. It is his weaknesses which are weak, not he himself. Besides there is a saying in Hindi, "Never .judge the godly." As the eyes have a limit, so the mind has a limit. How can the unlimited soul, who is in the Unlimited, be judged by the man who looks at life from a narrow point of view? Those who arrive at an advanced stage never judge; it is the man who is at a lower stage who judges. The one who is on the top of the mountain judges no one, and therefore he is exempt from being judged.

Furthermore, when a person says, "I have not made a God, but want to love God," or when he says, "I have not loved God, but I want to know God, I want to see Him," or when he says, "I do not wish to see God, but I want to realize God," he is asking for something which is impossible. One can go through these stages either quickly or slowly, but one must pass through these four stages. And if a person has not the patience to pass through these four stages, he certainly cannot enjoy that pleasure, that happiness which is experienced by the traveller on the path of God.

In the attainment of the inner life, there are five things necessary.

1. Unlearning

The first thing that is necessary is the mastery of mind; and this is done by unlearning all that one has learned. The inner knowledge is not gained by adding to the knowledge one has already achieved in life, for it requires a rock foundation. One cannot build a house of rocks on a foundation of sand. In order to make the foundation on rocks, one has to dig into the sand and build the foundation on the rocks below.

Very often therefore it becomes difficult for an intellectual person, who through life has learned things and understood them by the power of intellect, to attain to the inner life. For these two paths are different: the one goes to the north and the other goes to the south. When a person says, "I have now walked so many miles to the south, shall I therefore reach sooner something that exists in the north?" he must know that he will not reach it sooner, but later, because as many hours as he has walked to the south he must walk back in order to reach the north.

Therefore it must be understood that all man learns and experiences in this life in the world, all that he calls learning or knowledge, is only used in the world where he is learning, and bears the same relation to himself as the eggshell does to the chick; but when he takes the path to the inner life that learning and knowledge are of no use to him. The more he is capable of forgetting that knowledge, of unlearning it, the more capable he is of attaining the object for which he treads the spiritual path. It has been a great struggle for those learned and experienced in the outer life, to think that after their great advancement in worldly knowledge they have to go back again. Often they cannot understand; many among them think it is strange, and are therefore disappointed.

It is like learning the language of a certain country, when wanting to go into another country where that language is not understood, nor the language of the latter country understood by oneself.

Just as there is the north pole and the south pole, so there is the outward and the inward life. The difference is still vaster, because the gap between the inner life and the outer life is vaster than the distance between the north pole and south pole. The one who advances to the south is not getting nearer to the north pole, but on the contrary he is going further from it; in order to reach it he must turn right round.

However, it is not difficult for the soul that is an earnest traveller on the path. It is only using the enthusiasm in the opposite direction; to turn the enthusiasm one has for learning something of the world into forgetting and unlearning it, in order to learn something of the inner life.

Now the question is, how does one unlearn? Learning is forming a knot in the mind. Whatever one learns from experience or from a person, one makes a knot of it in the mind; and there are as many knots found as there are things one has learned. Unlearning is unravelling the knot; and it is as hard to unlearn as it is to untie a knot. How much effort it requires, how much patience it requires, to unravel when one has made a knot and pulled it tight from both sides!

So it requires patience and effort to unravel the knots in the mind. And what helps the process? The light of reason working with full power unravels the mental knots. A knot is a limited reason. When one unravels it, its limitation is taken away, it is open. And when the mind becomes smooth by unlearning and by digging out all impressions, of good and bad, of right and wrong, then the ground of the heart becomes as cultivated ground, just as the land does after ploughing. All the old stumps and roots and pebbles and rocks are taken off, and it is made into ground which is now ready for the sowing of the seed. But if there are rocks and stones and bricks still scattered there, and still some of the old roots lying there, then it is difficult for the seed to be sown; the ground is not in the condition the farmer wishes it to be.

2. A Spiritual Guide

The true ideal of the spiritual person is not great power nor a great amount of knowledge. His true ideal stands beyond power and knowledge; it is that which is limitless, incomprehensible, nameless, and formless. There are no milestones to count; one cannot say, "I have gone so many miles and there are so many still before me." This does not belong to a spiritual journey. The pursuit of the limitless is limitless, of the formless, formless; one cannot make it tangible. But then what is it that assures progress, what evidence have we to go on? There is only one evidence and that is our belief; there is one assurance and that is our faith. If we believe we can go on, if we are convinced we will, we must reach our goal.

There are innumerable outer signs of one's progress, but one need not think in the absence of these signs that one is not progressing. What are these signs of progress?

1. The first is that one feels inspiration, and that things which one could not understand yesterday are easy today. Yet if there are things which one is not ready to understand one should have patience till tomorrow.

   Agitating against lack of inspiration means closing the doors to inspiration. Agitation is not allowed on this path; agitation disturbs our rhythm and paralyses us, and then we prove in the end to be our own enemy. But people will generally not admit this and blame others instead; or if they have kind feelings towards others then they blame the circumstances, although very often it is their own lack of patience rather than other people or the conditions.

2. The next sign of progress is that one begins to feel power. To some extent it may manifest physically and also mentally; and later the power may manifest in one's affairs in life. As spiritual pursuit is endless, so power has no end.

3. The third sign of progress is that one begins to feel a joy, a happiness. But in spite of that feeling it is possible that clouds of depression and despair may come from without, and one might think at that moment that all the happiness and joy which one had gained spiritually was snatched away. But that is not so. If spiritual joy could be snatched away it would not be spiritual joy. It is not like material comforts; when these are taken away from us we have lost them; but spiritual joy is ours, it is our property; no death nor decay can take it away from us. Changing clouds like those which surround the sun, might surround our joy, but when they are scattered we will find our property still there in our own heart. It is something we can depend upon, something nobody can take away from us.

4. There is another sign of progress, and that is that one becomes fearless. Whatever be the situation in life, nothing seems to frighten one any more, even death. Then one becomes fearless in all that might seem frightening, and a brave spirit develops, a spirit which gives one patience and strength to struggle against all adverse conditions however terrible they seem to be. It can even develop to such an extent that one would like to fight with death. To such a person nothing seems so horrible that he would feel helpless before it.

5. Still another sign of progress is that at times one begins to feel peaceful. This may increase so much that a restful feeling comes in the heart. One might be in the solitude, but even if one is in a crowd one still feels restful. Life in the world is most exciting; it has an effect upon a sensitive person. When one is restless the conditions in life can make one experience the greatest discomfort, for there is no greater pain than restlessness. And if there is any remedy for the lack of peace, it is spiritual progress. Once peace is developed in a soul, that soul feels such a great power and has such a great influence upon those who approach it and upon all upsetting conditions and jarring influences coming from all sides, that just as water makes the dust settle down, so all jarring influences settle down under the feet of the peaceful.

   What do we learn from the story told in the Bible of Daniel who was thrown into the lions' den, what does this story suggest? Was it Daniel's hypnotism which calmed the lions? If it was hypnotism, let the hypnotizers of today go to the lions and try the experience! No, it was his inner peace. The influence of that peace acts so powerfully upon all passions, that it even calms lions and makes them sleep.

   One may make the excuse that one's surroundings are worrying one, that one's friends are troublesome or that one's enemies are horrible; but nothing can withstand that peace which is awakened in the heart. All must calm down, all must settle down like dust after water has been sprinkled on it.

But if these powers do not come immediately to a mureed, let him not be disappointed. Can one expect this whole journey to be made in a week? I would not be surprised if many mureeds do expect this, but it is a lifelong journey and those who have really accomplished it are the ones who have never doubted that they would progress. They have never allowed this doubt to enter their minds to hinder them. They do not even concern themselves with this question. They only know that they must reach the goal, that they will reach it, and that if they do not reach it today they will reach it tomorrow. The right attitude is never to let one's mind feel, after one has taken some steps, that one must go to the right or to the left. If a man has that one strength which is faith, that is all the power he needs on the path. He can go forward and nothing will hinder him, and in the end he will accomplish his purpose.

In sanskrit three distinct words are used: Atma which means the soul or a soul, an individual, a person; Mahatma, a high soul, an illuminated being, a spiritual personality; Paramatma, the divine man, the self-realized person, the God-conscious soul. As you have read in the Gayan, "If you only explore him, there is a lot in man," so man - taken as every man - has in the spiritual spheres a very wide scope of development, a scope of development that an ordinary mind cannot imagine. The term "divine man" has always been connected with man, and very few realize that it means Godman. The reason is that certain religiously inclined people have separated so much from God that they have filled the gap between man and God with what they call religion, a faith that stands for ever as a dividing wall between God and man. To man all sins are attributed, and to God all purity. It is a good idea, but far from truth.

Atma

Now as to the first word that I have used, Atma, which means man: mankind can be divided into three principal categories. In one category man is the animal man; in another he can be the devil man, and in the third he can be the human man. A Hindustani poet has used two different words to distinguish this idea. He says, "There are many difficulties in life, for it is even difficult for man to be a person."

1. The animal man is the one who concerns himself with food and drink, and whose actions are in no way different from those of an animal, who is content with the satisfaction of his natural appetites.

2. The man who represents devilish qualities is the one in whom the ego, the self, has become so strong and so powerful-and therefore so blind-that it has almost wiped away from him any sense of gentleness, of kindness, of justice. He is the one who takes pleasure in causing harm or hurt to another person, the one who returns evil for good done to him, the one whose pleasure it is to do the wrong thing. The number of those belonging to this category is large.

3. Then there is the human man, in whom sentiment is developed. Perhaps according to the physician's idea he may not be the normal person, but from the point of view of the mystic a person who has balance between thought and sentiment, who is awakened to the feeling of another, who is conscientious about everything he does and the effect it produces upon others-that person is beginning to be a human person. In other words, even for man to be a man is not an easy thing. Sometimes it takes a lifetime.

The Mahatma

Then we come to the Mahatma, an illuminated soul. This soul looks at life from a different point of view, his outlook becomes different. He thinks about others more than about himself. His life is devoted to actions of beneficence. He expects no appreciation or reward for all that he can do for others. He does not look for praise and he is not afraid of blame. On one side connected with God, on the other side connected with the world he lives his life as harmoniously as possible.

There are three categories of Mahatmas.

The Master Mahatma

One Mahatma is busy struggling with himself and struggling with conditions before him and around him. One may ask, "Why this struggle?" The answer is that there is always a conflict between the person who wishes to go upwards and the wind that blows him downwards. The wind that blows a person downwards is continually felt. It is felt at every moment by the person who takes a step on the path of progress. It is a conflict with the self, it is a conflict with others, it is a conflict with conditions-conflicts that come from all around, till every bit of that Mahatma is tested and tried, till every bit of his patience is exhausted and his ego is ground. A hard rock is turned into a soft paste-then appears the personality of a Mahatma. As a soldier in the war has so many wounds, and still more impressions which remain in his heart as wounds, such is the condition of this warrior who goes on the spiritual path. Everything stands against him: his friends, who may not know it, his foes, conditions, the atmosphere, the self. And therefore the wounds that he has to experience through this struggle, and the impressions that he receives through it, make him a spiritual personality, a personality which becomes an influence, a power, a personality which is difficult to resist, which is overwhelming.

The Saint Mahatma

The next category of Mahatma is the one who learns his lesson by passivity, resignation, sacrifice, love, devotion and sympathy.

There is a love that is like the light of the candle: blow, and it is gone. It can only remain as long as it is not blown, it cannot withstand blowing. There is a love that is like the sun that rises and reaches the zenith, and then sets and disappears. The duration of this love is longer. And there is a love that is like 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; the lighting and the putting out of the candle does not affect intelligence.

When that something which through the winds and storms endures and through the rise and fall stands firm-when that love is created-then a person's language becomes different; the world cannot understand it. Once love has reached the Sovereign of love, it is like the water of the sea that has risen as vapor, has formed 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 the warmth it has by its atmosphere. This resigned soul of the Mahatma may appear weak to someone who does not understand, for he takes praise and blame in the same way and he takes all that is given to him, favor or disfavor, pleasure or pain-all that comes-with resignation.

The Prophet Mahatma

For the third category of these high souls there is struggle on the one hand and resignation on the other, and this is a most difficult way of progress: to take one step forwards, and another step backwards, and so to go on. There is no mobility in the progress, because 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 great Ghaznavi 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 slaves." On the one hand 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.

The Paramahatma

With the Paramatma we come to the third stage of the awakening of the consciousness, and the difference that it makes is this: an ordinary person, Atma, gives a greater importance to the world and a lesser importance to God; the illuminated person, Mahatma, gives a greater importance to God and a lesser importance to the world; but the third person, the Paramatma, gives and does not give importance to God or to the world. He is what he is. If you say, "It is all true" he says, "Yes, it is all true." If you say, "All is false and true he says, "Yes, it is all false and true." If you say, "Is it not true?" he says, "Yes, it is not true." If you say, "All is false and not true" he says, "Yes, all is false and not true." His language becomes gibberish, you can only be puzzled by it, for communication in language is better with someone who speaks your language. As soon as the other person's word has a different sense, his language is different; it is a language foreign to what you speak in your everyday life. The Paramatma's "yes" may be " no" his "no" maybe "yes": a word means nothing to him, it is the sense. And it is not that he has got the sense, he is the sense: he becomes that which the other man pursues.

The Buddhistic term Nirvana means the stage where a person arrives at God-consciousness or all-consciousness. It is at this stage that a soul arrives. And why should not man have that privilege? If man has not that privilege, how can God have it? It is through man that God realizes His perfection. As man God becomes conscious of His Godship, and it is in this gradual progress-to begin as a soul and to arrive at that realization which makes that soul a divine soul-that lies the purpose of life. The whole creation is purposed to bring about that realization. It is that realization which is recognized by the name Rasul.

You may ask, "If one soul has arrived at this realization, what is it to us?" But it is not the one: it is one and all at the same time.

A Step Forward

Very much has been written and very much has been said about the path of initiation, and people who have been in contact with various schools of occultism have understood it in different ways, and thus have different ideas as to what initiation means. But in point of fact initiation only means a step forward, a step which should be taken with hope and courage, for without courage and hope it would be most difficult to take any forward step.

If I were asked to explain the meaning of initiation in plain words, I would say that it is like the experience of a person who has never learnt how to swim, and he steps into the river or into the sea for the first time, without knowing whether he will be able to float or whether he will be swept away and drowned. Every person has had an initiation in the worldly sense in some form or other. When a business man begins an entirely new enterprise, and there is nothing to support him at this moment except the thought, "No matter whether I lose or gain, I will take a step forward, I will go into this enterprise although I do not know what will happen later", he undergoes a worldly initiation. And the first attempt of a man who wants to learn to ride, if he has never been on horseback before nor driven a horse, so that he does not know where the horse will take him--this also is an initiation.

But initiation in the real sense of the word, as it is used on the spiritual path, takes place when a person, in spite of having a religion and belief, an opinion and ideas about spiritual things, feels that he should take a step in a direction which he does not know; when he takes the first step, that is an initiation.

Ghazali, a great Sufi writer of Persia, has said that entering the spiritual path is just like shooting an arrow at a point one cannot see, so that one does not know what the arrow is going to hit; one only knows one's own action, and one does not see the point aimed at. This is why the path of initiation is difficult for a worldly man. Human nature is such that a man born into this world, who has become acquainted with the life of names and forms, wants to know everything by name and form; he wants to touch something in order to be sure that it exists. It must make an appeal to his physical senses before he thinks that it exists; without this he does not believe that anything can exist. Therefore it is difficult for him to undergo an initiation on a path which does not touch any of his senses. He does not know where he is going.

Besides man has been taught from his childhood a certain faith or belief, and he feels himself so bound to that particular faith or religion that he trembles at every step he may have to take in a direction which perhaps for a moment seems different or even opposite to what he has been taught. Therefore to take the first step on the path of initiation is difficult for a thoughtful person. No doubt a person who is driven by curiosity may jump into anything, but it is all the same to him whether he has initiation or not. However, for the one who takes initiation seriously the first step is the most difficult.

12 Initiations

Initiations, according to the mystics, are twelve in number, divided into four stages; just like the semitones in the octave, or the twelve bones in the ear. The first three initiations are the first three steps, taken with the help of a guide whom one calls in Sufi terms a Murshid, a teacher. In Vedantic terms he is called Guru. He will be someone who is walking this earth, a human being placed in the same conditions as everyone else, in the midst of active life, and subject to all trials and troubles and difficulties. The help of such a friend is the first and most important step in these first three stages of the path.

1st Initiation

In the East one will rarely find people taking the spiritual path without the guidance of a teacher, for there it is an accepted fact that these first three steps at least must be taken with the help of someone living a human life on earth. We can trace in the traditions that all the prophets, masters, saints, and sages, however great, had an initiator. In the life of Jesus Christ one reads that he was baptized by John the Baptist; and in the lives of all the other prophets and seers there was always someone, however humble or modest or human, and very often not at all comparable in greatness to those prophets, who took these first three steps with them.

But the mother is really the first initiator of all the prophets and teachers in the world; no prophet or teacher, no saint, however great, was ever born who first walked alone without the help of the mother; she had to show him how to walk.

Then there arises the question of how to find the real guru. Very often people are in doubt, they do not know whether the guru they see is a true or a false guru. Frequently a person comes into contact with a false guru in this world where there is so much falsehood. But at the same time a real seeker, one who is not false to himself, will always meet with the truth, with the real, because it is his own real faith, his own sincerity in earnest seeking that will become his torch. The real teacher is within, that lover of reality is one's own sincere self, and if one is really seeking truth sooner or later one will certainly find a true teacher. And supposing one came into contact with a false teacher, what then? Then the real one will turn the false teacher also into a real teacher, because reality is greater than falsehood.

There is a story told of a dervish, a simple man, who was initiated by a teacher, and after that teacher has passed away this man came into contact with some clairvoyant who asked him if he had guidance on his path. The man replied, "Yes, my master, who passed from this earth. When he was still alive I enjoyed his guidance for some time, so the only thing I would want now is just your blessing." But the clairvoyant said, "I see by my clairvoyant power that the teacher who has passed away was not a true teacher." When the simple man heard this he would not allow himself to be angry with the other, but he said gently, "This teacher of mine may be false, but my faith is not false, and that is sufficient."

As there is water in the depths of the earth so there is truth at the bottom of all things, false or true. In some places one has to dig deep, in other places only a short distance, that is the only difference, but there is no place where there is no water. One may have to dig very, very deep in order to get it, but in the depths of the earth there is water, and in the depths of all this falsehood which is on the surface there is truth. If we are really seeking for the truth we shall always find it at some time or other. The one who wants to protect himself from being misguided shows a certain tendency, a kind of weakness, which comes from thinking deep in himself that there is no right guidance. If he realizes that right guidance is to be found in himself, he will always be rightly guided; and his power will become so great that if his guide is going wrong, the power of the pupil will help him to go right, because the real Teacher is in the heart of man. The outward teacher is only a sign.

A Persian poet has said that he who is a lost soul, even if he is in the presence of a Savior, will be lost just the same, because his own clouds are surrounding him. It is not a question of a guide or teacher; the obscurity which his own mind creates surrounds him and keeps him blind. What then can a teacher do?

According to a story about the Prophet Mohammed, there lived next door to him a man who was very much opposed to the Prophet and spoke against him; and this man saw that the people to whom he spoke had belief in the Prophet, while nobody believed in him. Then years passed, and many believed and many gave their life for the message of the Prophet; and it so happened that eventually a great many people came from afar, thousands and thousands from different countries, to visit the Prophet. The same man still lived in the neighborhood, but he had never altered his opinion. And one day someone asked the Prophet, "Why does this man, who has known the day when nobody listened, when nobody followed you, but who now sees that thousands of people who come here are benefited and filled with bliss and joy and blessing, still continue to criticize you and to oppose you?" And the Prophet said, "His heart has become a fountain of obscurity; he produces from his own self the clouds which surround him; he cannot see." And he was sorry for him.

The perception of the light shows the thinning of the veil that covers the heart, and the thinner the veil becomes, the greater is the power of the light within.

2nd Initiation

The next step, the second step in initiation, is to go through the tests that the teacher gives. In this initiation there is a great deal that is amusing, if one thinks about it. It is like looping the loop; sometimes the teacher gives the pupil such tests that he does not know where he is, or whether a thing is true or false.

There was a great Sufi teacher in India who had a thousand adherents who were most devoted pupils. One day he said to them, "I have changed my mind." And the words "changed my mind" surprised them greatly; they asked him, "What is the matter, how can it be that you have changed your mind?" He said, "I have the feeling that I must go and bow before the Goddess Kali." And these people, among whom were doctors and professors, well qualified people, could not understand this whim, that their great teacher in whom they had such faith, wished to go into the temple of Kali and bow before the Goddess of the hideous face, he, a God-realized man in whom they had such confidence! And the thousand disciples left him at once, thinking "What is this? It is against the religion of the formless God, against the teaching of this great Sufi himself, that he wants to worship the Goddess Kali!"

And there remained only one pupil, a youth who was very devoted to his teacher, and he followed him when he went to the temple of Kali. The teacher was very glad to get rid of these thousand pupils, who were full of knowledge, full of their learning, but who did not really know him; it was just as well that they should leave. And as they were going towards the temple, he spoke three times to this young man, saying "Why do you not go away? Look at these thousand people, who had such faith and such admiration, and now I have said just one word, and they have left me. Why do you not go with them? The majority is right." The pupil, however, would not go, but continued to follow him. And through all this the teacher received great inspiration and a revelation of how strange human nature is, how soon people are attracted and how soon they can fly away. It was such an interesting phenomenon for him to see the play of human nature that his heart was full of feeling, and when they arrived at the temple of Kali he experienced such ecstasy that he fell down and bowed his head low. And the young man who had followed him did the same.

When he got up he asked this young man again, "Why do you not leave me when you have seen a thousand people go away? Why do you follow me?" The young man answered, "There is nothing in what you have done that is against my convictions, because the first lesson you have taught me was that nothing exists save God. If that is true, then that image is not Kali; it too is God. What does it matter whether you bow to the East or to the West or to the earth or to heaven? Since nothing exists except God, there is nobody else except God before whom to bow, even in bowing before Kali. It was the first lesson you taught me." All these learned men were given the same lesson, they were students and very clever, but they could not conceive of that main thought which was the center of all the teaching. It was this same young man who later became the greatest Sufi teacher in India, Khwaja Moin-ud-Din Chishti. Every year thousands of people of all religions make pilgrimages to his tomb at Ajmer, Hindus, Mohammedans, Jews, and Christians. To the Sufi all religions are one.

There are tests of many kinds that the teacher may give to his pupil to test his faith, his sincerity, his patience. Before a ship puts to sea the captain goes and makes sure that everything is in order for the voyage; and such is the duty of the teacher. Of course it is a very interesting duty. Besides the path of the mystic is a very complex path. What he says may perhaps have two meanings: the outer meaning is one and the inner meaning is another. What he does may also have two meanings, an outer and an inner meaning, and a person who only sees things outwardly cannot perceive the inner meaning. Because he only sees their outer aspect, he cannot understand his own teacher's action, thought, speech, or movement. It is in this way that the pupil is tested.

Thus to the pupil the teacher may often appear to be very unreasonable, very odd, very meaningless, very unkind and cold and unjust. And during these tests, if the faith and the trust of the pupil do not endure he will step back from this second initiation, but if he endures through all this then comes the third step, the third initiation.

3rd Initiation

The third initiation consists of three stages: receiving the knowledge attentively; meditating upon all one has received patiently; assimilating all the outcome of it intelligently. Thereby the mission of the teacher in this world is completed. Gratitude still remains, but the principal work is finished.

4th Initiation

The fourth initiation the seeker gets from his ideal. And who is this ideal, who can give this initiation? No living creature on earth, however great, can prove to be the ideal of anyone else; he may for a certain time, but not for ever. The great ones like Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ, and Krishna, who have been the ideal of humanity for thousands of years, when did they become the ideal? During their lifetime? During their lifetime they gave a sense of being the ideal, they left impressions which afterwards proved them to be the ideal, but during their lifetime they could not prove it. Why is this? The reason is that even perfect man is limited in the imperfect garb of humanity. The human limitation covers perfection. However great, however deep, however spiritual a person is, with all his goodness, with all his inspiration and power, he remains limited. His thought, speech, word, and action are all limited. A man cannot make himself as his pupil imagines him. Imagination goes further than the progress of man; the imagination of every person is his own, and therefore one can only make one's ideal oneself.

No one has the power to make the ideal of another person, and therefore it is the impression of the great saviours of humanity, it is their goodness, it is whatever little grain of an ideal they have left behind them that becomes just like a seed, and that seed put into the soil of the devotee's heart develops into a plant and bears fruit and flowers as it is reared. So in this fourth initiation there is this ideal of man's imagination. He may call it Christ or Buddha, he may call it Mohammed or Moses or Zoroaster; it is his ideal; it is he who has made it; it is his savior, and certainly it will save him if he considers it to be his savior. But he has to make it; if he does not make it, the savior will not save him. When once he has made his savior, then he is face to face with that perfection which his heart has created; then this impression of Christ or Buddha with which he has impressed himself flowers and grows into a tree, and bears the flowers and fruit which he has desired. No doubt this initiation is a phenomenon in itself. Once this initiation is received man begins to radiate, to radiate his initiator who is within him as his ideal.

5th Initiation

Then there is the second stage which is the fifth initiation. And in the fifth initiation man does not imagine his ideal, but finds his ideal a living entity within himself, a friend who is always close to him, within him; he can just bow his head and see his friend-he is there. To the real devotees of Christ, Christ is near, as near as they are to themselves to their own self. In times of trouble, in difficulties, he is always there.

6th Initiation

The third stage, which is the sixth initiation, is the one where Christ speaks, where Christ acts; the acts of the initiate become the actions of Christ, his speech becomes the speech of Christ. And when one has arrived at that initiation one need not declare before humanity how greatly one loves one's Lord or Savior or Master; the initiate himself becomes a proof, his life, his word, his action, his feeling, his attitude, his outlook.

Life is such that no falsehood, no pretense can endure, nothing false can go far; it will only go a step and then it will tumble down; it is only the real which will go on. And the more real something is, the less it expresses itself. It is lack of reality that makes a person say: he is so and so, he has such great love for God; or he is so spiritual or pious or clairvoyant, or he has such psychic power. When one sees one does not need to say that one sees, everybody will notice that one is not blind.

But how different it is today, when so many people ask, "Are you clairvoyant, can you see?" And if they say they do, what do they see? They have perhaps seen some color or some light here and there, or something peculiar, which means nothing. Perhaps it is their imagination. And then there are others who encourage them and make them still more crazy; and people feed their pride by telling others how much they see. But when one begins to see one cannot speak about it, it is something which cannot be told. How could one? When one sees with the eyes of Christ one can only see, when one hears with the ears of Christ one can only hear; there is nothing to be said.

7th Initiation

The further initiation, which is the seventh, is the initiation in God.

There is an account in the story of Rabia, a great Sufi. Once in her vision she saw the Prophet, and the Prophet asked her, "Rabia, to whom have you given your devotion?" And Rabia said, "To God." And the Prophet said, "Not to me?" And Rabia said, "Yes, Prophet, you include God, but it is God I gave my devotion to."

There comes a stage where a person even rises above the ideal he has made. He rises to that perfect Ideal which is beyond the human personality, which is the perfect Being. In this initiation one rises to the spheres where one sees no other than God.

8th Initiation

In the second stage, which is the eighth initiation, one communicates with God, so that God becomes to the initiate a living entity; God is then no longer an ideal or an imagination, no longer one whom he has made; the One whom he once made has now become alive--a living God. Before this there was belief in God, there was worship of Him; perhaps He was made in the imagination; but in this stage God becomes living. And what a phenomenon this is! This stage is a miracle in itself. The God-realized person need not speak of or discuss the name of God; his presence will inspire the sense of God in every being, and charge the atmosphere with it. Everyone that meets him, whether he is spiritual or moral or religious or without religion, will feel God in some form or other.

The prophets and the holy ones who have come from time to time to give the world a religion, an ideal, have not brought any new ideas; they have not brought a new belief in God, because belief in God has always existed in some form or other. What they brought was a living God. When there remained no more than God's name in the scripture or in the people's imagination or on the lips of the followers of a certain religion, and when that name began to become a profane name, a vain repetition, then such souls were born on the earth and brought with them a living God. If they gave anything else to humanity, either law, ethics, or morals, these were secondary. The principal thing that they gave to the world was a living God.

9th Initiation

The ninth initiation is what is called in Sufi terms Akhlak-e Allah, which means the Manner of God. The one who touches that plane or that realization expresses in his manner the manner of God; his outlook on life is God's outlook; his action, his thought, and his word are God's action, thought, and word. Therefore what the prophets spoke was Kalam-ullah, the Word of God, as for instance the Bhagavad Gita which means the Song Celestial. Why? Because at this stage God himself speaks. These holy ones became that perfect Spirit and were moved by it. They became actors, for their action was no longer their own action; it was the action of God. Their word was no longer a human word; it was the word of God.

10th Initiation

Very few arrive at the last three initiations in their lifetime, for after the first nine initiations begins what is called the phase of self-realization. When those who have not arrived at this stage begin to utter affirmations such as "I am God", they utter nothing but vain repetitions, and this obscures the God-ideal. They do not know what they are saying. If people only knew to what an extent they should be authorized before speaking about such things, they would be very careful about what they say.

When after having gone through all the other stages of consciousness one arrives at this stage, one can speak very little; for it is beyond the stage of religion and even beyond the notion of God; it is the stage of self-expression. This stage of self-expression is reached when a person has thoroughly dug his self out, so that nothing of the self is left but only that divine substance; and only then is he authorized to express himself. Thus the tenth initiation is the awakening of the real self, the real ego, and this awakening is brought about by meditation, the meditation which makes one forget one's false or limited self. The more one is able to forget it, the more the real self awakens.

11th Initiation

In the next stages one experiences a sensation of splendor, which in Persian is called Hairat. It is like when a child is born and begins to see everything new: this old world is seen by the child as a new world. As soon as the point of view is changed by the help of meditation, one sees the whole world, which is before everybody and which everybody is seeing, quite differently. One begins to see reason behind reason, cause behind cause, and one's point of view also changes in regard to religion. It changes because where the average man would want to accuse or punish or blame a person for a certain action, the one who has risen to this stage can neither judge nor blame; he only sees; but he sees the cause behind the cause. Whom then shall he accuse?

Whom shall he blame? How can he refrain from forgiving, whatever be the fault, when he sees all that is behind the fault, when he sees the reason behind it, perhaps a more valid reason than even the one who committed the fault can see himself. Therefore naturally the manner of continually sacrificing, the manner of spontaneous love and sympathy, the manner of respect both for the wise and foolish, for the deserving and the undeserving, arises and expresses itself as divine life. It is at this stage that the human soul touches perfection and becomes divine, and that it fulfills its real purpose in life.

Steps 4-6

When the time comes that the intoxication of life begins to diminish and man begins to look at life differently, what comes first is a kind of depression, a kind of disappointment in things and beings. He thinks that all he had considered valuable has lost its value and importance. He begins to see falsehood behind all he had thought was so real and a kind of depression, of disappointment and bitterness begins to come over him. Be not surprised if a thoughtful person shows disappointment and changes his point of view about things he once considered valuable and important. His looking at things from a different point of view is natural.

No doubt those who surround him begin to say, "These are the dishes you enjoyed so much, these the things you valued so much a few months ago. What has happened? Some change has come over you!" It is so, a change has come and the person has taken a step forwards. This change, this sort of disappointment he may show more or less. The more thoughtful the person the less he shows it, and the less thoughtful the more he shows bitterness: it is according to his evolution. One person shows his disappointment in tears, another in smiles. The one who shows it in smiles is superior; it is the way one should take in life.

Step 7

Another step leads to the stage of bewilderment. He who has arrived at that stage is no more depressed or disappointed, but amazed at things about which ordinarily no one would be amazed. He is amazed because his eyes are open. Others see the same things, but their eyes are closed, so the same experience does not touch them. This person feels it and wonders about it. There is a continual bewilderment, and what causes it most is human nature, every aspect of human nature, its every turn and twist and its many phenomena. He looks at life, and it becomes so interesting. He need not seek solitude, he stands in the midst of the crowd and yet may enjoy every rub and knock. Every experience, all things amaze him and only make him smile and wonder. All such words as kindness, goodness, love, infatuation, connection have a different meaning for him.

One might ask, "Does he become critical and cynical?" No, since he understands, he is much beyond cynicism and criticism, but there is bewilderment, continual amazement at his every experience from morning till evening.

Step 8

Then there is a third stage: as the soul evolves further a man begins to see reason behind reason. So he sees several reasons, one hidden behind the other. There is a reason for everything, whether agreeable or disagreeable, right or wrong.

Naturally he then can no more blame one soul in this world; he cannot blame the worst sinner, behind everything he sees its reason. If he sees a thousand reasons in support of someone, whether it is right or wrong, there is nothing for him to say. This makes him naturally tolerant, compassionate, forgiving-not because he thinks that it is kind to forgive, or good to be compassionate or because it is his principle to be tolerant. He is obliged to be so, his inner inclination cannot help being compassionate, cannot but forgive, as in the case of Jesus Christ. When people brought those who were accused of wrongdoings according to the law before the Master, he said, "God will forgive you." There is not one instance in the life of Christ when he took revenge on anyone, or blamed a person.

Step 9

When a man has understood the reason of all things and develops still further, then comes the realm of sympathy. Then naturally he has no blame for anybody, and that attitude culminates in harmlessness. Buddha says, "The essence of religion is harmlessness, and the moment you have become harmless, you have understood religion." What is harmlessness? People know so little about it. They think that being harmful means killing someone. But everyone has a meaning of his own for every word.

There was a soldier who heard people speaking about kindness and asked, "What is kindness?" They explained to him that it is an attitude and he said, "Once I practiced kindness; my horse was ill and I killed it. A feeling of kindness came over me and I killed it."

When one rises above this realm of forgiveness there comes a natural outpouring of sympathy. At that time a person becomes really sympathetic, for then to feel sympathy is no more his moral, it is his nature; it is not felt intentionally but automatically. There will be an outpouring of sympathy towards everyone who comes into the radiance and atmosphere of such a person.

Many people say, "Is it not a weakening of the character to become so gentle and sympathetic? Is it not against practical life where we have to be vigorous, hard and crude in order to stand the hardness of life? is it advisable to be so fine, kind and gentle that everyone can get the better of us?" Education today is quite contrary to this idea. The tendency of education is not to let our affairs or ourselves be shaken by the selfish ones of this world among whom we move and who might get the better of us. This is right, but at the same time if each person prepares himself in this way and harms others, without intervention it must end in battle. The manifestation is not made for battle, but we have made it a battleground.

The meaning of Adam's exile from paradise, when he was sent into the world of toil, is the same. Man was born to enjoy the harmony and beauty of life, to experience what life means, but he has made paradise into a battlefield, into this world of conflict. It is not so that Adam was exiled, Adam turned paradise into a battlefield? Is it not so that we have made life difficult for ourselves? Is it the pleasure of God that life should be so difficult for us? In professional life, in the life of science or art, of business, commerce or politics, in all aspects there is nothing but continual struggle. If one looks with open eyes, one sees that every new born child will have to find this trouble. It is a struggle!

Step 10

There will come a time before long when it will be difficult to live in this world. Only some few people, very well equipped for strife and struggle and most inclined to conflict, will be able to exist. When today we look with wide-open eyes we see this aspect more keenly. There is no direction of life where it is smooth; it is more and more difficult every moment of the day. There is nothing but competition and conflict, and when there is one manner of action and one rhythm going on throughout the whole of manifestation, those few cannot help having to go through this same way, because life in the world is a mechanism; we have to run in the same way. Besides, even if we know how disadvantageous life proves to be at the present time, do you think that we can strike another line? Life is put into a mechanism; we cannot make another way out of it.

The number of lives that has been made miserable and disturbed is so enormous that if we thought about it we would be most unhappy to see their condition. There are many who think that a better time may be brought about by making unions, communities and different brotherhoods. But this cannot be brought about by small efforts. Besides, in such unions and parties struggle again begins, one being against the other.

What is most necessary at this time is spiritual awakening of the generality, and every effort should be made to awaken this ideal, to lift the spiritual ideal, to bring peace that will remain and last. It is a mission that can be worthwhile. Everyone of us can do it if we think sufficiently about it. In our own lives - be it in business in politics, or in education - whatever small service we can do we should always render.

The main thing we can do is to awake; to awaken ourselves and those around us to a high ideal, to a greater realization of life, and a deeper understanding of truth.

1. The Work of the Mind

The three stages towards this perfection are the following. The first stage is to make God as great and as perfect as your imagination can. It is in order to help man to perfect God in himself that the teachers gave various prayers, the prayers to God, calling Him the Judge, the Forgiver, most Compassionate, most Faithful, most Beautiful, most Loving. All these attributes are our limited conceptions. God is greater than what we can say about Him.

And when by all these conceptions and by our imagination we make God as great as we are able to, it must still be understood that God cannot be made greater than He is. We cannot give God pleasure by making Him great.

But by making God great we ourselves arrive at a certain greatness; our vision widens, our deepens, our ideal reaches higher. We create a greater vision, a wider horizon, for our own expansion. We should, therefore, by way of prayer, by praise, by contemplation, make God as great as we can possibly imagine.

The truth behind this is that a person who sees good points in others and wants to add what is lacking in others, becomes nobler everyday. By making others noble, by thinking good of others, he himself becomes nobler and better than those of whom he thinks good; and the one who thinks evil of others in time becomes wicked, for he covers up the good in him and produces thus the vision of evil.

Therefore the first stage and the first duty of every seeker after truth is to make God as great as possible, for his own good, because he is making an ideal within himself; he is building within himself that which will make him great.

2. The Work of the Heart

The second stage is the work of the heart. The first is of the head. To make God great intellectually, with thought and imagination, is really the painter's work, but still more important is the work of the heart.

In our everyday life we see the phenomenon of love.

The first lesson that love teaches us is: "I am not; thou art." The first thing to think of is to erase ourselves from our minds and to think of the one we love. As long as we do not arrive at this idea, so long the word love remains only in the dictionary. Many speak about love but very few know it. Is love a pastime, an amusement, a drama; is it a performance? The first lesson of love is sacrifice, service, self-effacement.

There is a little story of a peasant girl who was passing through a field where a Muslim was offering his prayers. And the law was that no one should pass by a place where somebody was praying. After a time this girl returned by the same way, and the man said, "O girl, what a terrible thing you have done today." She was shocked and asked, "What did I do?" He said, "You passed by this way! It is a great sin. I was praying, thinking of God!" She said, "Were you thinking of God? I was going to see my young man! I did not see you; how did you see me when you were thinking of God?'

To close the eyes for prayer is one thing, and to produce the love of God is another thing. That is the second stage in spiritual realization; where in the thought of God one begins to lose oneself the same way that the lover loses the thought of self in the thought of the beloved.

3. Self-Realization

And the third stage is different again. In the third stage the beloved becomes the self, and the self is there no more. For then the self, as we think it to be, no longer remains; the self becomes what it really is. It is that realization which is called self-realization.