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The Deeper Side of Life Life can be looked at from two points of view: from the point of view which sees the outline and from the point of view which sees the detail. With the point of view by which one sees the general outline of life one soars upwards continually and one attains to the knowledge of life's synthesis. This is the view of life of the one who is looking from the top of a high mountain. As to the one who sees into life's details, naturally his horizon becomes smaller, his outlook narrower. He makes the analysis of life and so becomes acquainted with the details of life. The former point of view gives insight into a wider horizon and lifts the consciousness to a higher realization, whereas the latter point of view gives knowledge in the details of life, which one calls learning. Therefore learning is one thing, knowing is another thing. Learning without knowing is incomplete knowledge, knowing without learning is not satisfactory either. The knower can best explain his knowledge if he has learning. The mystics of all ages have raised their consciousness to view the outline of life in the wide horizon and have felt upliftment being raised high above all the miseries of life. Those who have ever reached that stage of consciousness have only reached it by right meditation under the guidance of masters of spiritual culture. In these modern times people consider an intellectual life or a life of manual labor a normal life. A practical man is considered a man of common sense, and common sense reaches no further than its limited boundaries. A practical man is the one who knows best how to guard his material interests in the continual struggle of life. Common sense sees no further than it sees. Many call it positivism only to believe in all that proves to be realistic to our higher senses and in all that can be perceived, felt and experienced by our mind. For this reason, in spite of great and unceasing progress in the material world, we have closed the doors to another world of progress, a progress that can only be made by opening the doors to the deeper side of life. Man, by his form and features, by his physical construction, looks at one side and covers the other side with his own self. Man sees before him, but not behind him. As he is made so by nature and it happens to be his nature, he therefore cannot look into the deeper side while absorbed in the life on the surface. Since there is faith these days, but absence of inner life, there seems to be a greater need of the inner life than there has ever been before. It is the head quality which is developed and it is the heart quality which needs to be developed in order to bring balance in life. Life, so balanced, is then prepared for the inner culture or spiritual life. Many consider sentiment something quite unimportant, something that should be kept aside from the central theme of life today which is intellectuality. No one who has given a thought to the deeper side of life will deny for one moment the power and inspiration that manifest themselves once the heart is kindled. A person with heart quality need not be simple, he need not discard intellect; only, the heart quality produces that perfume in the intellect which is as fragrance in a flower. Morals learned from logic are dry morals, a fruit without juice, a flower without fragrance. It is the heart quality that as a course of nature produces virtues which no one can teach; a loving person, a person with sympathy in his heart, teaches morals through himself. It is the balance of mind and heart, or the balance of thought and feeling that makes the ground ready for sowing the seed of the inner life. There are three steps which one must take in order to come to spiritual life. The first step is knowledge of the nature and character of man. A seeker takes his first step in the path of truth when he is able to understand his fellow-man fully and when he is able to find the solution to his problems. The next step is to have insight into the nature of things and beings, to understand cause and effect and to be able to find the cause of the cause and the effect of the effect, to be able to see the reason of the reason and the logic of the logic. When a person is able to see the good of the bad and the bad side of the good, and when he is able to see the wrong side of the right and the right of the wrong, then he has taken the next step on the spiritual path. The third step is to rise above the pains and pleasures of life, to be in the world and not of the world, to live and not to live at the same time. Such a one becomes a living dead person, in other words: a dead person living for ever. Immortality is not to be sought in the hereafter; if it is ever gained it is gained in one's lifetime. In this third stage of development one is able to attain happiness, power, knowledge, life and peace within oneself, independently of all things outside. The spiritual knowledge which has always been sought by the wakened souls will always be sought by them. In ancient times the seekers looked for a guide on this path, the guide who initiated them into the mysteries of the deeper side of life, and once the secret was revealed it no longer remained a mystery for them. The man who is not yet awakened to the inner side of life has not experienced life fully. He has only seen one side of life—perhaps the more interesting side, but the less real. The one who has experienced both sides of life, the outer and the inner, has certainly fulfilled the purpose of his life on earth. Man the Seed of God There are various ideas and beliefs as to the relation between God and man, and it is natural that there should be various beliefs, for every man has his own conception-his own conception of God. There is no comparison between God and man. The reason is that man, being limited, can be compared with another being; God, being perfect, is beyond comparison. The prophets and masters in all ages have tried their best to give man some idea of God's Being, but this has always been difficult, for it is impossible to define God in words; it is like trying to put the ocean into a bottle. However large a bottle, it can never accommodate the ocean. The words that we use in our everyday language are the names of limited forms, and for our convenience we give a name to God—the one who is above name and form. If there is any possibility of understanding God and His Being—it is only possible by finding the relation between man and God. Why is this lecture called “Man the seed of God”? Because it is this picture which gives to some extent that idea of the relationship which exists between man and God. There is a root, there is a stem, there are branches and there are leaves—there comes a flower. But in the heart of the flower there is something which tells the history of the whole plant. One might say that it is for the flower that the plant was purposed, but really speaking it is the seed coming into the heart of the flower which continues the species of the plant. It is that seed which is the secret of the plant, which is the source and the goal of that plant. It is that seed which was the beginning; it is from out of that seed that the root came, that the seedling came out—and so it became a plant. Then that seed disappeared, but after the coming of the leaves and branches and the flowers it appeared again. It appeared again-not as one seed but as several seeds, in multiplicity, and yet it is the same, and it is this seed which told us the story that first was the seed, and then the whole plant appeared. Towards what goal? For what result? In order to come again as the result of the whole plant. The man of simple belief, the man who believes only in his particular idea-for him there is no relation between God and man. But the man who wishes to understand the relation between man and God—for him the proof of this argument is to be found in everything. It is this idea which is spoken of in the Bible in the words where it is said, “In Our image We have created man.” If the seed out of which the plant came and which appeared in the result had said, “Out of my own image I have created the seed which will come forth from the heart of the flower” it would have been the same thing. Only that seed out of which the plant came could have said, “I shall appear in plurality, although in the beginning I am one grain It is this idea again which tells us the reason why it is said, “We have created man in Our image when the whole of manifestation, the whole of creation has come from God. The leaf, the branch, the stem—all have come out of the seed, but they are not the image of the seed. The image of the seed is the seed itself, and not only this, but the essence of the seed is in the seed. No doubt there is some energy, some power, some color, some fragrance in the flower, in the leaves and in the stem, but at the same time all properties that are in the stem, flower, petal and leaves are to be found in the grain. This shows us the result: that man is the culmination of the whole creation, and in him the whole universe is manifested. The mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom are all to be found in the being, in the spirit of man. It not only means that the different properties such as mineral and vegetable are to be found in the physical body that is made for man, but also his mind and his heart show all the different qualities. The heart is Just like a fertile soil or a barren desert: it shows love or lack of love, the productive faculty or destructiveness. There are different kinds of stones; there are precious stones and there are pebbles and rocks, and so among human hearts there is a still greater variety. Think of those whose thoughts, whose feelings have proved to be more precious than anything the world can offer: the poets, the artists, the inventors, the thinkers, the philosophers, and then the servants of humanity, the inspirers of man, the benefactors of mankind. No wealth, no precious stone, whether diamond or ruby, can be compared with these, and yet it is the same quality. Then there are rocklike hearts: one may knock against them and break oneself—yet they will not move. There is a waxlike quality in the heart and there is the quality of the stone; there are melting hearts, and hearts which will never melt. Is there anything in nature which is not to be found in man? Has he not in his feelings, in his thoughts, in his qualities the picture of running water, a picture of a fertile soil and a picture of fruitful trees? Is there not in the heart of man the picture of plants, of fragrant flowers? The flowers that come from the human heart live longer, their fragrance will spread throughout the whole world, and their color will be seen by all people. How delicious are the fruits that human hearts can bear; they immortalize souls and lift them up! There are other mentalities wherein nothing springs up except the desire to hurt and harm their fellow-men, thus producing the fruits and flowers of poison, hurting others by thought, speech or action—and they can hurt more than thorns. There are some whose feelings, whose thoughts are like gold and silver and there are others whose thoughts are just like iron and steel. The variety that one can see in human nature is so vast that all the objects one can get from this earth are too small in number if compared with it. Does man show in his nature, in his qualities, in his body, in his thought and feeling only the heritage of this earth? No, he also shows that of heaven. Man has the influence of the planets, he has the influences of the moon, of the sun, of heat and cold, of air, water and fire: of all the different elements which make this whole cosmic system. All these elements are to be found in his thoughts, in his feelings, in his body. One can find a person with warmth, representing fire; another person is cold, he represents water. There are human beings who in their thought, in their feeling represent the air element; their quickness, their restlessness show the air element in them. Does not man represent the sun and moon in his positive and negative character, and does not duality of sex show this? Not only this, but in every man and in every woman there is the sun quality and there is the moon quality, and it is these two opposite qualities which give balance to the character of man. When one quality is most predominant, and the other not to be found, then balance is lacking somewhere. If one goes still further in the thought of mysticism one will find that not only all the visible manifestation to be found in man, but also all that is invisible. If angels or fairies or ghosts or elementals-anything that man has imagined can be found anywhere, it is in human nature. In all times one finds pictures of angels in the image of man. If all that exists in the world and in heaven is to be found in man, then what remains? God Himself has said in the scriptures, “I have made man in My own image.” In other words, “If you wish to see Me, I am to be found in man.” How thoughtless on the part of the one who, absorbed in his high ideals, begins to condemn man, to look down upon man, however low and weak and a sinner man may be! Since in man there is the possibility of rising so high as nothing else in the whole manifestation can rise-whether something on the earth or any being in heaven-none can reach that height which man is meant to reach. What point of view, therefore, had the mystics, the thinkers of all ages? One can see their point of view in their manner: a respectful attitude to all men. In the example of the life of Jesus Christ, the master of mankind—what compassion one can see when a sinner was brought before him, someone who had done wrong-what forgiveness the master showed! There was tolerance, there was understanding. A man can be called religious or pious, but he cannot be called truly spiritual or wise when he has contempt towards his fellow-man, whatever be his condition. The man who has no respect for mankind, has no worshipful attitude towards God—he may be the most religious person. The man who has not recognized the image of God in man, has not seen the Artist who has made this creation; he has deprived himself of this vision which is sacred and most holy. A person who thinks that man is earthly does not know where his soul comes from. The soul comes from above; it is in the soul of man that God is reflected. The man who has hatred, contempt, whatever be his belief, faith, or religion, has not understood the secret of all religions which is in the heart of man. And certainly, however good a person, however virtuous he may be, if at the same time he has no tolerance, no forgiveness, if he does not recognize God in man, he has not touched religion. No doubt there is another side to the question. As man evolves, so he finds the limitations, the errors and the infirmities of human nature, and so it becomes difficult for him to live in the world and to withstand all that comes. Also it becomes very difficult for man to be fine, to be good, to be kind, to be sensitive, and at the same time to be tolerant. What then comes as a tendency is to push away everything, and to find oneself away from everybody and every being. But the purpose of being born on earth is different. The purpose of being born on earth is to find that perfection which is within oneself. And however good and kind a man may be, if he has not found the purpose for which he is born on earth, he has not fulfilled the object of his life. There are as many different aspects of that purpose as there are people in the world, but behind all these different aspects there is one purpose. It is that purpose which may be called the purpose of the whole creation. That purpose is Accomplished when the inventor looks at his invention working. When the great architect builds the house which he has designed, and enters it and sees how nicely it is achieved, the purpose is accomplished. When a producer of a play has produced the play he desired and looks at it, that is the purpose. Every man seems to have his purpose, but this purpose is nothing but a step to that which is the one purpose, which is the purpose of God. Our small desires, if they are granted today, to-morrow we will have another wish. Whatever be the desire, when it is granted, next day there is another desire. This shows that the whole of humanity, that every soul, is directed towards one desire, and that is the object of God: a fuller experience of life within and without, a fuller knowledge of life, the life above and below. It is the widening of the outlook: that it may be so wide that in the soul, which is vaster than the world, all may be reflected; that the sight may become so keen that it may probe the depths of the earth and the highest of the heavens. It is herein that lies the fulfillment of the soul. And the soul who will not make every effort possible, with every sacrifice for the attainment of this, that soul has not understood religion. What is the Sufi message? It is esoteric training, working and practicing through life towards that attainment which is as the fulfillment of the object of God. Man the seed of God-it is in this secret that man finds the key that has been lost. This loss shows why the religions of the world seem to be losing their hold upon people, in the Eastern part of the world as well as in the West. Why is there an increasing number of ungodly? Why is materialism ever on the increase? The answer is that man has lost the key which opens the secret of life. It is God who is the key to this secret. During my travelling of some years throughout the Western world I found in every part of the civilized world people getting tired not only of religion but also of belief in God. It seems that the deity's name is repellent to an advanced thinker. He thinks that this is something which was a creed of the past: “The ancient people who did not know life better had some certain idea and now we are too advanced to hold on to the ideas of the past.” Very few admit it and many will not say it, but almost all know it. In the East perhaps it is different, but the whole world moves on in the same direction. If the direction of humanity is a material one then the whole world goes in this material direction; if it is a spiritual direction naturally the whole world must go in the spiritual direction. In spite of all material progress which has raised the value of civilization so high in the eyes of the new generation, it could not keep to its pedestal; it fell down during the war. It has made the thinking world consider, at least for a moment, that the civilization it had thought to be the best has not proved to be the best. No just person, a person with some thought, will deny the fact after having reflected upon it. If we ask ourselves, “Has the world advanced?” no doubt the answer will be, “Yes.” The new inventions which have brought about the miraculous phenomena that have brought all countries closer in communication by telegraphy, telephone and wireless all show that humanity has progressed-but only progressed in a certain direction, a progress which cannot bring all satisfaction. It can only bring outer happiness and pleasure, but the inner happiness remains to be found. It might seem to be the saying of a simple believer that in belief in God is the remedy of all diseases, but I should declare that even the wisest person can claim the same after having arrived at a certain realization of life's secret. Now coming to our subject “Man the Seed of God.” If we ask ourselves what is the definition of the seed, we find that the seed is not only the beginning of the plant, but the seed is the end of the plant's destiny too, because the plant is meant to bring out the seed. When we consider the whole manifestation as a plant then in all the different grades in which it has manifested we find that the final thing was the bringing out of man. One may say in connection with a plant that the stem sprung up first, then the leaves, then came the flower, and from the flower came the seed. One may say the same thing in connection with the whole manifestation: there was the mineral, then the vegetable, then the animal, but in the end it finished in man. Scientists today say to have discovered that human life comes from the animal life, but hundreds of years earlier, in the scriptures of Persia, we can find statements which give the proof of them having known this idea. What does this idea tell us? It tells us that this whole creation was intended to bring about a certain purpose, one purpose. But because every man is not capable of understanding this purpose this incapability brings about life's catastrophes. If a majority understands the purpose then the minority follows, but if those who know the purpose are in minority then the majority may have their thought. If I were to explain the picture of the material conditions of the world which directed man to such occupations as war and disasters and bloodshed, besides the hatred between  nations and races, one would understand that these all come from the lack of understanding of that one secret. Knowing this the great souls like Buddha and Krishna have all tried their utmost to explain it. For instance in the Lord's Prayer one reads, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” If only one could understand the meaning behind these words! It is the whole of philosophy, for it makes one know and understand that this only means that, if every man has his purpose separate from that of another, there will always be lack of order and peace, both outwardly and inwardly. Why do wars come? Why do differences arise? Because of the differences of purpose. When nations have their different purpose, when every individual has his different purpose then there will be no unity. At the same time it is unnatural too, for the purpose of every tree is to bring about the seed, and so the purpose of all nations and of each individual—the final purpose-is to bring about that seed which is the source of this whole manifestation. It is not the trees which have declared God, nor the mountains; neither have the birds taught the gospel, nor the animals preached religion. If ever this has been taught, if ever God has been brought to the idea of mankind, it has been brought by man. It is not only one man's right, but it is the right of everyone to bring about that source, the source out of which all has come. Do not think that I mean by this that one must not carry out one's occupations in life. What I mean is that one must think with every occupation, everything one does, that the finishing of it is not the only aim. Man's aim is to bring forth in his life that seed which is the source of his whole life. The modern psychologist says, “Well, any idea like this is acquired.” It must however be remembered that teaching has made this idea clear, but the God-ideal is the inborn tendency of man. The best explanation of the word God is to be found in the Persian word Khuda, because this is not only a name, but it is the meaning of the idea: it means selfrevealing. This itself shows that, if God is self-revealing, then man is not always depending upon the teaching of another; his natural longing is for God. Very often I have met people without belief in God, but I have always found that there is some craving behind. In spite of their denying it the craving is there all the same. Besides this, man by nature is vain and once his vanity has taken up the idea of disbelief it is very difficult to make his vanity believe what his soul craves for. A person sometimes feels proud to think, “I do not believe as everybody believes, because I am more intelligent and I am different from others.” At the same time many among those who all their life denied the idea of God, after having a kind of sorrow, a heartbreak, a disappointment, or after having gone through life, in the end have begun to search for something somewhere. I was much interested to see how a great materialistic scientist often depended upon his wife who was a believer in the God-ideal. She was a kind of healing during his illnesses, and during his fits of depression she was a consolation. Whenever she said, “You do not believe in God, so how can you be happy?” his answer was, “But you believe in God and I believe in you; so that is the same.” By this I do not mean that belief in God is sufficient for our lives. Belief in God is only a first step; it is the first step towards the accomplishment of the purpose for which this whole universe is formed. If a person with his belief in God is content—there are millions and millions who believe in God and who are not all saints, nor are they the best of people. One may find perhaps among those who seem to be unbelievers more true and just people than among those who have such belief. Nevertheless, for a thinker, for a wise person, the God-ideal is the key to life's secret. The person who only stands on his belief is like a man standing on a step instead of walking on the staircase. But the person who climbs the stairs is the one who is reaching to a realization which can only come by belief in God. Therefore there are many people whose feet are, so to speak, stuck in the path of truth. Neither are they in the world nor in heaven; they become stuck in their belief and do not move from there. The first thing we have to learn by belief in God is to know the source. As soon as we know the source we begin to feel differently from the average person. The difference between the person who is wise in God and the person who is worldly wise, if both happen to be good, is this: the person of the world will say, “If I do good to another it is a pleasure for me and the other one will learn to do good too.” But the man who is wise in God will say, “When I do good to that person it means that I am doing good to myself.” This makes a great difference, for when a person realizes the source he becomes one with another, and when he does not meet with another in the realization of that source then another person is another. There are two ideas in this: there is an idea of unity and there is an idea of duality. The idea of unity comes from the realization of God which is the ultimate truth. The idea of duality comes from the absence of this knowledge, and if one has not attained, through the idea of God, that idea of unity, one's realization is not complete. If one has belief in God, but has not arrived at the idea of unity, one has not accomplished the purpose of life. Therefore the destination of the Sufi movement is to serve humanity towards this end. It is not a new religion, it is not a certain cast or creed. It is only awakening people of all different religions or of no religion to the divine ideal; to awaken humanity to the understanding of truth, which is to be learned by the understanding of God-especially after such a time as humanity has gone through, while the hatred that exists in the heart of men for one another is ever on the increase. People know about different diseases, but they do not know that the worst disease of the world is the disease of the heart, and it seems that this plague is vastly spreading: the bitterness in the heart. If one could only think what psychological effect the thought of prejudice, of hatred, of bitterness has on man! It is not only outward reasons that make persons ill, but a great many illnesses come from inner reasons. To take in bitterness and to keep it in the heart is worse than keeping a drop of poison in the body. Now the time has come that humanity, after its contemplation on material gain, must contemplate on another gain. Material gains are taken away in a moment's time and leave man in his grave alone without any of them. This earth has not even kept the wealth of the Pharaos, so near to their heart; after so many years the wealth which was buried with them has been taken from them. It shows that this world has never allowed anyone to have his belongings for ever. It is a disappointing world; the true consolation of man does not belong to the earth or its knowledge. This does not mean that the knowledge of the world is useless, but the knowledge of the world does not suffice the whole purpose of life. There is only one thing from which true satisfaction can come, and that is the knowledge of the deeper side of life, the knowledge of the source and goal of all things. It is the realization of that knowledge which can be called divine light, and if there is any happiness, any peace ever to be found, it is in this; in the absence of it all the good that the earth can offer will not suffice man's life's purpose. Whether a man is young or old, whether he is wise or not, every person's life has a need of spiritual guidance, and the only object that man has to accomplish today is to become acquainted with his own self by knowledge of himself in belief in God. Sufi Philosophy Manifestation-Gravitation-Assimilation-Perfection The absolute in its manifested or unmanifested condition is intelligence and the different manifestations of this intelligence may be called light, life and love. It is the dense form of the intelligence which is light. As the sun is the source of the moon, of the planets, of the stars, of fire, of the flame, of the glow—of every aspect of light—so the supreme Spirit is the source of all aspects of manifestation. The sun is the centralizing of the all-pervading radiance. In other words the all-pervading radiance has gathered itself together in order to centralize in one spot, and this has become the source of the creation, the whole physical manifestation. So the omniscient Spirit by centralizing in one spot has become the source of the whole seen and unseen manifestation. It is therefore that in all ages the wise have worshipped the sun as the symbol of God, although the sun is only the outward symbol of God. A minute study of the formation of the sun and its influence in all things of life illuminates us so as to understand the divine Spirit. Heat, gaslight, electric light, coal fire, wood fire, the burning candle, the flame rising from an oil-lamp, all these different manifestations of light have their source in the sun; it is the sun which is showing itself in all these different forms. Often we separate the sun from all other aspects of light. So it is with the supreme Spirit which is manifested in all forms, in all things and beings, in the seen and the unseen worlds, and yet stands remote as the sun stands remote from all other forms of light. The Qur'an says, “God is the light of heaven and of earth” and in reality all forms, however dense they may be, are a certain degree of radiance belonging to that Spirit which is all light. All the different colors are different degrees of that light. The supreme Spirit, the source of all things, has two aspects: audible and visible. In its audible aspect the Spirit is the Word, as the Bible says, or sound, as the Hindus say calling it Nada. In its physical aspect the supreme Spirit is the light, in its finer aspect the light of intelligence, and in its dense aspect the radiance of all objects. The manifestation is the phenomenon of light playing in three directions. This is really the meaning of Trinity. One direction is the light that sees, the other is the light that is seen, and the third is the light that shows all things. More plainly speaking: the eyes which see and the object that is seen and the light that enables the eyes to see the object—all three are different plays of one and the same light. In the Hadith it is said, “I have made your light and by your light I create the universe.” In other words, the all-pervading Spirit says to the centralized aspect of Himself, “I made you first, and of you I have made the whole universe.” In this is the key to the whole creation. The process of manifestation is like the projecting of rays out of the sun. Why does the sun shoot out its rays? Because it is its nature. And to the question, “Why does the supreme Spirit manifest?” I will give the same answer: “Because it is its nature.” No sooner has the all-pervading light centralized in one spot and formed the sun, than the rays begin to shoot out. In the same way, the moment the omniscient light centralized itself in one spot, it began to shoot out its rays. These numberless rays shot out are the various souls—the souls of the good and the wicked both coming from the same source. As these rays go forward the first plane they strike is termed the angelic plane; the second plane they strike is termed the plane of the genius and the third plane is called the physical plane. Now rises the question, “Have these rays left the supreme Spirit in order to come to the angelic plane, have they left the angelic plane in order to come to the plane of the genius and have they left the plane of the genius in order to come to the physical plane?” No, they have passed through, but while passing through they have received all that is to be received from there, learned all that is to be learned there, gathered all there was to be gathered on their way—and they still are in those planes. They do not know it, they are only conscious of that plane in which the ray has opened its eyes. In other words, we are sitting in this room, we see what is before our eyes, but we do not see what is behind our back. Thus every soul has behind its back the angelic plane and the plane of the genius, but before its eyes there is this physical plane. Therefore the soul is only conscious of the physical plane and unconscious of the planes from which it has turned its eyes. The souls who have opened their eyes fully to the angelic plane and became interested in that plane have remained there, and the inhabitants of that plane may be called angels. The souls who did not open their eyes fully there only passed through it, and if they became interested in the plane of the genius they remained there. The ancient people called them jinn or genii. The souls who went still further towards manifestation and reached the physical plane, the ultimate call of their destiny, opened their eyes there and became interested in the physical plane. Among all living beings human beings are the most widely awake. A person who has left America for Europe and has gone from Europe to the Orient has brought something from America with him to Europe and has taken something from Europe to the Orient. So every soul who has come on earth has brought with him something of the angelic plane and something of the plane of the genius, and he shows in his life on the physical plane that which he has brought from these two planes of existence. Innocence, love of beauty, deep sympathy, love of song, a tendency to solitude, love of harmony, all these belong to the angelic plane. Inventive genius, intellectuality, reasoning, law, justice, love of poetry, of science, all these belong to the planes of the genius. It is therefore that, without knowing this, people say of those who show any of these qualities, “Here is an angelic person” or “Here is a genius.” Now coming to the subject of gravitation: gravitation known to science is the material gravitation. All that belongs to the dense earth is attracted to the dense earth—but it is the same theory to say that all that is attracted to the spirit belongs to the spirit. Therefore man is pulled from both sides. Man is pulled more so than any other creature, for he is closer to the spirit. On one side the earth demands his body, on the other side the spirit asks for his soul. If man gives in to the attraction of the earth then the body drags the soul towards the earth. If man gives himself to the attraction of the spirit then the spirit drags the body to the spirit. In this way man is subject to the law of gravitation from both sides, from the earth and from the heavens. As to the subject of perfect assimilation, I have just explained how the soul passing through the different planes has borrowed from each of them things that belong to that plane: qualities, tendencies, ideas, thoughts, feelings, impressions, flesh, skin, bone and blood. That which the soul has borrowed he must give back when it has done its work; it was borrowed for a certain time and for a certain purpose. When the purpose is fulfilled, when the time is finished, then every plane asks for that which the soul has borrowed from it, and one cannot help but give it back to that plane. It is this process which is called assimilation. Since man is born greedy and selfish he has taken all things willingly, enthusiastically-he gives them back grudgingly and calls it death. Assimilation therefore is to give back the physical matter which one has used on this physical plane—to give it back to the earth. It becomes assimilated by the earth and the soul becomes free of that burden which it once carried. It begins to experience a greater liberty and a greater ease, for going beyond is only releasing the soul of limitation and of a great captivity. Life in the world of the genius is longer compared with life on the physical plane. It is this life which may be called the life in the hereafter. But there comes a time when all that was borrowed from the plane of the genius has to be given back to that plane too, for it did not belong to the soul. It is according to the same theory that our body will not have what does not belong to it; it will throw it out or, if the body cannot throw it out, it will be thrown out of life. So no one can carry the substance of another plane beyond. Each substance has its own plane and must be returned to that plane. This is the only way the soul can be freed from that plane in order to rise above it. When the soul soars higher it must also give up the angelic qualities. They will be assimilated in the angelic plane before the soul can dissolve into the great Ocean, the supreme Spirit: that dissolving which is called merging into the real Self. One most important thing is to be learned from this process: every soul coming from the source towards manifestation gives what it brings from the source to the souls who meet it—the souls returning from the manifestation to the source-and receives from these souls certain impressions to which it is attracted. It is this exchange which is the cause of the various conditions of life in which a man is born on coming on earth. One is intelligent, another is simple, one is born in a rich family, another in a poor family, one is healthy, another weak, one will have a great purpose, another does not know what he must do. It is all determined. By what? A soul coming from the source has collected impressions on its way from souls returning to the source. For instance a business man was going to Jerusalem in order to lead a retired life. He met someone in Europe who, coming from the East, was going to the United States, and he said to him, “For forty years I have been in business in the United States. If you are going there to do some business I can tell you of my experience. I have a business established there, I can give you my heritage, I can give you all help if you continue that business. I will give you letters of introduction to help you to find sympathetic surroundings.” Another man, also coming from the East, met someone who never had luck and who said to him, “Are you going to the United States? I have been there for sixty years without one friend, with nothing but ill luck.” This disappointed the man. He came there and found the same ill luck of the person he had met, while the first one came in the midst of friends; all was prepared for him, he had only to continue the thing he was sent for. Now we come to the final Question: what must be the purpose of the whole creation? Is there anything to be gained by it? Yes, what is to be gained by it is the realization gained by the experience of life. What does divine experience mean? It means the soul's experience when this experience has led it to that height where it is no longer only an individual soul, but where it is conscious of all planes of existence, of the source and of its limitation both. When all the inspiration and power latent in man are within his reach, then that realization is called perfection and it is that perfection of which Jesus Christ has spoken in the Bible, where it is said, “Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Question: Are not those planes rather mental conditions than places? Answer: Yes, they are. But what we call a place also is a mental condition. Because it has a rigid physical appearance we think of it as a place, but really speaking it is a mental condition. Therefore those who have understood this have called it an illusion. Question: Is one direction better than another? Answer: One thing leads to another. As in life one success brings many times more success and one failure brings more failures, so the interest in one direction leads to a deeper interest in the same direction. People say that nothing succeeds like success and that it is money that can make a person rich. That law always is the same; if a person has knowledge then he is directed to greater knowledge. In the same way if a thief goes to a large city he will be the first to find thieves. Another person who is perhaps ten years in a large city will not find one thief, but I would not be surprised if the first man the other person met was a thief. Like attracts like, every impression gathers with that same impression. If a person goes towards happiness, success, riches, knowledge, wisdom, he goes deeper and deeper into it because it interests him. It is the same with all wickedness when a person is attracted to it. A little inclination towards wickedness, towards evil, leads him more and more towards it. Whether he loves it or not he gets accustomed to it and goes on in the same direction. Question: Does cremation free the soul more than decomposition? Answer: No, the condition of the body has nothing to do with the freeing of the soul. Only, cremation can shock the soul more than burying in the earth; since the body is made of clay it belongs to the earth. If a person says that a body belongs to water too—water is in the depth of the earth; it belongs to earth just the same. Sufism is religion, philosophy, science, art and mysticism at the same time. The greatest scientists of today will agree with the Sufi conception that the origin of life is motion. The Sufi sees this motion in two aspects: audible and visible. Motion is first audible, then visible. Therefore we read in the Bible—which hints at this idea—that first was the Word and then came light. From a metaphysical point of view it means that motion or vibration originating in the Absolute first became manifest as the Word, audible, and after that became visible in the form of light. What is the sun? The sun is the centralization of the allpervading radiance; the light which was spread all around functioned in one spot. There it became more radiant, more glowing, more powerful than the radiance that was left in space. This light again functioned in the moon; its different currents functioned in different planets and stars. This is exactly the picture of the origin of the creation: the allpervading light of intelligence first centralized itself, thus making itself the Spirit of the whole universe, and from there it began to manifest. The reason why in ancient times people worshipped the Sun-God was that the sun is the exact simile of God, the Spirit of the whole universe; this Spirit of the whole creation formed itself in the same way as the sun. As there are many rays of the sun, so there are many rays of the Spirit of intelligence, in other words of God, the real Self, and each of these rays is a soul. The ray therefore is the manifestation of the sun; man therefore is the manifestation of God. The rays spread forth and reach far, yet they are still connected with the sun. The law of gravitation, compared with the law which governs the relation between the sun and the ray, is a similar law. The ray never leaves the sun; its inner tendency is to reach far and to withdraw and to come towards the sun, in other words to merge into the sun. The same is the inclination of the soul. However much the body depends upon the dense earth and the mind revels in the intellectual spheres, the soul's continual inclination is to withdraw itself to its origin. Since the physical manifestation speaks loudest and the mind makes its own noise, the gentle cry of the soul remains unheard. Nevertheless, as it is said in the Qur’an, All have come from God and to God is their return Coming from its origin towards the manifestation and going back to the goal is the soul's journey. In order to come to the physical plane the soul has to pass through two principal planes: first the angelic and then, before it reaches the physical plane, the plane of the genii. The condition of each of these planes is that, in order to pass through or to exist in it, the soul must borrow a body belonging to that particular plane. So the soul cannot pass through, cannot exist in the angelic plane unless it adopts an angelic form, and the soul has to adorn itself with a body from the plane of the genii in order to exist there. On coming to the earthly plane the soul has to adorn itself with the earthly body. This means that the soul has put on an inner garb and an outer garb, and the mantle that it puts over it shapes the soul completely as a human being belonging to the physical plane. One garb is hidden in another garb. One might think that the garb of the plane of the genius must be smaller in size than the physical garb and that the garb of the angelic plane, covered under the garb of the plane of the genius, must be still smaller, but this is not necessarily true. All that is visible to our physical eyes must have a certain rate of vibration: the physical vibrations of matter make it visible to our eyes. The vibrations of the garb of the plane of the genius are so subtle that our physical eyes cannot see it, but therefore it is not necessarily an under-garb; as much as it might be an undergarb, so much is it an outer garb. Its size need not be as small as the size of our physical form or frame. Its size is incomparably larger. It is the same with the garb that the soul has adopted from the angelic plane: it is not necessarily so small as to be covered by the two garbs just described, but it is even larger and finer. Only, the eyes of this plane cannot see it; its rate of vibration is greater. We see things because of their vibratory rate; if they are invisible it is not because they are invisible by nature, but because they are invisible to our sight. Since we are dependent upon our physical eyes in order to see, that which the physical eyes cannot see we naturally say is unseen. It is only unseen because we cannot see it as a form. So it is not an exaggeration to say that man is at the same time genius and angel, for he has passed through these two planes. He does not know it, but he shows the qualities of these two planes. The love quality in man, love of beauty, joy, aspiration, all these tendencies, besides the innocence of human nature, come from the angelic plane. The purity in the face of an infant gives us proof of its having just arrived from the angelic plane; its smiles, its friendliness and its readiness to appreciate everything beautiful, its love of life, all these things show the sign of the angelic spheres. As a soul remains longer on earth he loses the angelic qualities and adopts new qualities. An infant shows the angelic quality, and a child the quality of the genius by his love of knowing names and forms, by asking questions to his parents with great curiosity. When that stage is passed he seems to be full of miseries, worries, helplessness. Do we not see in some people the angelic quality predominating? They are good, kind and innocent, forgiving, pure-hearted, righteous, virtuous, lovers of beauty, always inclined to high aspirations. If we studied human nature more keenly we would find a great many examples of the angelic nature. Also there are poets, composers and intellectual people, writers and inventors who show the quality of the genius-in an Eastern language called jinn. Those who show the human quality are still more in number. They can be divided into three classes: there is the humane quality, there is the animal quality and there is a devilish quality. This is shown by the rate of their vibrations and their rhythm. Intense rhythm produces the devilish quality, moderate rhythm shows the animal quality, even rhythm shows the humane quality. The form of these rhythms may be explained thus: the humane quality is mobile, the animal quality is uneven, the devilish quality is zigzag. Death is nothing but the taking off of one garb and giving it back to the plane from which it was borrowed, for the condition is this: one cannot take the garb of the lower plane to the higher plane. The soul is only released when it is willing-or compelled-to give its garb to the plane it has taken it from. It is this which releases the soul to go on in its travel. And as it proceeds to a higher plane, after its stay there it must again give its garb back and be purified from it in order to go further. If people knew this they would look at life from a different point of view; they would understand the meaning of the moral: you cannot get away with anything that does not really belong to you. And they would come to realize after the study of philosophy that even their body does not belong to them; it is a borrowed property and must be returned one day. Therefore the wise disown it before they are obliged to give it up. All the spiritual exercises given by teachers are practiced for this purpose: that we may begin to disown our body from today, that we may not have the remorse of having lost something we thought to be most precious. This knowledge also throws a light upon the question of death. Death is not really death; it is only a passing stage, it is only a change, as changing clothes. One might think, “Do we not become less by dying?” It is not so. We become more by dying, not less, for once the physical garb has been thrown away the soul enjoys a greater freedom, a greater liberation for the reason that the limitation of the physical body is great. The physical body weighs heavy on the soul and the day when this burden is taken off, the soul feels lighter, its faculties, tendencies, inspiration and power, all manifest more freely. Therefore death is no loss. Now we come to the Question: what is it that brings about death? Either the body, owing to weakness, is not capable of serving the soul properly, or the soul has finished its mission in that plane; it no more wants it. The body clings to the soul and the soul holds the body: that is the position. When the body is too feeble it naturally loses its grip on the soul and gradually loses it more and more till it can no longer hold the soul. Or the soul holds the body as long as it has to accomplish something, and when the soul sees no purpose then it loses its hold upon the body and so gradually the body drops out of the hands of the soul. It is by this process that death is brought about. What about birth? Human bodies are the clay needed to make a body for the soul. The soul has to knock at the door of the physical plane and a body is given to it. Cupid is the symbol of this idea, of this philosophy. There is give and take in the two planes through which a soul has to pass, a give and take between the souls who are going from the source towards manifestation and the souls who are returning from manifestation towards the goal. As a traveler coming from Asia to America and a traveler going from America to Asia who meet in Europe exchange money and thoughts with one another, so those souls take upon themselves the debts of one another, the knowledge of one another, the happiness, the misery of one another. In the same way we experience our life on earth. One soul, without knowing it sometimes, may take a route which leads him to riches, to success. Another soul may take a route that leads him to failure, to errors. It all depends upon what route they have taken from the beginning. Hafiz has described this idea in a beautiful way, saying that each person has his own wine, and his love is according to the wine he has taken. If it is the wine of happiness, if it is the wine of joy, if it is the wine of sorrow, if it is the wine of misery, if it is the wine of courage, of fear, of trust, of distrust, of faith, of disbelief, it is in the intoxication of this wine that he acts, presenting the effect of the wine to the world. So we each have our own wine. In this exchange of souls going from the source to manifestation and souls coming back from the manifestation to the source, one takes the wine of selfishness, another of unselfishness. A Persian poet says, “Before dawn the wine was poured out. No sooner I opened my eyes than a glass of wine was given to me. 0 Saqi, thanks for whatever wine you gave, for it intoxicated me and made me lose myself.” The dawn that the poet expresses as birth is the time when the soul began its journey from the angelic plane. The first cup it drank determined its life afterwards. It is not true that, as they say, a man when he goes higher in evolution is richer in knowledge. No, higher evolution itself is a knowledge. The knowledge one gains from earthly sources is not a coin that is current in other planes. The coin of this plane, a plane so small, is as limited as this plane—and man makes so much of it! It is amusing when a person comes to me and says, “I have read so many books on occult science, I think I am quite ready to be initiated.” It amuses me very much. Imagine! Reading occult science should entitle someone to spirituality! The language of that country is different and intellectual knowledge is not current there. Learning that language is unlearning what we have learned here. Therefore the question of spiritual attainment is quite different and must be dealt with from quite a different point of view. What I have to say in conclusion about Sufi philosophy is that what we call individuality is a momentary state, and this conception of individuality as it is found today—do not think that it will be the same to-morrow. Omar Khayyam says, “O my beloved, fill the cup that clears today from past regrets and future fears. To-morrow, why to-morrow I may be myself with yesterday's seventy thousand years. “ As soon as the soul has awakened, it no more gives much importance to individuality—a thing made of garbs borrowed from different planes; it is a doll of rags. All importance we give, we should give to the soul which is real, which comes from the real and seeks after the real. Question: Is the soul not attracted by action? Answer: The condition of the soul is likened to a mirror: it mirrors so long as it reflects the object which is standing before it. Yet that object is not engraved in the mirror, it occupies it at the moment it veils it. So the soul is covered by experiences. In other words, our experience may delude the soul, cover it, bury it, but at the same time cannot penetrate it. The Gift of Eloquence When we consider the four kingdoms-the mineral, vegetable, animal kingdoms and mankind-we see that not man alone but also every other being has the gift of expression. The rock expresses least and we feel least for it; we strike it and break it and quarry it. We make use of it in every way and we do not sympathize with it at all, because it does not speak to us; it tells us very little. We sympathize much more with the plant. We love it, we give it water, we tend it, and because it has more expression we care more for it. Among the stones there are some that speak more to us; the diamond, the ruby, the emerald we prize very much. We pay thousands of pounds for them; we are glad to have them, to wear them. The animal has much more the gift of expression than the plant or the rock, and we feel that animals are much nearer to us. The dog by wagging his tall, by jumping about, by every movement says, I love you” and we care much more for him. We do not want the plant on the chair next to us, but if the dog sits on the chair it is all right. The cat has no words, but by its voice it speaks to us. All the poets of the East have spoken of the nightingale because of its voice, its expression. There are many birds in the forests of which we never think because they have no voice, but the song-birds we all know and we like to have a parrot because it speaks. Allah has made man the khalifa, the chief of creation for this one thing, his tongue: man alone has the gift of eloquence. Among men we see that some are like the rock, others like the plant or like the animal and some have the human quality. The man who is like a rock has not much expression; he has no magnetism. He has only that which is in his appearance, just like the stones have, the emerald, the ruby; when that appearance is gone nothing is left. The man who is like a plant has no intelligence, only some feeling, some personality. Either is there some fragrance of the personality, some beauty, or he is like a thorn, or there is poison. When man is like an animal he has feelings, passions, but he cannot give them expression. Only that man is a human being who has the gift of expression, who speaks out what he feels. The gift of eloquence is called by the Hindus Vak Devi, the goddess of speech. They have distinguished three sorts of beings, Rakshasa, the monster, he who is without speech and without feeling, Manusha, the man who has feeling but lacks expression, and Devata the godlike man, he who has eloquence. It is his eloquence alone that makes him godlike. The word was in the beginning before the creation of man. Neither the rock, nor the plant, nor the animal could speak out that word which was from the beginning. It is only man who expresses it; he gives expression to that which existed first. When he expresses it he becomes the pen of the divine Being. Therefore in him the creation is perfected and he is the highest of all beings. To speak and by speech to hurt, to wound the heart, the feelings of another, is the misuse of eloquence. There is a Persian verse, “Zaban-i-shirin mulke girin. A sweet tongue wins the world.” The tongue, like a sword, has two aspects: it wins and it slays. A sharp tongue kills and a sweet tongue conquers the world. The same idea is expressed in the Gospels, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” The world is like a dome in which whatever is spoken comes back to us. If we say, “How beautiful” “how beautiful” comes back to us. If we say, “YOU stupid” the echo comes back, “you stupid.” A man may think, “I have so many servants, I am such a great person, I shall say what I please.” But some day the echo of his bad words will come back to him. Sometimes a person does not wish to speak badly to his friend so as to hurt him, but without wishing to speak badly, he does so, because his mind is full of the bad impressions he has stored there. Therefore we should store up only good impressions, and not keep the others with us, that only good may come from us. There are two ways of speaking on a subject. Before speaking a person may ponder upon a subject and then speak with all the reasonings that come to him. This is parrot speaking a person may ponder upon a subject and then speak with all the reasonings that come to him. This is Parrot-speech; he repeats what he has learned, as the parrot says some words because he has been taught them. The store of eloquence, knowledge, is always ready within, and the other way of speaking is to depend upon that store, that knowledge. Then the tongue speaks out what is always there in readiness; the knowledge, eloquence, is always there but it is shut off from us. In order to open up that knowledge an arrow is needed. The arrow is the deep feeling that pierces through to that knowledge. If we see a crooked person walking in the street it is very easy to laugh; it is so absurd. But a little feeling will produce pity, and a deep feeling will bring the expression of pity and compassion. Why do Hindus call eloquence devi? Why goddess, why not god? Because the speaker is responsive to the creator, the god within. Evolution of the World Some say that the world has evolved since the creation, as it is the law of nature to evolve. Others say the reverse, seeing the conditions of the world falling back every day. When the Buddhists say that the universe is always progressing, the Hindus contradict this by pointing out that virtue and truth have diminished with the growth of the world during the periods called Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga and the present Kali Yuga-the golden, silver, copper and iron ages. There seem to be some who, seeing the comfort and convenience of modern life together with its new inventions and wonderful researches, admire evolution. There are others who praise the past saying how great were the ancestors of the past who were so high in their morals and ideals and who had such a comfort and peace in their natural life-until gradually everything had become so degenerated that all virtues became a prey to the selfishness and artificiality of so-called civilization. According to the standpoint of the Sufi both are right and yet both are wrong, for the Sufi applies the law of vibration to his understanding of the world: each note has its finish at the octave, and so there are an ascending and a descending scale. Each strong accent in anything has its weak part to balance it. The sun rises as well as sets, the new moon develops to the full and wanes until it is new again. Each wave of the sea which rises high is drawn back; each helpless child is helpless again when old. This is the nature of evolution. A certain direction of life develops for a certain period, and before it has fallen back another direction of life begins to evolve. An individual's view is deluded because evolution seems to him to be a straight evolution, and every fall seems to be a continual fall. After a person has developed in his body and that is finished, perhaps thought might begin its development. If he views the reduction of his body he will feel involution, and if he notices the development of his thought he will realize his evolution. In fact in both ideas he is right; it only depends upon his point of view. One can study this fact by looking at a fountain where one jet of water is rising to reach its height and another is returning from its utmost reach. Neither is the rise constant for the former, nor is the fall lasting for the latter. This is the way of progress and degeneration of science, art, race, religion and nation. Even the world as a whole has its circle to accomplish, and everything therein has its own time of rise and fall. At the same time the rise is for the fall and the fall again is meant to rise. Every Man has his own little World Every man has his own little world, so little sometimes that it is like a doll's house, and in that little world he is not concerned with the world outside or with the universe; he just lives in his small world so full of illness, misery and ill luck. He cannot come out of it, for he has built a little shell for himself in which he lives, a shell of misery. He likes to live in it for it is his own home. Human beings living in their shells are mostly unaware of the privilege of life and so are unthankful to the Giver of it. In order to see the grace of God man must open his eyes and raise his head from his little world. Then he will see—above and below, to the right and the left, before and behind—the grace of God reaching him from everywhere in abundance. If we try to thank God we might thank for thousands of years and it would never be enough. But if man stays in his own little shell he does not find the grace of God; he finds misery, injustice, ugliness, coldness. When one looks down one sees the mud; when one looks up one sees the sun, the moon, the planets. It all depends how we look: upwards or downwards. Every day we should have a time in the evening or in the morning to think of what we have experienced during the day, to consider how many mercies and gifts of God we have received, and how less worthy we are of them; to think what we have done wrong—not wrong in the sense of religion, but how we may have hurt the feeling of another by inattention, by a kind of insult, by not doing what he wished when it was in our power to do it. We should never say that we are beyond this. We should say that, whether we are a prophet or a saint, we are liable to all mistakes. If you say that you believe in God, there is the wish for a higher path, for a higher knowledge. If you say, “I do not believe in God, I do not care for anything” then it does not matter, because then your experience will be your teacher. But if you believe in God, this is what you should do. Marriage Marriage is the most sacred of all things. It is certainly not in the first place a contract, a business. When we look at marriage from a higher point of view it appears that marriage is the fulfillment of life. From a physical point of view this life which is full of struggle and strife can be met with greater strength and greater courage and greater capability, when two harmonious forces are united together. There is a saying of a Persian poet, “When two hearts unite, they become powerful enough to remove mountains.” Life is a continual struggle, and in order to become capable of meeting this struggle it is necessary to be strong and powerful. When two hearts are united they are more capable, more powerful and greatly blessed. Looking at marriage from a mental point of view, no matter how wise, how strong, how courageous, how powerful a person may be, he still lacks something. Every individual, after all, has defects. No matter how many merits he has, he needs something better: at the time of doubt, conviction; at the time of anxiety, support from another source; at the time of confusion, a little light; at the time of sorrow, a word of consolation, of happiness. No matter what a person has—wealth, power, rank, position-this will not balance his life. If there is anything that will balance his life it is another soul to provide that which is missing at the moment when he needs it. Therefore from a physical point of view marriage is a power, and from a mental point of view it brings balance. Lastly there is the spiritual point of view. Among the ancient people the wise gave an answer to the ever-recurring question as to why the world was created. This answer was that God felt lonely. And no matter how many rays of the light of wisdom we may throw upon life, we shall always receive this one answer as the reason for the creation. If anything exists it is only one Being, and that is God. Therefore the whole of manifestation which is created by Him is in Himself. If God created it, it was only because He felt lonely. It is the same idea that can be seen symbolically in the belief of the ancient people that Eve was created out of the rib of Adam. It only means that this world was created out of God himself, that it is God's own manifestation. He wanted to see in order to remove the monotony of being alone and, if it was the need of God to create something and put it before Himself to remove the monotony of being alone, it is natural that every human being has this inclination too. But this inclination leads to what? To greater perfection—because an individual man is limited, no matter how powerful, how great, how wise and learned he may be, and in order to become greater he must become another person. Marriage is the first step to becoming another person. The one who formerly thought that he would attain pleasure, comfort, happiness in life and enjoy it for himself, from the moment he is married thinks first of his wife and of how he can give her comfort, for without her he can no longer enjoy life. When this outlook comes to a person his consciousness changes; it rises and expands and becomes the source of all revelation and bliss. Why is it so? Because by this expansion the spirit of God becomes awakened in man. It removes what stands between his limited and his unlimited self and gradually raises him to a stage where he fully realizes the One who is the source and goal, who is the essence of his being. As Rumi says, “Whether you have loved man or whether you have loved God, if you have loved enough you will be brought in the end into the presence of the supreme Love itself.” From a spiritual point of view therefore marriage is a step forward on the path to perfection, that path by which the ultimate purpose of life is attained. Spirituality, the Tuning of the Heart Before speaking of spirituality I must first explain what I mean by it. There are people who consider spirituality as orthodoxy or piety: to be religious, to be a priest, a monk, a hermit, to fast, or to live a life of a certain discipline, to adopt a certain form of worship. A person may have all these outer forms without being spiritual, and a person may have nothing of these and be spiritual. Those who seek spirituality in such outer forms are mistaken, for it is more than that: real spirituality is spirit-consciousness. To be spiritual means to be conscious of spirit, just as a material person means a person who is conscious of matter. So it is not religion, orthodoxy, outer forms, or a certain kind of life which means spiritual life: it is to be conscious of the spirit that makes one spiritual. There are others who think that those who perform phenomena, miracles, who work wonders are spiritual. It is not so. Many who are capable of performing phenomena are not different from a magician. Then others say that to be spiritual means to tell fortunes, or to be clairvoyant, to see wonderful things. It is not necessary to do or to see wonderful things in order to be spiritual. Others imagine that to be spiritual means sitting in the caves of mountains, or roaming about in forests, or to appear and disappear. All these things are but fancies of the imaginative. To be spiritual means to be one's self, to be one's natural self. How many of us are our self? If we were our self we would all be spiritual. We are not our self, we are far from it! A great Indian poet expresses this idea in this way, “Apart from accomplishing things, for man to be a man is the most difficult thing.” It means that for a human being to be human is the greatest difficulty. He is born a human being; yet the first thing he ought to be is what he is not, he is anything but a human being. He is willing to be a solicitor, a doctor, a professor, but to be a human being—that is the thing he thinks of last, and mostly he does not even think of it at all. People say that nowadays there is a great tendency in the world to discover spiritual truth, that there is an inner spiritual awakening. Yes, I admit it, but what direction does it take? Very often it takes wrong directions. Those searching after truth often think that the best way to find belief in the spirit and the hereafter is mediumship: to become a medium themselves, or to go to a medium and when they have found proof—to communicate with the dead. Then they think they have found proof of the spiritual. They wreck their nervous system, many go out of balance. In this manner the way that would lead to spirituality leads to destruction. There are others who wish to pursue the spiritual in the same way as a person in a university or college. They want to read all things in a book. They think, “If there is anything like spiritual attainment one book must tell us about it.” If they go to the library and read throughout their whole life all the books there are, they cannot touch spirituality, because it does not come from books. Reading helps one sometimes to awake; yet every person does not know how to read. What is happening today is that there are thousands and thousands of people who read one book, then another and still another, until their mind is so confused that they do not know what to believe and what not to believe. Among them there are many who think that the best way is the intellectual way. But what is intellectual? Is reading really intellectual? Are all books the same? Many times they only confuse a person. Very often books with ten errors on the same line puzzle a person's mind so much that he does not know where he is. Often people come to me and tell me-in order to help me—to have confidence in them, because for ten years they have been reading my books. Instead of having confidence I have to guide them on the path and to erase what they have learned first. Perhaps they are not willing to erase; they think that they have gained this knowledge by reading a hundred books. What knowledge? Is it spiritual? Besides, very often intellectual pursuit gives them the idea that there are such masters and such mahatmas and saints in the Himalayas, in the caves of the mountains. They never think that such a person can be in the crowds. It interests them most when he is in a place where nobody can reach him. They think he cannot be in a restaurant taking his dinner; he must be in a cave of the mountain. Imagine! Why was this world created? Why are we born in this world, in the midst of this world, if this world were not a school to develop the soul and to arrive at the stage which is life's purpose? Man has lost confidence in his fellowmen. He expects spirituality from the dead, from the trees-not from men. He has no confidence in his brothers. Others are interested in the meaning of symbology: this particular symbol means this, another gives a great revelation, another is a great mystery. Where is spirituality to be found? Is it not in the heart of man? Instead of in their own heart people want to look in different places, or in certain symbols. Yes, symbols are expressive of it, but the direct way is within oneself. I had an amusing experience one day. Travelling in England near Bournemouth I was brought to a place where they said I should speak. They said it was an important place; so I went there. The man who brought me there said, “Now here in this corner-you can feel that here is the secret.” Imagine, in that place was spirituality, not in man! Those who make their occupation of spirituality take advantage of people's ignorance. They cater for them, they feed them, they say to every person, “You are a medium.” So those who take this as a profession tell everyone, “Come along. Be more fanciful, more imaginative, more superstitious.” They feed curiosity. Does it lead anywhere? In this way people get lost and will never be spiritual. This is to be found everywhere. Now coming to the actual subject, the difference between spirit and matter: once a young Italian who did not believe in God or soul was travelling with me in the same ship, and he thought that perhaps I was a priest. He asked, “Do you believe in anything?” “Yes” I said. “What is your belief?” I answered, “It cannot be said.” Since he was antagonistic he said, “I do not believe in anything. If there is anything in which I believe, it is in eternal matter.” I replied, “My belief is not far from yours. What you call eternal matter I call eternal spirit. What you have named matter I have named spirit.” It is a dispute over words, the understanding is the same. The difference has come by disputing over words. What is spirit is fine matter and what is matter is dense spirit. In other words, there are two names and there is one subject: call it water, call it snow. When it is crystallized it is snow, and if you do not like to call it water, call it snow. If you wish to distinguish you may call it by two names, there is no objection to it, it is a question of choice. If you choose that there is no matter, as Christian Science also says, then matter is spirit Just the same. And if you choose to call spirit matter, then spirit is matter just the same. If you say both things that is right too. Truth is in understanding, not in expression. People have strengthened their truth, they have taught and fought and arrived at nothing. Very often those who do not understand a subject argue for the reason that they want to know about it, but they do not honestly want to know about it. Their way is to argue; then they know the other's idea also. They oppose the other to hear what he has to say; it is a kind of robbery. They have a thirst for argument. He who will not understand will never understand, however much it is true. He who understands-you tell him and he will understand. It is a matter of evolution. Besides, there is a tendency in everyone to think, “The other one must look at things as I do. If it is a friend, if it is a wife, a husband, a brother, a sister, or a companion, they must understand things as I do.” But that is impossible. May be they are at different stages of evolution, they cannot understand. Leave them alone! For some it is good to sleep, for others it is good to awake. It is no virtue to awake everybody; it is the greatest crime to awake those who ought to sleep. To make everyone spiritual is not a right mission. The best thing is to help a person wherever he is and not to try to bring him to a certain pitch. He will come naturally; to put him on the right track is enough. Often people who are interested in spirituality urge it on those in their surroundings. They are mistaken; those urged are sometimes more spiritual. Man is a great mystery and we know so little about it. I have traveled in India for nine years in the pursuit of the illuminated ones, the living wise men of the East. You would be surprised to know how various illuminated souls live under the guise of an ordinary person, so that no one can ever distinguish them as different from others. Many of them bear themselves in the same way as everybody does, sitting in the same places, saying the same things that anyone else would say; neither do they show any difference in outward appearance, in speech or claims. At the same time-if you could see behind those great beings-they are as different from others as the sky is different from the earth. I will tell you something about my own teacher. Once I met a learned man, a doctor of philosophy with a great many degrees. I spoke to him on the deeper side of life and he became so interested in me that he thought much of me. So I thought, If I were to tell him about my teacher, how much more interesting that would be for him. If I make such an impression upon this man, how much more my teacher will be for him, and how much will he appreciate my teacher” and I told him, “There is a wonderful man in this city, he has no comparison in the whole world.” “Yes?” said he, “Are there such people? I would so much like to see him. Where does he live?” I told him, in such and such a part of the city. He said, “I live there too. Where is his house. I know all the people there. What is his name?” So I told him, and he said, “For twenty years I have known this man, and you are telling me about him!” I thought, “In a hundred years you would not have been able to know him.” He was not ready to know him. If people are not evolved enough they cannot appreciate persons, they cannot understand them, they cannot understand the greatest souls. They sit with them, they talk with them, there is a contact of the whole life, but they do not see. Another person in one moment, if he is ready to understand, makes a benefit out of it. Imagine, the learned man had known my teacher for twenty years and did not know him. I saw him once, and became his pupil for ever. One might ask, “Was this man not learned, not intellectual?” Yes, he was. Then what was lacking? He saw my teacher with his brain, I saw him with my heart. People pursue spirituality with their brain: that is where they are mistaken. Spirituality is attained through the heart. What do I mean by the heart? Is it the nervous center in the midst of the breast, the small piece of flesh that doctors call the heart? No, the definition of the heart is that it is the depth of the mind, the mind being the surface of the heart. That in us which feels is the heart, that which thinks is the mind. It is the same thing which thinks and feels, but the direction is different: feeling comes from the depth, thought from the surface. When thought is not linked with feeling it is just like a plant rising up from the earth, the root of which has not gone deep. A thought without feeling is a powerless thought; it is just like a plant without a deep root. A tree the root of which has gone deep into the earth is stronger, more reliable, and so the thought deeply rooted in the heart has greater power. The heart therefore is the factor through which spirits and spirituality are to be attained. In man's being three aspects can be distinguished: body, heart and soul. The heart is a globe over the soul and the body a cover over the heart. One might ask: Is the soul so small as to be covered by the heart and is the heart so small as to be covered by the body? It is not so. The soul is within and without. For instance, a light is covered by a globe and the globe by another cover-and yet, is the light covered? It shines out just the same. The light is not under the cover; it seems to be under the cover, but it shines out. Such is the soul. The globe does not shine out, but the light takes the color of the globe. It is the soul that is larger; at the same time the light is within the globe and the soul within the body. It is exactly like the light within the globe and the globe within the cover. The light is outside the cover, and the power of the globe shines outside the cover. So the power of the heart is greater than the power of the body, and the power of the soul is greater still. As long as one is ignorant of this, one does not realize truth. Imagine what a power the heart quality has. The little hen, when it is with its young ones and a horse comes or an elephant, is ready to fight them. Otherwise it would run away, but with its young ones it is ready to fight with the elephant. The heart quality is blooming at that time, it is feeling; at that time its power is so great that the little hen is ready to fight with anyone. In India a hunter's story is told about a she-deer that was pursued by a hunter and ran far away into the woods. When she came near her young ones who were waiting for her she did not run further, she forgot the hunter. As soon as the heart quality was awakened in the presence of her little ones she had no fear. There is nothing one will not sacrifice, accomplish, or face when the heart quality is awakened. All cowardice and weakness, misery and wretchedness come when the heart quality is covered and man begins to live in his brain. Lions turn into rabbits when they are not lion-hearted. Very few understand the power of the heart. Once the heart is awakened there is nothing that one does not accomplish. Besides inspiration and illumination it gives all the force and power one needs to attain anything one wants. One might ask: Is it not natural to attain spirituality? Does it not come without any effort on our part? And if it is not natural, then what is the use of attaining spirituality? These are right arguments, and my answer is that spirituality is not only for human beings, but also for the lower creation, for every being: not spirituality in the sense we understand, but in that of being tuned to one's natural pitch. Even birds have their moments of exaltation. At the setting and rising of the sun, the breaking of dawn, in the moonlight, there come times when birds and animals feel exalted. They sing and dance, they sit on the branches of the trees in exaltation. Every day they feel this exquisite joy. If we go still further and have eyes to see life in those forms in which others do not see it, in the rock, in the tree, we find that there are times when even the trees are in a complete state of ecstasy. Those who move in nature, who open the doors of their heart, whose soul comes in contact with nature, find nature singing, nature dancing and communicating. It is not only a legend, a story of the past, that saints used to speak with trees. It is an actual fact, and it is the same today as in the past. Souls are of the same nature, they are the same. The only difference is that we have become unbelievers, we have no confidence in life, we have become material, we have closed our eyes to what comes before us. Today souls can become saints and sages just as before. Are the stars not as before? They communicate also today with the one who is able to respond to nature. But we have turned our back to nature, we live in an artificial world; there is no self-confidence in us, no belief. Naturally we have not only become materialistic, we have become matter! Therefore those who ever have attained to spirituality have attained by awakening the quality of heart. Sufis in all ages, mystics of India, Persia, and Egypt have considered the awakening of the heart quality to be the principal thing in life. For all the virtues that the priest can teach and prescribe, the virtues that one is told to practice in life, come naturally when the heart opens. Then one need not learn virtue, virtue becomes one's own. All virtues as taught by people-how long do they last? If there is any virtue it must come by itself. spirituality is natural. And if animals and birds can feel spiritual exaltation, why not we? But we do not live a natural life. We have tried in our civilization, in our life, to be as far removed from nature and natural life as possible, breathing an artificial atmosphere to withstand climatic influences, eating food that we have prepared and improvised, turning it into something quite different from what nature had made and given us. Besides that, the deeper we go into the life of the community, the more we find that we are not on the track as we ought to be. We seem to have lost our individuality. We have called it progress—a progress towards a certain condition. And there we begin to feel that we are in a maze. Now has come the time-and more and more so every day-that thoughtful people, wise people who are just and honest realize, “We are not progressing, we are in a maze and we are looking for the door. “ I spoke with a great scientist, and in spite of all his knowledge what did he say? “We do not know where we are. We have made inventions, but we do not know how to control them to the best advantage of life.” Invention apart, the first question is how to make the best of our life, how to make the best of this opportunity which is passing us by. Every moment lost is incomparably more valuable than the loss of money. As man will realize this he will more and more come to the conclusion that he has gone on and on thinking he was progressing, but that he has been moving around in the same maze. If only he found the door, that door which is called by the wise spiritual attainment! However well educated one may be, however much progress one has made, however much one has collected or accomplished, however much power and position one has gained, only one thing is everlasting and that is spiritual attainment. Without this there will always be dissatisfaction, an uncomfortable feeling. No knowledge, power, position or wealth can give that satisfaction which spiritual attainment can give. There is nothing easier and nothing more difficult in the world: difficult because we have made it difficult, easy because it is the easiest thing possible. All other things we have to buy and pay for—even water. For spiritual attainment we do not need to pay a tax, it is ours, it is our self, it is discovering our self, finding our self. Yet what one values is what one gets with difficulty. Man loves complexity so much! He makes a thing big and says, “This is valuable.” If it is simple he says, “It has no value.” That is why the ancient people, knowing human nature, told a person when he said he wanted spiritual attainment, “Very well; for ten years go around the temple, walk around it a hundred times in the morning and in the evening. Go to the Ganges, take pitchers full of water during twenty or fifty years, then you will get inspiration.” That is what must be done with people who will not be satisfied with a simple explanation of the truth, who want complexity. Often having been asked, “Show us a tangible truth” I asked myself how it would be if I wrote TRUTH on a little brick and gave it to people saying, “Hold it fast. Here is tangible truth.” Fine people, when they write a letter, expect their friend to read between the lines. Even subtle feelings of the human heart cannot be expressed in words. How then can anyone expect truth to be spoken in words? That which is spoken in words can never be truth. People do not distinguish between the meaning of fact and of truth; they always muddle truth with fact. Often the greatest error is made when a person who has a crude or insolent nature or a brain of stone says, “What do I care how anybody takes it? I simply tell the truth. It does not matter whether a person is hurt.” But truth is the finest thing and most beautiful. If one tells the truth must it hurt? If it hurts anybody can it be truth? Truth must raise a person, must illuminate him, it must be the most beautiful thing on earth, harmonizing, uplifting, inspiring, it cannot be hurtful. If it is truth it is the greatest healing there is. But people interpret truth in the form of facts, and muddle truth with fact, just as they confuse pleasure with happiness. When people are pleased they say, “I am happy” and when they are happy they say, “I am pleased.” But pleasure is far from happiness. A small thing can give pleasure, but in order to be happy one ought to arrive at that pitch where there is everlasting happiness. Pleasure comes and goes; it is the shadow of happiness, it is not happiness. In the same way people muddle cleverness with wisdom. Of a wise person they say, “What a clever man and of a clever man they say, “How wise is he. “A worldly person is not wise, he is clever, and a wise man is not necessarily clever, although he is perfect wisdom. Cleverness is a shadow of wisdom. Wisdom is light. In the East no doubt seekers after truth in all ages have sought the direction of those who had already acquainted themselves with the path, in order to tread the path under their guidance. Today a man comes and says, “I do not wish to follow any guidance or advice. If a book can tell me something I shall read it. Tell me just now what I should do, and I shall do it.” Imagine! In order to develop your voice you go to a teacher of voice-culture and do a thousand practices with open mouth and make a thousand kinds of grimaces you would never like to make. In order to develop the voice you have to do a thousand things which sound foolish in order to sing one day. What comparison is there between spiritual attainment and singing? If singing rightly takes so many years' practice and so much concentration and discipline under the orders of a teacher, how can a spiritual teacher tell at the dinner table what spirituality means? People ask, “Would you tell us in one word how we can attain spirituality?” Is it such a simple thing? Who then can tell it and how can it be told? It is something to discover for oneself. The teacher can only put one on the track to attain to that realization which is called spirituality. No doubt according to the idea of the people of the East the responsibility of the spiritual teacher is still greater than that of parents towards their children. From the time of his birth the parents' thought is centered on the well-being of the child. Even when he is grown-up the child is the same in the heart of the parents; they are interested in everything he does. The child may not care for them, but they will understand. He may be far away, yet from a distance the heart of the mother will always be craving for the welfare of her child. So it is with the teacher. The spiritual teacher under whose guidance a pupil places himself will fulfill to him the place of both father and mother, and even more. His welfare is the teacher's religion, it is his spiritual responsibility; for the spiritual teacher there is no other religion. He is not necessarily a priest; all the duty he has is to be anxious about the welfare and well-being of those who sought his guidance, who come under his direction. It is therefore that the service of the great ones such as Jesus Christ, Buddha, Moses, Muhammad, or any others who came from time to time to serve humanity in a small or in a great way, has been a service of love and affection in order to raise humanity by their own example, their own ideas, their own love. What they have taught is not so important as what was given beyond words as love and light. That is the sacrament in the church, the same in the form of love and wisdom. What has come in words, or from the lips, is very little-so simple. There is no comparison between the Bible or any such spiritual book and a writer of today, because the value of the book is not in the capability of the writer; its value lies in the personality of the teacher. The wonderful souls who from time to time served humanity helping it to progress—whether known or unknown, whether mankind has forgotten them or still holds them-have done their duty and always do so. Those who take such an opportunity of benefiting by their teaching, by their thought, are blessed ones. Spirituality is not necessarily intellectuality, nor is it orthodoxy or asceticism. Orthodox, ascetic or intellectual pursuit after truth-all these are the ways people have taken in order to reach a spiritual goal, but the way is not the goal. If there is a definition of spirituality it is the tuning of the heart. In this material age of ours the heart quality is totally forgotten and great importance is given to reason and logic. When we argue with a person, he says, “Argue with reason, be logical.” Sentiment and idealism have no place; it is therefore that humanity is getting further and further from spiritual attainment. The main quality, the best in man, is ignored and by ignoring that quality it becomes dead. For instance, if a poet happens to live in a village where no one understands poetry, if an artist lives in a town where no one cares for his pictures, if an inventive genius has no opportunity of bringing out his inventions, these faculties become blunted and in the end they die. So it is with the heart quality: if it is not taken notice of, if it has no opportunity to develop, if it is ignored, then this quality becomes blunted and in the end it dies. As it is said in a song, “The light of life dies when love is gone.” When, feeling has become blunted then what remains? Nothing. Then there is no sign of life. What remains is intellectuality expressing itself by the power of egoism. It is difficult to live in the world because selfishness is ever on the increase. Business and industry apart, even in friendship, in relationship the give-and-take has the greatest importance, worldly interest takes part in it. There is a certain fineness that belongs to human nature, a certain nobleness, a certain independence, there is a certain ideal, a certain delicacy, a certain manner that belong to human nature, and all these become blunted when the heart quality is left undeveloped. I have been travelling for many years seeing people busy in the pursuit of truth and to my very great disappointment I have found many of them, although interested in higher things, yet arguing, discussing, “Do you believe what I believe” or, “Perhaps my belief is better than yours”—always that intellectual side. They Said, “We have so many things connected with our life in the world in which we can use our intellect: business, industry, domestic affairs.” In seeking God, in attaining spirituality we do not need to use so much intellect, because this does not come by the intellect: it comes by the tuning of the heart. People will say, “Yes, but all the same there are emotional persons, affectionate and loving people.” But I do not always call emotional people loving people. They may be so outwardly, but very often the more emotional they are the less loving, for one day their love is on the rise, next day it is on the fall, one day very loving, next day just moved with emotions like clouds. One day the sky is clear, next day it is covered. One cannot depend upon emotions, they are not love. It is the feeling nature that is to be developed, the sympathetic nature. Besides, there exists, especially in the Western world, a false conception of the strength of personality. May be many have understood it wrongly; under the guise of strength they want to harden their hearts. For instance, many men think that for a man to be touched or moved by anything is not natural or normal. On the contrary! If a man is not touched or moved it is not natural; he is still in the mineral kingdom and not yet in the human kingdom. To be human and not be touched or moved by something touching or appealing only means that the eyes of the heart are closed, its ears blocked. This heart is not living. It is a wrong understanding of a high principle. The principle is that man must be feeling and at the same time so strong that as much feeling he has, so much strength he must have to cover it. It does not mean he must not be feeling; man without feeling is without life. Those who are afraid of feeling think that the right, the normal thing to do is to keep away from feeling. However much they study psychology, theoretically and methodically, they will not attain to spirituality. Spirituality does not belong to intellectuality, it has nothing to do with it. In connection with spirituality intellectuality is in so far useful that an intellectual person can best express spiritual inspiration. Many people say, “I had a deep feeling, but that feeling is all gone, it is lost. Now I have no more feeling.” That means that something in them has died. They do not know it, but something of great importance has died, for they were affectionate, loving, kind. Perhaps they have met with the disappointing qualities of human nature and have become disappointed, and so the feeling heart has taken the bowl of poison and died. Or perhaps some began to dig the ground in order to find water, but before they could reach water they saw mud. Having no patience to go on digging still they became disappointed with the mud and lost their enthusiasm to dig. There are others who, out of self-righteousness or keen perception of human defects or out of their critical tendency, begin to hate before they can love someone, and so hate comes first giving no chance to love. What is necessary is to develop a sympathetic nature and to sustain its gradual growth. As it is difficult for the student of voice-culture to practice his voice and not to let it be spoiled—for even practice may spoil it-so it is with the sympathetic person: while developing the faculty of sympathy there is a chance of spoiling it. In other words, the more loving a person, the more chance he has to be disappointed. The greater the love, the finer the fragility and the more susceptible to everything; therefore the greater the love, the more fragile the heart—at any moment it can break. The one who walks in the path of sympathy therefore must take great care that his way may not be blocked. It is his own perseverance that will keep him from everything that is trying to block his way. There is one principle to be remembered in the path of sympathy: we must do all we can with regard to the pleasure of those whom we love and whom we meet, but we must not expect the best from those whom we love and meet, for we must know that the world is as it is. We cannot change it, but we can change ourselves. The one who wants others to do what he wishes them to do will always be disappointed. That is the complaining soul; all day long, every day of the month, that soul is complaining. He is never without a complaint; if not about a human being, then it is the climate; if not about the climate then about the conditions; if not about someone else then about himself. Something is hurting that person all the time. He must remember that self-pity is the worst poverty. The person who takes life in this way, saying, “My poor self, crinkled, forgotten, forsaken, ill treated by everybody, by the planets, even by God”—that person has no hope; he is an exile from the Garden of Eden. But when one says, I know what human nature is, I cannot expect any better, I must only try and appreciate what little good comes from it, I must be thankful for it and try and give the best I can to others”—that is the only attitude that will enable man to develop his sympathetic nature. The one who keeps justice on the foreground is always blinded by it; he is always talking about justice, but never knows it. As to the one who keeps justice in the background—the light of justice falls on his way and he only uses justice for himself. When he has not done right to others he takes himself to task, but if others do not do right towards him he says that this is justice also. For the just person all is just, for the unjust everything is unjust. Remember that the one who talks too much of justice is far from justice; that is why he is talking about it. One may think, “Is there any reward in sympathy if it leads only to disappointment?” I shall answer, “Life's reward is life itself.” A person may suffer from illness or disease, be most unhappy and sad, but ask him, “Shall I turn you into a rock?” and he will say, “No, let me live and suffer.” Therefore life's reward is life; the reward of love is love itself. Loving is living, and the heart that closes itself to everyone closes itself to its own self. The difference between human love and divine love is like that between drill and war. One has to drill in order to prepare for war. One has to know the phenomenon of love on this plane in order to prepare to love God who alone deserves love. The one who says, “I hate human beings, but I love God does not know what love means; he has not drilled, he is of no use in war. A loving person, whether he loves a human being or whether he loves God, shows no trace of hatred, and the one who has hatred in him loves neither man nor God, for hatred is the sign that the doors of his heart are closed. Is it not a great pity that we see today among the most civilized nations one nation working against the other, lack of trust between nations and this fear of war? It is dreadful to think that humanity which appears to be progressing so much is at the same time going backward to such an extent that never in the history of the world such bloodshed has been caused as during the last war. Are we evolving or going backward? What is missing is not intellectuality, for people are capable of inventing things and imagining governments every day better and better. Then what is missing? It is the heart quality. It seems it is being buried more and more today. Therefore the real man is being destroyed and the false part of his being is continuing. A better condition can be brought about by the individual who will realize that the development of the heart and nothing else brings about better conditions. The other day I lectured in Paris and after my lecture a very able man came to me and said, “Have you got a scheme?” I said, “What scheme?” “Of bettering conditions. “ I replied that I had not made such a scheme, and he said, “I have a scheme, I will show it to you.” He opened his box and brought out a very large paper with mathematics on it and showed it to me saying, “This is the economic scheme that will make the condition of the world better: everyone will have the same share.” I said, “We should practice that economic scheme first on tuning our piano: instead of saying D, E, F, we should tune them all to one note and play that music and see how interesting that would be-all sounding the same, no individuality, no distinction, nothing.” And I added, “Economy is not a plan for construction, but it is a plan for destruction. It is economics which have brought us to destruction. It is the heart quality, it is the spiritual outlook which will change the world.” Very often people coming to hear me say afterwards, “Yes, all you say is very interesting, very beautiful, and I wish too that the world was changed. But how many think like you? How can you do it? How can it be done?” They come with that pessimistic remark, and I tell them, “One person comes into a country with a little cold or influenza and it spreads. If such a bad thing can spread, can not an elevated thought of love, kindness and goodwill towards all men spread? See then that there are finer germs, germs of goodwill, of love, kindness, and feeling, germs of brotherhood, of the desire for spiritual evolution, which can have greater results than the other ones. If we all have that optimistic view, if we all work in our little way, we can accomplish a great deal.” There are many good, loving and kind people whose heart goes out to every person they meet, but are they spiritual? It is an important question to understand. My answer is that they are just close to spiritual attainment, but unconsciously spiritual. They are not spirit-conscious. Often we meet a mother, a father or a child in whom we see a deep loving tendency; love is pouring out from them, they have become fountains of love. They do not know one word of psychology, of mysticism, but that does not matter. After all what are these names? Nothing but nets for fishes to be caught in, which remain in those nets for years. Sometimes these are big names with little meaning to them, of which much is made by those who want to commercialize the finer things. Very often it is a catering on the part of so-called spiritual workers to satisfy human curiosity and to create sensation even in the spiritual world. But truth is simple. The more simple you are and the more you seek for simplicity, the nearer you come to truth. The devotional quality needs a little direction; that direction allows it to expand. The loving quality is Just like water. The tendency of water is to expand, to spread, and so the loving quality spreads. But if a person is not well directed, or if he does not know how to direct himself then-if instead of deepening that quality flows-it is without root and it becomes limited. The love quality must be deepened first before it spreads out. If not, what generally happens is that those who set out to love all human beings end in hating all human beings. Because they did not first deepen themselves enough they did not have all the strength to draw more. The Sufis have therefore considered the development of the heart quality as a spiritual culture, and have called it the culture of the heart. It consists of the tuning of the heart. Tuning means changing the pitch of the vibrations. Tuning the heart means changing the vibrations, bringing them to a certain pitch which is the natural one where you feel the joy and ecstasy of life, which enables you to give pleasure to others even by your presence because you are tuned. When an instrument is properly tuned you need not play music on it; just by striking it you will feel a great magnetism coming from it. If an instrument well-tuned can have that magnetism, how much greater should be the magnetism of hearts that are tuned. Rumi says, “Whether you have loved a human being or whether you have loved God, if you have loved enough you will be brought in the end into the presence of the supreme Love itself.” Question: Is there a science of culture of the heart? Answer: The science of the Sufis teaches that in the mind and in the body a blockage is produced by the lack of development of the sympathetic nature. In the physical body are some nervous centers which are awakened by sympathetic development and by lack of sympathy they are closed. It is therefore that a butcher is less intuitive: everything that keeps man away from sympathy robs him of intuition, because sympathy develops a life in the finer centers, the nervous centers, and the absence of sympathy takes away that life. So it is in the mind; when the heart is not sympathetic something is missing in the mentality of man, and it is sympathy which opens it. Sufis have the medicine for this disease: it is the practice of a certain art which in our language is called dhikr (zikar) or mantram. By practicing that particular art in the right way one works with vibrations on these fine centers. It is a process of vibrations by the help of certain mystically prescribed words; by the repetition of these mystical words the centers begin to vibrate. Very often after six weeks' practice a person feels quite different. Then with that vibration a thought is held in the mind and so concentration is developed at the same time. It helps the love nature or sympathetic nature to be deepened and centralized in the person. As the love nature develops it begins to flow out, and its outflowing creates an atmosphere, a spiritual atmosphere. That is why in the East you will always find that the presence of a Sufi is sought by Hindus and Muslims, by people of all different creeds, because the Sufi is all. He is not solely a Hindu or a Muslim, he has not any other religion, he is all, and this comes from the development of feeling. During my pilgrimage to the holy men of India I have seen some whose presence could illuminate you more than reading books for your whole life, or than disputing over any problems a thousand times. They do not need to speak, they become living lights, fountains of love. And if there is infection in disease so there is also infection in spiritual attainment. It is infectious, a person feels uplifted, he feels full of joy, ecstasy, happiness, enlightenment. Of course the one is more impressed than the other; upon one the influence is much greater than upon another. It all depends upon the person. I will tell you an amusing instance. I remember a lady telling me, “Since you have come my husband is very, very nice.” I said, “Yes.” But eight days after I had left that town she wrote to me that the man was just where he had been before. The effect of influence is very different, because it is just like the effect of fire. The effect of fire on stone, on iron, on wax, on paper, on cloth, on cotton—upon every object—is different. So on every person the effect of a spiritual personality is different. Optimism and Pessimism Optimism represents a spontaneous flow of love; optimism also represents trust in love. This shows that it is love, trusting love which is optimism. Pessimism comes from disappointment, from a bad impression which is there of some hindrance in the past. Optimism gives a hopeful attitude in life, whereas by pessimism one sees darkness on one's path. No doubt sometimes pessimism shows conscientiousness and cleverness—and pessimism also shows experience.  But in point of fact can we ever be conscientious enough if we only think what difficulties we have before us in our life? It is trust which solves the problems in the end. Very often the wise have seen that cleverness does not reach far; it goes a certain distance and there it stands, for cleverness is a knowledge which belongs to the earth. As to experience—what is man s experience? One is only proud of one's experience in life as long as one has not seen how vast the world is. In every line of work and thought no mountain of experience is needed, and the further man goes in experience the less he realizes that he has none. The psychological effect of optimism is such that it helps to bring success, for it is by the optimistic spirit that God has created the world. Optimism therefore comes from God, and pessimism is born out of the heart of man. From what little experience of life he has man feels, “This will not be done, that will not succeed, this will not go, that will not come right.” For the optimistic one, if things will not come right in the end, it does not matter; he will take his chance. And what is life? Life is an opportunity. To the optimistic person the opportunity is a promise, and for the pessimistic person this opportunity is lost. It is not that the Creator makes man lose it, but it is man who withdraws himself from the possibility of seizing the opportunity. Many in this world prolong their illness by giving a pessimistic thought to it. Mostly you will find that for those who have suffered for many years from a certain illness their illness becomes so real that its absence seems unnatural. They believe this illness to be their nature and its absence something they do not know. In this way they keep the illness in themselves. Then there are pessimistic people who think that misery is their share in life, that they are born to be wretched and cannot be anything else but unhappy, that heaven and earth are against them. In fact they—and nobody else—are against themselves, they themselves are their own misery and their pessimism is their misfortune. Man's life depends on what he concentrates upon. If he concentrates upon misery he cannot but be miserable. If he has a certain habit or a certain nature of which he does not approve, he thinks he is helpless before it because it is his nature, his own. Nothing is man's nature, except that which he makes for himself As the whole of nature is made by God, so the nature of each individual is made by himself. As the Almighty has the power to change His nature, so the individual is capable of changing his nature—if only he knew how. Among all the creatures of this world man is most entitled to be optimistic, for man represents the nature of God on earth: God as judge, as Creator and as the Master of all His creation. So is man master of his own life, master of his affairs-if only he knew it. A man with an optimistic view will help another who is drowning in the sea of fear or disappointment. A pessimist, on the contrary, if somebody comes to him who is ill or downhearted by the hardness of life, will pull that person down and let him sink to the depths with him. So on the side of the one there is life, on the side of the other there is death. The one climbs to the top of the mountain, the other goes to the depth of the earth. Is there any greater helper in one's sorrow, in misfortune, at moments when every situation in life seems dark, than that spirit of optimism which knows, “All will be right.” Therefore it is no exaggeration if I say that the very Spirit of God comes to man's rescue in the form of the optimistic spirit. It does not matter how hard a situation in life may be, however great the difficulties, they all can be fought, they all can be surmounted. But what matters is that his pessimistic spirit weighs a person down low, when he has already come to low waters. Death is preferable to being weighed down in misery by a pessimistic spirit. The greatest reward there can be in the world is the spirit of optimism, and the greatest punishment that can be given to man for his worst sins is the spirit of pessimism. Verily, hopeful is the one who in the end will succeed. Conscience—Questions and Answers Question: What is the origin of conscience? Answer: Conscience is the cream of the mind. The best that the mind has produced is conscience. It is a product of the mind, and therefore the conscience of a person living in one nation is quite different from the conscience of a person in another nation: it is built in another element. For instance, in ancient times there were communities of robbers. Now there are nations. The robbers used to think that they were entitled to rob the caravans passing by; they had a moral principle and an ideal. If a person said, “All I have I give you, let me go” they said, “No, I wish to see blood from your hand.” They did not let him go without hurting him. What was their principle? They thought, “We do not accept anything from you, we are not beggars, we are robbers. We risk our lives for our profession, we defend ourselves risking our lives, we are brave, we are entitled to it, we are courageous.” It was the same with the sea pirates; they thought what they did was virtue, and from that thought they became kings. The same people when small were robbers, when great became kings. Conscience therefore is what we have made. At the same time it is the finest thing we make; it is like the honey made by bees. Beautiful experiences in life, tender thoughts and feelings gather in ourselves and make a conception of wrong or right. If we go against it, it brings and produces discomfort. Happiness, success, comfort in life, peace—they all depend upon the condition of our conscience. Question: Does not each person make his own law for his necessity? Answer: That would be nice, but we are living in a community; we are not entitled to live in a community and to disregard its laws. If we wish to benefit, to entitle ourselves to all its advantages we must adhere to its laws. No doubt if we have better ideas than the community has produced, we can make them see that our principle is the right one, but we must not disregard the principle in which the whole community lives, saying, “We make our laws for our individual being.” We can go to the mountains and forests saying, “We live according to our own law;" then we can be entitled to do so. In ancient times there were spiritual people who went into the caves of the mountains and into the forest and lived according to their own laws. But if we say, “As members of the community we must have its privileges” then we must also adhere to the laws of the community. Question: Is not the disapproval of the conscience due to the soul's memory of unpleasant consequences of actions in the past, added to conventionalities and accepted ideas as to what is right at the present time? Answer: Does “past” mean yesterday or the day before yesterday, this life or the life before? If no more explanation is given I might say that the whole life of the world is built of conventionalities and accepted ideas, and nothing else. Therefore I do not mean to say that conscience is truth. When we come to the absolute truth there is nothing to be said-but the conscience is made of accepted ideas. The world is maya and nothing else. If we accept something as being right, to another it is wrong. What the modern German philosopher Einstein says about relativity is the same thing which many years before the Hindus have called maya, illusion: illusion caused by relativity, for everything exists by our acceptance of it. We accept a certain thing to be right, good, or beautiful; once accepted it becomes our nature, our individual self-it is all acceptance. If we do not accept it then it is not. A mistake, if we do not accept it as such, is not a mistake, but once accepted it is a mistake. Question: But we do not always know if it is a mistake. Answer: Do we not know it from the painful consequences ensuing? That also is acceptance. There are dervishes who work against accepted facts, for instance the accepted fact that fire burns. They jump into the fire and come out unharmed. So they give a proof to the religions, saying, “hellfire is not for us. When we can prove that here for us it does not exist, certainly for us in the hereafter it does not exist.” Question: Is not the conscience really the result of the soul's respect for the accepted ideas of a community? If left to oneself would there be any reaction in one's conscience? Answer: But there is action and reaction in oneself. The reason is that a human being has had different phases of existence. In one phase he is less wise; if he dives deeper in himself he is wiser; if he dives still deeper in himself he is wiser still. What he does in one sphere he would reject in another sphere. Therefore a man has so much in himself to combat and to reject that he has action and reaction even without contact with others. Sometimes in his mood a person is a devil, sometimes a saint. There are moods, there are times when a person is quite out of reason; there are fits of goodness and fits of badness-that is human nature. Therefore one cannot say that an evil person has no good in him, nor a good person no evil. But what concerns the conscience most is one's own conception of what is right and wrong, and the second influence is the conception of others. Therefore a person is not free. Question: Is not the role of the conscience very difficult? Answer: The best way of testing life is to have conscience as a testing instrument with everything-whether it is harmonious or inharmonious. If it is inharmonious, then to think that it will upset the whole environment; if it is harmonious then to think that it is all right. Question: How can a feeling be controlled by the conscience? Answer: The conscience-like everything else-if it has become accustomed to handle one's thought, speech or action becomes stronger. If it is not accustomed to do this then it becomes weaker and remains only as a torture, not as a controller. The conscience is a faculty of the heart as a whole which contains reason, thought, memory and heart. Question: But who is it in the conscience who judges? Answer: In the sphere of conscience the soul of man and the Spirit of God meet and become ones Question: In what manner do the soul of man and the Spirit of God meet in the conscience and become one? Answer: The heart in its depth is linked with the divine Mind. Therefore in the depth of the heart there is a greater justice than on the surface, and a kind of intuition comes, inspiration, knowledge as the inner light falling upon our own individual conception of things, and both then come together. In the conscience is the throne of God; there God Himself sits on the throne of justice. A person condemned by his conscience is more miserable than the one who is condemned by the court. A person whose conscience is clean, if he is exiled from his country or sent to prison, still remains a lion—even in a cage, for even in a cage there is his inner happiness. But when his conscience despises a person then that is a bitter punishment, more so than any the court can give. Sa’adi says it very beautifully. He sees the throne of God in the conscience and says, “Let me confess my faults to Thee alone that I may not have to go before anyone in the world to humiliate myself.” Question: Why can we only have knowledge of God through the heart? What part of the mind does the heart represent? Answer: The heart is the principle center—not the heart in the body, but the heart which is the depth of the mind, for the mind is the surface of the heart. The heart and the mind are one, as one tree: the root is the heart, the branches, the fruits and the flowers represent the mind. Question: What is the relation between conscience and truth? Answer: I distinguish between truth and facts. Conscience is made from the cream of facts, but not from truth, because truth stands above all things; it has nothing to do with conscience. It is facts which have to do with conscience. When we come to understand truth—the understanding of truth is Just like a spring which rises and expands into an ocean, so that we come even to such a degree of understanding that we say, “All is true, and all is truth.” Justice and Forgiveness—Questions and answers Question: Is it not very difficult to avoid judging? For in order to become just one has to come to a certain conclusion. Answer: Yes, but what man generally does is not only that he judges anyone in the mind-he is very ready to give his judgment out. He is not patient enough to wait and analyze the matter and think more about it. As a rule a person is not only ready to judge, but without any restraint on his part he is ready to express his judgment instantly. He will not think, “Have I the right to judge that person? Have I risen to that state of evolution?”-when Jesus Christ himself refused to judge and said, “Whoever is faultless-it is that person's place to accuse or to punish.” It teaches a great lesson: even in order to learn justice it is not necessary that we should be ready to judge and instantly to express our judgement, our opinion. The idea of the Sufis, who see in every form the divine form, in every heart the divine shrine, is that to judge anyone, whatever be his position, his action, his condition, is against their religion, their attitude, for theirs is a respectful attitude towards everyone. And in this manner they develop that philosophy which has first been learned by them intellectually. Question: Does the fact of not blaming others mean that we do not see their faults any more, that we are above seeing them? Answer: No, in the first place it is a question of self restraint or self control, of politeness, kindness, sympathy, and graciousness, of a worshipful attitude towards God, the Creator of all beings: all are His children, good or bad. If anybody's child happened to be homely in appearance would it be polite to say before its parents, “Your child is homely”? The Father and Mother of all beings is there, ever present, and knows what is going on in every person's heart; all are His creatures. When with their faults and their merits before us we are ready to judge and to express our opinion against them, it is certainly against the Artist who has made them—not behind His back, in His presence! It would not be difficult to feel the presence of God everywhere if only we were conscious of this. Besides this it is not only that we judge the faults and merits of people impartially, our favor and disfavor are always connected with it. Our favor is always inclined to see the merit, our disfavor the fault. Is there any person, however great, without a fault? Any person, however wicked, without a merit? Then if we see more faults it means that we close our heart to the favorable attitude and open our heart to the attitude which is unfavorable in order to criticize. Now the other Question: are we above seeing faults? Yes, there comes a time, after a continual practice of this virtue of not judging, when we see the reason behind every fault that appears to us in anyone we meet in our life. We become more tolerant, more forgiving. For instance, a person is ill, he is creating disturbance in his atmosphere by crying or weeping or shouting. It disturbs us and we say, “How terrible, how bad, how annoying. What a bad nature that person has got!” It is not the nature, it is the illness. If we looked from a different point of view, that reason would make us tolerant. And tolerance can give rise to that forgiveness, that only essence of God which can be found in the human heart. Question: Will you please speak about the justice of God's judgment? Answer: By giving you a little simile I will show you what difference there is between man's justice and God's justice. There are children of the same father and they are quarreling over their toys. They have reasons to quarrel over their toys. One thinks a certain toy is more attractive: why should he not possess it? The other says, that toy is given to him: why should he not hold on to it? Both have their reason and both are just, but the father's justice is different from theirs. The father has not only given them the toys to play with, but at the same time he knows what is the character of each child and what he wishes to bring out of that child, and whether that particular toy will help to bring out what he wishes to come out. The child does not know this. It happens perhaps that the toy seems poor to him and according to his sense of justice he cannot understand why that toy was given to him and not to the other. If the child was older he would have accused the father of injustice, but he does not know the justice of his father. He has to grow to that stage of evolution where his father is in order to understand the meaning behind. The same is with the justice of God and man. Man's justice is covered by his limited experience in life, by his favor and disfavor, by his preconceived ideas, by the learning he has which is nothing compared to the knowledge of God. When one compares the father with his innocent child, their relationship is too near to be compared to the relationship between God and man where there is such a distance; if we counted all the human beings that exist they would be like a drop compared to the ocean. There is no comparison between God and man. Therefore man's justice is imperfect, God's justice is perfect. If one ever gets a glimpse of divine justice, the only way is first to believe in the justice of God against all the proofs which will contradict His Justice. There are many proofs which will contradict His Justice. Why is this person rich, why is the other poor, why is this person in a high position, why has that person suffered so much, and why has another lived long and had a pleasant life? If one judged their actions, their intelligence, their stage of evolution one would find no justification. By judging this one will come to a conclusion where one will say, “Oh, there is no justice, it is all mechanical working which is perhaps behind it.” Ideas such as karma and reincarnation will satisfy, but at the same time they will not root out God behind them, for then God has no power. God cannot be all powerful if everyone has the power to make his own karma. Root out God, then everything is working mechanically. And even if so, there cannot be a machine without an engineer; for a machine there must be an engineer. Is he subjected to his machine? Is he subjected to its power or is he the controller of it? If he is subjected then he is not powerful enough. If he is limited then he cannot be God any more. God is He who is perfect in His justice, in His wisdom and in His power. If we question the cause of all such happenings which do not give us a justification then we come to another question, and that question is: Can a composer give a certain justification of every note he has written his composition? He cannot; he can only say, “It is the stream that has come from my heart. I have tried to maintain certain laws, to keep to certain rules of composition, but if you ask me for the justification of every note I am unable to give it. I am not concerned with every note, I am concerned with the effect that the whole produces.” It is not true that there is no law. There is a law, but is law predominant or love? Law is a habit, and love is the being. Law is made, love has never been created; it was, it is and it will be. So love is predominant. What do we read in the Bible? God is love. So God is beyond the law: love is above the law. Therefore if we come to any solution to our ever rising Question: Why is it so?-it is not by the study of the law, never. Study of the law will only give increasing appetite which will never bring satisfaction. If there is anything which will bring satisfaction it is diving deep into love and letting love inspire law. That will open up a realm of seeing the law better. Then we shall see that there is nothing in this world which has no justification. It is inexplicable but it is perceptible that all has its justification, and in the light of perfect Justice all life will be manifest. Then we shall not have one word to say that “this is unjust” not even the most cruel thing we saw. A thought like this may shock, but at the same time that is the point the wise man reaches, and he calls it the culmination of wisdom. Question: How do we know that God forgives more than He judges? Answer: In the first place justice is born and love has never been born. It always has been and always will be. Of what is justice born? It is born of the sense of fairness. As this sense becomes matured in man he begins to seek for evenness, and what is not even he does not like. But to inspire this sense, to develop it, all must exist first: justice is the outcome of what we see, love is not. Love is spontaneous and is always there, as it is said in the Bible, “God is love.” Therefore justice is God's nature, but love is God's very being. Therefore He forgives, because He is forgiveness Himself, and He judges because it is His nature to judge. Question: So justice comes from God's intelligence, and forgiveness from His divine love? Answer: God's intelligence in this world of illusion has a limited expression, for when one judges limited things one I s intelligence becomes limited also. One is as limited as the object before one; the greater the object, the greater becomes the vision. But forgiveness does not judge, it is only the feeling of love. And therefore whatever be the other's fault, once a person has forgiven, the happiness and joy are shared by both. Justice has not that joy. The one who judges too much is unhappy himself and makes the one whom he judges unhappy also. The one who forgives is happy, he does not keep any grudge in his heart, he makes his heart pure and free from it. Therefore God's greatest attribute is forgiveness. Pairs Of opposites used in Religious Terms In religious terms one makes use of pairs of opposites such as God and devil, heaven and hell, sin and virtue. Man who begins to acquire knowledge by learning through pairs of opposites cannot at once rise to that pitch where he comprehends life without them. In one way it is not correct, it is not right to conceive God who is all-powerful together with the conception of another personality, an opposite power, calling it devil. On the other hand it would puzzle a believer in God, who considers God all good and all beautiful, when he knew that also all that is bad or evil is contained in God. Besides, a devotee, a worshipper of God, whose object is to raise by devotion and worship his ideal of God as high as he can, is hindered in his effort by being made to see that all that he considers wicked and ugly also belongs to God's part. On the other hand one has diminished God, making Him limited, producing before Him a power which—if not equal-exists as a power opposite to God. No doubt whichever method the wise of the world have taken to guide humanity, whether with the limited idea of God opposed by another power, Satan, or with the other idea that God is all-powerful, the only Being, it has always been wisdom's work to bring man to that pitch where he can understand life more perfectly. No doubt when we give a place to a power for wrong, for evil, when we picture it as a personality and call it a devil, we certainly limit the power of the One whom we always call almighty. Nevertheless, it is picturesque, it is more comprehensible and tangible to believe in the God of good and in the Lord of evil. As to the idea of what is called heaven and hell—for our comprehension these are two places: one where a person is punished, the other where he is exalted, where he is happy, where he is rewarded. This idea is clear, but where do we experience all unhappiness and sorrow and discomfort, and where do we experience all pleasure and happiness and joy? Is it not on the same earth? It is under the same sun. This explains to us that those two places were shown to us as different because we are capable only of seeing them as two different places. The wise of the world, at any time of the world's civilization, could not do better than to make the subtle ideas of life as simple and comprehensible to man as possible. For instance, if I were to say that the world of thought and the world of action are different, it would be true. Yet it is the same world in which we live-call it the world of thought—and the very world in which we live is the world of action. It is not only how it is said, but it is also how we look at it. What is said is not wrong but, if we look wrongly at it, it can be wrong. It is not disbelieving in things which is wrong, but believing wrongly is even worse than disbelief. It is the understanding of all things from every point of view which enlightens, not refusing to believe them or to believe them simply. Cannot one's own mind be turned from hell to heaven and from heaven to hell? Cannot one's own life's situation be turned from hell to heaven and from heaven to hell? It is here where one sees the difference and at the same time the oneness of the two. Now we come to what people call sin and virtue. In all ages they have pointed out, “This particular thing is sin, that particular thing is virtue.” Whenever the wise have done it they have done it rightly, and yet they differ from one another. If a greater light is thrown upon this subject it is possible to view sin in the light of sin and also to view sin in the light of virtue. Very often one can also see that under the cover of virtue there was a sin, and under the cover of sin there was a virtue. When people came to Christ accusing a person of wrongdoing the Master did not think of anything else but forgiveness, for he did not see in that person what the others saw. Looking at right and wrong is not the work of an ordinary mind, and it is amusing that the more ignorant a person, the more ready he is to distinguish between right and wrong. Very often it is the angle from which we view a thing that makes it right or wrong, and therefore the very thing that we would call wrong, if we were able to see it from different angles, we would call right at the same time. When people say that they distinguish between right and wrong by their results, even then they cannot be sure if in the punishment there was not a reward, or in the reward a punishment. What does this show us? It shows us that life is a puzzle of duality. The pairs of opposites keep us in an illusion and make us think, “This is this, and that is that.” At the same time by throwing a greater light upon things we shall find in the end that they are quite different from what we had thought. Seeing the nature and character of life the Sufi says that it is not very important to distinguish between two opposites. What is most important is to recognize that One which is hiding behind it all. Naturally after realizing life the Sufi climbs the ladder which leads him to unity, to the idea of unity which comes through the synthesis of life, by seeing One in all things, in all beings. You may believe that the world has evolved, that humanity has always evolved, or you may believe that it has gone up and then down, going round and round in circles, or whatever may be your belief. But in whatever age the wise were born, they have always believed the same: that behind all is oneness, and in the understanding of that oneness is wisdom. A person who awakens to the spirit of unity, a person who sees the oneness behind all things-his point of view becomes different and his attitude therefore changes. He no longer says to his friend, “I love you because you are my friend”; he says, “I love you because you are myself.” He says, as a mystic would say, “Whether you have done wrong or whether I have done wrong, it does not matter. What is wanted is to right the wrong.” Question: If I have well understood your philosophy and idea of religion it seems to me that it starts from doubt, not making a distinction between good and evil, sin and virtue, justice and injustice. Do you seek to establish a triangle system on which you seek to find the center of gravity? Answer: Yes, you are quite right, but I do not mean that we start by not distinguishing between the two. We do not need to start by it, because life starts by distinguishing between the two; life starts us in this way. If we did not distinguish between the two and we arrived at that conception of unity of which I have spoken, we would be missing a great deal in life. It is after distinguishing these that, without becoming congested, we may come to the idea of unity which raises us above it all. For instance, when a person says, “I will not look at the fault of another” and closes his eyes, he has missed a great deal. But the one who has seen it and risen above it has really closed his eyes; he is the person who deserves to close his eyes from the other side. The purpose of our life on earth is to come and see all the distinctions and all the differences, but not to be congested by them and so to be thrown downwards. We should go on rising above them all, at the same time experiencing them all. For instance a man may say, “I have never thought about anyone who has done me any good, and I have never considered any harm that has ever come to me from anyone; I have always had just that one idea before me and after that idea I kept going.” He may be advanced, he may be spiritual, he may be pious, and yet he has missed a great deal. But the one who has received all the good that has come to him with grateful thanks and felt it, and who has also felt the harm done to him and forgiven and pardoned it, he is the one who has seen the world and is going beyond with success. Question: What do you mean exactly by the idea of God? Answer: Everything in the world can be defined except one, and that is the idea of God. If it could be defined it could not be the idea of God—and that is God. Because God is greater than His name and higher than our comprehension of Him. It is our fault to call Him God, but if we would not call Him God then what would we call Him? By giving a name to the nameless, by making a conception of Someone who is beyond conception we only make Him limited. At the same time when we would not do it, we would not do what we ought to do. The idea is that in order to respect a great man we ought to have a conception of greatness, and this conception is not that person, it is the idea we have made of that person. If there are twenty admirers of a great personality each one of them has his own conception of that personality, I might say that each one of the twenty has his special great person. Therefore there are twenty great personalities instead of one, and only the one name makes the twenty persons unite in it. If the Hindus have said, “ So many men, so many Gods it was not an exaggeration; it expressed only the idea that every man has his God in his conception, and each one—if he can ever express it—can best express his own conception of God. It is necessary first to have a conception of God in order to reach that stage where comes a realization of Him. If a person does not have a conception of God he cannot have the realization of Him. I mean to say: fuller realization of Him. If a person does not think a personality great, he will not see into the greatness of that personality; he must first have the conception that in him there is something great. In other words we first make our God before we come to the realization of Him. Question: What do you mean by “God has no opposite”? Answer: There is the sun and there is the moon, there is man and woman, there is night and there is day. The colors are distinguished by their variety and so are the forms. Therefore to distinguish anything there must be its opposite; where there is no opposite we cannot distinguish. There must be health in order to distinguish illness; if there were no health and only illness then it would not have been illness. Furthermore in ancient times many have tried to help the imagination of the God-seekers by giving them a belief in a Satan: that God is all goodness and Satan all badness. It was to answer those who could not understand better. In reality badness is only the shadow of goodness; as shadow is nonexistent, so evil is non-existent. There is always going forwards. What is left behind-that is less good; what we gain in the journey forwards-that is more good. When we compare them then we call one thing evil and the other good. Therefore people have called the devil all evil, to whom one should turn one's back, and God all goodness, to whom one should turn one's face. It was a convenient method to teach the people of those times. In reality God has no comparison. No doubt God can be compared if we make God good, as many do. But if we have a wider conception of God we cannot confine God to what we call goodness. What is our idea of goodness? It is very small. Perhaps it is good for us, but it is not something to judge God with. God is not kind only to a few, to those who are good. We can see that He sends the rain to all the trees and plants, not to a few only; the sun shines upon all, all are given food-because His kindness is perfect. Question: How could the almighty God allow so much bloodshed in the recent war? Answer: The answer to this question is that nothing that gives pain and causes harm through life is from God. It comes from the limited, not from the unlimited. In essence it is Godpower which is working through all powers, but when analyzed it is the power called Qadr working through human beings which has been wasted through these wars causing so much bloodshed and disturbance in the whole cosmos and disharmony in all spheres on this planet. God is not to be blamed for this. It is we human beings who are at fault; instead of seeking the pleasure of God we have sought our own pleasures. It is beyond the power of man to judge the actions of God from his own moral standard and from his limited point of view. A just person will certainly accept the fact that it takes a long time and much practice to develop the sense of justice which after a great many tests and trials makes man just, and it is not the man who is ready to weigh and measure the action of his fellow-man and to form an opinion who is really just. No man with any sense may dare try to trace the cause of war to the divine Spirit of God, when the whole life on earth is laid before us like an open book wherein we can read distinctly its true cause. Question: As evil cannot come out of good, how came the wickedness and miseries of humanity? Answer: The miseries and wickedness of humanity did not come from good, but good came out of wickedness and miseries. If it was not for wickedness and miseries and wrong we would not have appreciated what good and right means. It is these two opposite poles which make us distinguish between the two. If there had been just one thing, we would have called it goodness or wickedness, but it would have been just one. Calling it by two different names helps us to distinguish them. Many have been cross with God for having sent any misery in their lives-but we always get such experiences! Becoming cross one says, “Why, this is not just” or “This is not right” and “How could God who is just and good allow unjust things to happen?” But our sight is so limited that our conception of right and wrong and good and evil is only for us—not according to God's plan. It is true that, as long as we see it as such, it is so for us and for those who look at it from our point of view, but when it comes to God the whole dimension is changed, the whole point of view is changed. It is therefore that the wise in all ages, instead of trying to judge the actions of God, have so to speak put aside their sense of justice for the time being and have learned only one thing, and that was resignation to the will of God. By doing this they have come to an understanding which was the greatest blessing in their lives: that they could see from the point of view of God. But if they would express that point of view before the world, the world would call them mad. Therefore they have called themselves Muni, which means the people who keep silent. Question: Why do people who do evil, who do wrong, succeed, while there are people who do right without ever succeeding? Answer: That is not a rule. The rule is that the one who succeeds through wrong will only succeed through wrong; by doing right he will fall. The one who succeeds by right will always succeed by doing right; if he does wrong he will fall. Furthermore for him who ascends, all—right and wrong-becomes as steps to ascend and for him who descends, all-good or evil-becomes a step to descend. Yet what is consoling is that this takes one to the ideal: there must be an ideal before one in order to ascend; then even one's error will help. For instance, when a person is to be cured, both taking medicine and not taking medicine will help him towards his cure. And the one who is not meant to be cured, neither medicine nor its absence will help him. It teaches us to find out what we are seeking, what is our ideal. Do we ascend? How do we descend? A picture of this is a person who is climbing a staircase. If he is going upwards and his foot slips, even then he will go upwards because he is bound to go upwards. The one who is going downwards, if he slips, will go down because he is bound to go down. There is no man in this world who can say, I am faultless” Does this mean that he is not destined to reach what he is bound to reach? It is a great pity if a person does right or good because he wants to progress or to become spiritual, for what is goodness after all? It is a very small price to pay for spirituality. And the man who depends upon his goodness to attain spirituality may just as well wait a thousand years, for it is just like the picture of a man who is collecting all the sand he can to make a hill in order to mount to heaven. If one is not good for the love of goodness, if one does not do right for one's love of justice, for one's own satisfaction, there is no meaning in doing right, there is no virtue in doing good. To be spiritual is to become nothing; to become good is to become something. To be something is like being nothing, but to be nothing is like being all things. It is this claim of being something which hinders the natural perfection. Self-effacement is a return to the Garden of Eden. Question: Is there no risk that a person endeavoring to become selfless will become a prey to all the conditions of life? Answer: On the contrary, for all strength and wisdom lies in perfection. The absence of perfection is the tragedy of life. The person who holds on to himself is a burden even to the earth. The earth can easily bear mountains upon its back, but the person who is egoistic is heavier. And what happens in the end? His own soul cannot bear that person, and that is why many commit suicide. The claim of the self has become so heavy upon the soul that the soul wants to depart from it. A hint was given by Jesus Christ when he said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” What does poor in spirit mean? It means the ego that is effaced. Insight There is a stage of evolution in man's life where his every question is answered by the life around him. If there is a living being before him or if there is nature around him, if he is wakeful or if he is asleep, the answer to his question comes as an echo of the very question. As certain things become an accommodation for the air in order to turn it into sound, so for every thought of a sage everything becomes an accommodation in order to help it to resound, and in this resonance there is an answer. In point of fact the answer is in the question itself; a question has no existence without answer. It is man's limited vision that makes him see the question only, without the answer. There is a pair of opposites in all things, and in each there exists the spirit of the opposite: in man the quality of woman, in woman the spirit of man, in the sun the form of the moon, in the moon the light of the sun. The closer one approaches reality, the nearer one arrives at unity. The evidence of this realization is that no sooner a question has arisen in the heart, than the answer comes as its echo within or without. If you look before yourself the answer is before you; if you look behind the answer is behind; if you look up the answer awaits you in the sky; if you look down the answer is engraved for you in the earth; if you close your eyes you will find the answer within you. It is only a matter of climbing a mountain; the name of this mountain is WHY. As you have climbed it, then you are face to face to your ideal. It is not study which brings man to this realization; it comes by rising above all that hinders one's faith in truth. The Law of Attraction There are two great principles: the attraction of like to like and the attraction of opposites. Looking at nature we see that if there is one speck of dust on the wall all the dust will collect there. Where there is one grain of wheat much wheat grows. Where there is one little roseplant there will be a great many rosebushes. It may be hard for us to find one fly in the room, but if there is one fly we shall see that there are other flies near it. It may be difficult for us to find one ant, but if there is one ant there will be other ants near it. Where there is one sparrow there will be many sparrows. In the jungle where there is one parrot there will be a great many parrots in the same part of the forest. However much dogs may quarrel and fight, where there are three or four of them it is there that they enjoy being. The rabbit does not delight in being among sparrows, nor does the donkey rejoice in being with serpents. This shows us that like is drawn to like, to its affinity. This is the reason why nations and races have their peculiar characteristics and attributes: for ages people of like character and like qualities have collected together forming one group. The French are unlike the English, the English are different from the Swedes, the Swedes differ from the Germans. It is not difficult for a person whose intelligence is exercised in this direction to tell at once in a crowd a Belgian from a Frenchman, a Rumanian from an Italian. In India every province, every district has its peculiar character. A Gujerati will always like to be with another Gujerati. Where there are two or three Gujeratis they are happy, they do not want a Punjabi in their company. The Bengali is not like the Madrassi. When a few Bengalis are together they do not want a Madrassi, and the Madrassi enjoys being in the society of Madrassis; he does not want a Bengali to be there. Why? Because each rejoices in his own element. Families also have their likeness which comes from the like attributes being drawn to their like. In India where great attention is paid to heredity this is traced very far. The first reason for the attraction of like to like is blood relationship. At the present time relationship is much less thought of; we do not know who our relations are. It is however a great bond, as it is said: the blood is the same, the form is made of the same element. The second reason is the affinity of occupation. A farmer who has been tilling the soil all day, in the evening will want to be with other farmers with whom he can talk about the crops; he does not want to sit among literary persons. A soldier always wants to be with other soldiers. A sportsman wishes to be with sportsmen; he will not like to be among the learned in whose society he feels out of place. A literary person always seeks other literary persons. A musician likes the society of musicians. I have experienced this myself. Sometimes there were Indians among my audience, people from my own province, but they were less appreciative than Western musicians. The Western musician perhaps did not understand the words I was singing, but he was a musician, his interest in the music made him akin to its being. The third reason is the similarity of qualities. A brave person will like to be with other brave people; he will not like to be with cowards. A kind person will seek other kindhearted people. The affectionate are drawn to the affectionate, not to the cold-hearted. A quarrelsome person will seek out another quarrelsome person to fight with. Like is always recognized by like. If there are two thieves in a company the one will at once recognize the other. If a thief goes from Paris to New York it will be very easy for him to find a brother there. For another person it will take a very long time, but the thief knows at once, “This is a thief, this is my brother.” A cruel man attracts the cruelty of others. If we deceive another ever so little we shall at once find others who deceive us. Deceit may not be in our nature—but we have deceived. This is the secret of the punishment of our sins. It is not that God gives us a certain punishment, but by our wickedness, by our evil thought we attract the same wickedness, the same evil thought from others to us. The evil that we do brings the same evil upon us from others. A little kindness in us attracts the kindness of the kind. A kind person meets with kindness wherever he goes, even among the cruel. A least little generosity on our part attracts the generosity of the generous. By the repetition of the names of God, by impressing upon our soul the kindness, the mercy of that infinite goodness we create in our soul those qualities and we attract to us the kindness and mercy of that goodness under all forms and names. Besides the attraction of like to like there is the law of attraction of each to its opposite. There are two great forces in nature: the creative force and the receptive force that answers to it, or the active force and the passive force, Jalal and Jamal. This can be understood from the law of rhythm. In every rhythm there is the stronger beat and the weaker beat, the returning. In two-four time, for instance, we count one-two, one-two, the strong beat and the beat that has just as much force as to counterbalance the other. We can also see this in the forms of protuberance and cavity. The representatives of these two forces in nature are the male and the female. But in every man some qualities are male and some female; in every woman some of the qualities are female and some male. We can see that the ears receive sound; they do not create. The eyes are creative. The nose perceives the odor; it cannot create. The nose can tell us the flavor of a thing much sooner, much more exactly than the palate. The lips, the mouth, create, and they are attracted to each other. When the ears hear a sound, the eyes at once want to turn to see what it is, from where it comes. The nose at once wants to interfere with what the mouth does. It says, “Do not chew that any longer. I don't want it or it says, “Do justice to that; I like it; it is nice.” We can see that, when our right hand takes hold of something, the left hand wants to help it. When our right foot goes out, the left foot at once wishes to join it. When we fold one arm, the other arm wants to be folded too. One leg inclines to cross the other. In India there is a superstition that it brings bad luck to sleep with the legs crossed. Everyone knows it, but it is most difficult for anyone to get out of this habit because it is so natural. Often a person would rather be with his opposite than with one who is nearer his own level. When two who are of nearly equal strength meet they are not harmonious to each other. Students of breath will readily understand this; they know that there is a more active breath and a less active breath, and when both become of equal activity there is a sort of fight. If one person is a great singer and another is teaching voice-production they can agree together. There is no competition between them; the one wants to show himself, to show his voice, the other does not. But if there are two great opera-singers, a tenor and a bass, they will never agree; there is rivalry between them, they both want to be something. A wise man will rather have a foolish servant than a halfwise one who will interfere in his orders. There is a story of a servant who, when sent to fetch the doctor, went first to the undertaker. He was thinking of the future! If he cannot be among the wise, a wise person will rather be among the foolish than among the half-wise. I have often seen that the simple one with a simple faith can be inspired and become illuminated, while the intellectual is always reasoning and does not advance one step. This is why scientists and mystics never harmonize. The scientist says, “If you know something, I know something too. If you are something, I am something also.” There will always be some societies, some associations that we like and some that we do not like; some that do not like us and some that appreciate us, because we always like only our own element. There is nothing surprising in this and nothing to blame; it is the law of attraction. The Sufi makes himself harmonious with all; he makes himself the element of all. He activates the element that is within, and that element is love. We can learn this from the Bible which says that God is love. The differences and distinctions are external, but from the beginning man is so trained to see the differences that he does not see the unity underlying. People have said, “We are of this race, we are superior, you are inferior; our religion is superior, yours inferior; our nation is great, yours less.” This was the cause of the present war. The nations of Europe had reached the same level; if one made a good airship another made one better still; if one made a good submarine another made one better still. If the one was strong another wanted to be still stronger. People have said, “By being strong, by a strong rule, we shall unite the world.” What a mistake! We can see what happens when we try to rule our family with a strong hand. It will never be united. It is only love that can unite the world. It is the only way in which the union of mankind, universal brotherhood, can be brought about. The Liberal and the Conservative Point of View There are two points of view open to one in everything in the world: the liberal and the conservative. Each of these points of view gives a person a sense of satisfaction, because in both there is a certain amount of virtue. When a man looks at his family from the conservative point of view, he becomes conscious of family pride and acts in every way so as to keep up the honor and dignity of his ancestors. He follows the chivalry of his forefathers and by looking at the family from this point of view he defends and protects those who belong to his family, whether worthy or unworthy. In this way he helps to keep up a flame, lighted perhaps years ago, by holding it in his hand as a torch to guide his way. When one looks at one's nation from a conservative point of view it gives one the feeling of patriotism—which today is the substitute for religion in the modern world. It is no doubt a virtue in the sense that one begins to consider one's whole nation as one family: one cares not for one's own children only, but for the children of the nation. Man gives his life when occasion arises to defend his nation, the dignity, the honor, the freedom of his people. The conservative spirit is the individualizing spirit, which is the central theme of the whole creation. It is this spirit which has functioned as the sun; otherwise it was the allpervading light, and it is the power of this spirit working in nature which keeps many branches together on one stem and several leaves together on one branch. It is again this spirit working in man's body which keeps man's hands and feet together, thus keeping him an individual entity. But there is always a danger that this spirit, if increased, may produce congestion. When there is too much family pride man lives only in his pride, forgetting his duty towards mankind and not recognizing anything that unites him with others beyond the limited circle of his family. When this congestion is produced in a nation it results in all kinds of disasters, such as wars and revolutions with violence and destruction. The nightmare that the world has just passed through was the outcome of world congestion produced by the extreme of this same spirit. This shows that it is not true that virtue is one thing and sin another. The same thing which once was virtue becomes sin. Virtue or sin is not an action; it is the condition, it is the attitude which prompts one to a certain action, and it is the outcome of the action which makes it a sin or a virtue. Life is movement, death is the stopping of the movement; congestion stops it, circulation moves it. The conservative spirit is useful in so far as it is moving, in other words: as it is broadening itself. If a person who first was proud of his family, after having done his duty to his people, takes the next step forward which is to help his fellow-citizens, and the third step which is to defend his nation, he is progressing. His family pride and his patriotism are no doubt a virtue, for they lead him from one thing to another, better than the former. Congestion comes when a person is set in his interest. If his family causes a man to be so absorbed in his pride and interest in it that nobody else in the world exists for him except his own people, or when a person thinks of his own nation alone-nothing else interests him, others do not exist for him—in this case his family pride or his patriotism becomes a veil over his eyes, blinding him so as to make him unable to serve either others or his own. In selfishness there is an illusion of profit, but in the end the profit attained by selfishness proves to be worthless. Life is the principal thing to consider, and true life is the inner life, the realization of God, the consciousness of one's spirit. When the human heart becomes conscious of God it turns into the sea and it spreads; it extends the waves of its love to friend and foe. Spreading further and further it attains perfection. The Sufi message is not necessarily a message of pacifism. It does not teach to make peace at any and every cost; it does not condemn family pride or patriotism; it does not even preach against war. It is a message to make one conscious of the words of the Bible: “We live and move and have our being in God”—to realize this and to recognize the brotherhood of humanity in the realization of God. The natural consequences of this will bring about the spirit of brotherhood and equality and will result in preparing the outer democracy and the inner aristocracy which is in the nobility of the soul whose perfection is hidden under the supremacy of God. The Attitude All affairs of life depend upon man's attitude, and the mechanical work that is psychologically done is such that before man steps-forward to work he sees his attitude being reflected on his affair. For instance, a person starts to do something with doubt in his mind—on that affair he sees the shadow of doubt. When a person wants to do something which he knows is not quite just—before he begins to work he sees the phantom of injustice before him. The heart of man, as the Sufis say, is a mirror. All that is reflected in this mirror is projected upon other mirrors. When man has doubt in his heart that doubt is reflected upon every heart with which he comes in contact. When he has faith that faith is reflected in every heart. Can there be a more interesting study and a greater wonder than to observe this keenly? As soon as man is able to watch this phenomenon in life, it is just like a magic lantern that makes all clear to him. In this light, how foolish would appear the cleverness and the crooked ways of the dishonest who for a moment thinks that he is profiting by them, and who for a moment may seem to be benefited by them. In this life on earth, in which we cannot depend even on the morrow and in which worldly gains are snatched from one hand to an other, it is not worthwhile making the heart reflect an element that is foreign to it. That which is comforting and consoling through all this life of falsehood is only the feeling of purity in one's own heart, when one feels that one's own attitude in life is right and just. The one who experiences this will certainly say that it is greater than all the wealth of the world. It is the knowledge of this philosophy which seems to be lost from the heart of humanity at the present time. It is therefore that all things go wrong. If there is any preventive which can be used against it, it is to make one's own life as much as one can an example of one's ideal—although to make it perfectly so is most difficult. There is nothing like trying, and having failed once, another time one may be successful. Someone may say, “Yes, for certain errors made here suffering has now come; I shall bear it.” No doubt he is brave and just, but personally I would prefer the man who would resist suffering by realizing that his birthright, as a divine right, is happiness alone. Pain and suffering are foreign to his soul; they do not belong to it. He does not want it, he will not have it. Question: Is suffering necessary for our evolution? Answer: Suffering is helpful for evolution, not necessary. Therefore we must not seek suffering in order to evolve. We must avoid it. To a wise person every failure is a teaching, but it is better if he avoids learning in this way. Question: Would it be possible to gain the same degree of evolution in life without suffering? Answer: Certainly possible, but most difficult. The Law of Life All that comes to a person—in reality he arrives at it. By this I do not mean to say that he does not make it, create it, earn it, or deserve it, or that it does not come to him by chance. All that comes may come to a person in the above five ways, but at the same time in reality he arrives at it. These five ways are realms through which a certain thing comes, but what brings it about is the person himself. This subtle idea remains hidden until one has an insight into the law of life and notices clearly its inner working. For instance, if one said that a person had come to a certain position or rank, or into the possession of wealth or fame by working for it—yes, outwardly it is true, but many work and do not arrive at it. Besides one might say that all blessings of Providence come to one if one deserves them, but one can see so much in life which is contrary to this principle, for there are many in the world who do not deserve and yet they attain. With every appearance of free will there seems to be helplessness in every direction of life. And as to what man calls chance, there is so much against it too, for a deep insight into life will prove that what seems to be chance is not in reality chance. It seems to be chance, as illusion is the nature of life. Now to explain more fully what I mean by arriving at a certain thing: every soul is so to speak continually making its way towards something, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously. What a person does outwardly is an appearance of action, an action which may have no connection with his inner working. It is like a journey: not everyone knows towards what he is making his way, and yet everyone is making his way. Whether he is making his way towards the goal he has desired, or whether he is making his way towards quite the contrary goal which he has never desired, he does not know. But when the goal is realized on the physical plane then a person becomes conscious: “I have not worked for it; I have not created it; I have not deserved it; I have not earned it. How is it possible that it has come?” If it is an object desired by him then perhaps he gives the credit of it to himself, he tries to believe: “I have made it in some way.” If it is not desirable then he wants to attribute it to someone else, or to suppose that for some reason or other it has happened like that. But in reality it is a destination at which one has arrived at the end of one's journey. One cannot definitely say that one has created it, or made it, that one has deserved it, or that it has come by accident. What can be said is that one has journeyed towards it, either consciously or unconsciously, and has arrived at it. Therefore in point of fact in his desirable or undesirable experiences no one has departed from the destination at which he was meant to arrive. Nevertheless, what is most necessary is to connect the outward action with the inward journey, the harmony of which will certainly prove to be a cause of ease and comfort. It is this which is meant by saying that one must have harmony within oneself. Once this harmony is established one begins to see the cause of all things more clearly than in its absence. One might ask in what way harmony can be established between the inner journey and the outward action. What generally happens is that a person is so much absorbed in his outward action that his inner attitude becomes obscured to his view. The first thing necessary is to remove the screen that hides the inner attitude from one's sight. Everyone is conscious of what he does, but not conscious of his inner attitude. In other words, everyone knows what he is doing, but everyone does not necessarily know towards what he is going. No doubt the more one is conscious of this, the less becomes one's action, for thought controls action—but it only gives a rhythm, a balance. to life. Compared with a person who is capable of running without knowing where he is going, he is better off who is walking slowly but knows towards what he is going. There are two distinct parts of one action: there is an action of our inner life and there is an action of our outer life, the inner being and the outer being. The outer being is physical action, and the inner action is our attitude. Both may be actions of free will, but in a certain way they both prove to be mechanical or automatic actions. No doubt the inner action has a great power and influence upon the outer action. A person may be busy all day doing a certain thing but at the same time, if the attitude is working against him, he can never have success in his work. By his outward action a person may deserve a great prize, but for his inner action he may not be deserving it. Therefore if these two actions are contrary to one another, there is no construction and there is no attainment of the desired results. The true result, the result that is desirable, comes through the harmony of these two activities. The Law of Action Whatever we do comes back to us. It may not come back from the same side, it may come from another side. But how does it come? Suppose we speak very badly to a servant, we insult him, we hurt his feelings. We think, “I am quite safe; he cannot do me any harm.” But subconsciously our mind is impressed by the insult, the unkindness and that impression we take with us; we take it before whomever we meet and it calls forth the insulting tendency, the unkindness of him with whom we come in contact. The element attracts the same element, our coldness attracts his unkindness. We may meet many people who cannot insult us: their situation makes it impossible for them. But when we meet someone who can do so, our superior for instance, he will insult us, he will hurt our feelings. If we do someone a kindness we ourselves are impressed by kindness and this impression draws out kindness from those before whom we come. The cruel will not be so very cruel with us because of this impression of kindness, and when we meet someone who is kind his kindness towards us will be increased a thousand times. A sin without its reaction is Just like a drop of poison in one's system which awaits its chance until it is developed enough to break out throughout one's life as a disease arising in time from that one drop. And such is the case with virtue, but an unanswered flame of virtue may enlighten one's whole life so that the world may see the illumination. We make sins and virtues according to our idealization. What we have been taught from our childhood as good, we think good. What we have been taught from our childhood as bad, we think bad. It is not that God, from there, without the experience of manifestation, has made certain things virtues and others sins. It is God who sees with our eyes, who hears with our ears. Every thing we do, every little good deed or bad deed has its effect upon every soul. It has always been said, “If you wish to see your children happy, do good deeds, give to the poor, be charitable. If you wish to see your fathers, your ancestors happy in the life beyond, do good actions, because the effect of your deeds will reach them, is felt by them.” The Soul, its Origin and Unfoldment When we look at life and the process of its development either from a mystical or from a scientific point of view, we shall find that it is one life developing itself through different phases. In other words, there is one vital substance-call it energy, intelligence, force or light, call it God or Spirit-which is forcing its way out from the most dense aspect of nature towards the finest aspect of nature. For instance, by studying the mineral kingdom we shall find a life in it which is forcing its way out. When we look at it scientifically we shall find that from the mineral kingdom come substances such as gold and silver and precious stones, which means that there is a process by which the mineral becomes finer, finer and finer, until it begins to show that the spirit is radiance, intelligence, beauty, and that it even manifests through the precious stones. This is a scientific point of view. When we come to a mystical point of view we see that if we go among the rocks, if we stand in the mountains, if we go into the solitude where there is no one else, we are alone and begin to feel an upliftment, we begin to feel a sense of peace, a kind of at-one-ment with the rocks, hills and mountains. What is it? It is that the spirit which is in us is the same in the mountains and rocks. That spirit is buried in the rocks and less buried in ourselves. But it is the same spirit, and that is why we are attracted to mountains. Mountains are not as living as we are, and therefore we are more attracted to them than they to us. Besides, what can we give to mountains? Our lack of peace, discord, our inharmony, our limitations. What can the mountains give us? Harmony, peace, calmness, quietude, a sense of patience, of endurance. What do they inspire us with? The idea that they have been waiting perhaps for thousands of years for an unfoldment which comes by the development of nature from rock to plant, from plant to animal, from animal to man. It is this whole gradual unfoldment of the spirit which is buried in all these different aspects of nature and at each step-from rock to plant, from plant to animal, and from animal to man-the spirit is able to express itself more freely, is able to move more freely. In this way the spirit finds itself in the end. What does it show? It shows that there is one purpose working through the whole creation. The rocks are working out the same destiny as man, the plants are growing towards the same goal as man. What is that goal? Unfoldment. The spirit is buried in the creation and wants to make its way out. At each step of evolution there is a new unfoldment, a greater opening. From the animal, Darwin says, man has come. It might have seemed at the time that it was a new scientific discovery, but it was not so. There are proofs of this in books of Persian poets. A poet who lived seven hundred years before Darwin says in his poetic terms, in a religious form, that God slept in the rock, dreamed in the plant, awoke in the animal, and realized Himself in man. Perhaps this poet has not said in detail from where man has come, but he has given his outlook so many years before. And twelve hundred years ago the Prophet Muhammad in giving the Qur'an has expressed the same: that first was the rock, from that came the plant, afterwards the animals and from them man was created. Now the difference between the scientifical or biological point of view and the mystical or prophetic point of view is this: a materialistic scientist says, “Here is a rock. By a process of development a kind of life has come to it. Then vibrations increased. From animals came man; man is a developed animal. So from perfect denseness intelligence has developed.” The mystical conception is different. A mystic does not trace the origin of life in the rock; he traces it in spirit. One may ask, “What is spirit?” Spirit is intelligence. One might think, “We do not see intelligence in a rock, in animals.” The answer is that we must first distinguish between spirit and matter, understand what difference there is between the two. Spirit is finer matter, matter is dense spirit. In other words, water is snow and snow is water. When water is not frozen it is water and when frozen it is snow; when heated again it becomes water. It is the same with spirit and matter. There are many in this world inclined to say, “Matter does not exist.” it is easy to say, but difficult to prove. Besides, is that not only a conception? Others say, “Spirit does not exist.” What is needed is to understand the relation between the two and the difference between the two. When I was travelling to America there was a young Italian with me on the ship. Looking at me he thought that I was a priest, and being himself an atheist he began to ask me, “What is your belief?” I said, “Nobody can tell his belief, it cannot be put into words. But may I ask what is yours? Perhaps you can explain it better.” “Well” said he, “I believe in eternal matter.” “Then my belief is not very far from yours. What you call eternal matter, I call eternal spirit. The dispute is over words; if you do not stick to preconceived words there is no difference.” Many in this world argue over words. If one reaches the sense no dispute is left. If someone sees the eternal aspect in matter which is ever changing, let him call it eternal. It does not matter, it is the eternal aspect of life we are looking for. Now we come to the idea of the mystic's conception of the soul. The mystic sees a development of material life from rock to plant, from plant to animal and from animal to the human physical body. That is one thing, it is a part of the mystical conception. Then there is something else: the divine Spirit, the Light, the Intelligence, the All-Consciousness. The first part makes the earth, the other makes heaven; it is that Sun, the divine Spirit shining and projecting its rays—and each ray becomes a soul. It is therefore not true to say that man has come out of a monkey. One is degrading the finest specimen of nature that God has created by calling it an improvement of a monkey. It is a materialistic, limited conception. The soul comes direct from the divine Spirit, it is intelligence itself, it is consciousness. But it is not the consciousness we know, for we never experience the pure existence of our consciousness. What we know of our consciousness is what we are conscious of, so we only know the name consciousness and do not know what it is in reality. There is no difference between pure intelligence and consciousness. We call pure intelligence consciousness when that intelligence is conscious of something. But what we are conscious of is something that is before us. We are not that: we are the being who is conscious, not that which we are conscious of. The mistake is that we identify ourselves with what we see, because we do not see ourselves. Therefore, because he does not know himself, man naturally calls his body himself—as he cannot find himself, what he identifies himself with is his body. In reality man is not his body, man is his soul. The body is something man possesses; it is his tool, his instrument with which he experiences life, but the body is not himself. Since he identifies himself with his body, he naturally says, “I live” “I die” “I am happy” “I am unhappy” “I have fallen' have risen.” Every condition of his limited and changeable body makes him think, “I am this.” In this way he loses the consciousness of the neverchanging aspect of his own being. The soul is the ray which in order to experience life needs this instrument: the vehicles of body and mind. The soul with its two vehicles, body and mind, could be called spirit—that other word we use for soul. Through the body it experiences outward conditions, through the mind it experiences inner conditions of life. So the soul experiences two spheres, the physical and the mental sphere: the mental sphere through the mind, and the physical sphere through the body with its five senses. When we come to the evolution of the world according to the point of view of the mystic, we shall see that it is not man who has come from the plant, the animal and the rock. But man has taken his body, his physical instrument, from the rock, from the animal, from the plant. He himself has come direct from the spirit and is directly joined to the spirit. He is, and always will be, above this instrument which he has borrowed from the earth. In other words, man is not the product of the earth but man is the inhabitant of heavens. It is his body which he has borrowed from the earth. Because he has forgotten his origin, the origin of his soul, he has taken the earth for his origin, but this is only the origin of his body and not of his soul. Now we come to the law of gravitation, of which many say that it is a theory which was not known to the ancients. I say that the law of gravitation was already explained thousands of years earlier, even by Buddha, and in the Qur'an we find a Sura saying that the soul has come from God and is bound for Him. What science tells today is that the body of clay which has come from the earth is attracted to the earth because of the law of gravitation: earth attracts earth. But prophets and mystics and seers and sages always knew and taught that the soul is attracted to the Spirit. In other words, by the law of gravitation the body is attracted to the earth and the soul to the Spirit. When a person is unaware of this he only knows of one attraction which is of the earth. Then he does not know of the other attraction, and that does not help to give release to the soul, for the soul is attracted to the Spirit. If it were a virtue to be spiritual-if it were only a virtue—I would be the first person to refuse it. But it is the greatest necessity of the soul; we cannot help it. Very often people think, “Is it necessary to be spiritual? What do we gain by it?” We do not need to gain anything by it, it is a natural attraction, we cannot help it! Those who are conscious of it begin to look for it. Those who are not conscious of it are unconsciously attracted to something which they do not know. During my travelling of so many years through East and West I have met most intelligent people, maybe not at all religious, not interested in spiritual subjects, and at the same time, after having become more familiar with them, what have I found? There was a secret seeking. Outwardly it is out of fashion to think about spirituality, but inwardly they were all the time seeking for it. In schools the name of God and any mention made of religion has been erased from the textbooks. Nevertheless, scientists come who after all the research of science begin to think about these things. They themselves would like to avoid it, but they cannot help it. When people ask, “Did you find response during your travelling in the Western world?” I say, “Whether it is West or East, North or South, there is response from every man. Maybe he does not know it, but every man in the world is my customer Every man has interest as soon as one tells him about life and its deeper side. No doubt some are sleeping, some are half awake, and some on the point of awaking. It is those on the point of awaking who must be helped. Those who are half awake-let them awake; they will see. Those who sleep—after their sleep is over they will wake up and look for it. It is cruel to wake up a person. If he does not care for food, let him sleep; when he awakes he will feel hungry, he will ask for food. That is the time to give it to him. Now we come to the question of the soul's natural unfoldment towards spiritual attainment. Spirituality apart, at every stage in one's life—infancy, the time from infancy to childhood, from childhood to youth, from youth to middle age—at every step further there is a new consciousness. Childhood is quite a new consciousness compared to infancy; youth is quite a different consciousness compared to childhood. If that is true then every soul, no matter in what stage of life he is, has gone through so many different unfoldments which have given him a new consciousness every time, whether he knows about it, whether he thinks about it, or not. There are experiences such as failure in business, or misfortune, or illness, or a certain blow in one's life, whether an affair of the heart or of money or a social affair, whatever it may be—there are blows which fall upon a person and a shell breaks, a new consciousness is produced. Very few will see it is an unfoldment, very few will interpret it as such, but it is so. Have you not seen among your acquaintances how a person with a disagreeable nature, a most uninteresting man to whom you were never attracted, perhaps after a blow, a deep sorrow, after some experience, awakened to a new consciousness and suddenly attracted you, because he had gone through this process? As we unfold at every step in our life, so we do with every experience. The deeper the experience touches us, the greater the unfoldment. In this way we unfold gradually towards that which is called perfection. Spiritual unfoldment is the ultimate goal of every person. It comes at a moment when a man begins to be more thoughtful, when he begins to remember or to realize this yearning of the soul. Then consciously or unconsciously a feeling comes, “Is this all I have to do in my life: to earn money? Whether I have a high rank or a position, it is all a play. I have become tired of this play. I should think of something else. There is something else I have to attain.” This is the beginning; it is the first step on the spiritual path. As soon as a person has taken this first step his outlook has changed, the value of things becomes different and things to which he had attached great importance become of less importance; things with which he concerned himself so much he no longer concerns himself with. A kind of indifference comes. Nevertheless, a thoughtful person keeps to his duty just the same; he is even more conscientious and this brings about a greater harmony, because he begins to pity others. When he goes another step forward there comes bewilderment. He begins to wonder, “What is it all? Much ado about nothing!” it gave me much to think about when once I saw in India a sage whom I knew to be very deep, a man of high attainment, who was laughing at nothing. I wondered what he was laughing at. Then I stood there and looked around myself, thinking, “I must see from his point of view what makes him laugh so much and I saw persons hustling and bustling. For what? Was it not laughable? Every person thinking his particular point of view to be the most important, pushing others away because he finds his action the most important! Is it not the picture of life? It is the way of the evolved and the unevolved. And what do they reach? Nothingness! Empty-handed they leave this world; they come without anything, and they go without anything. It is this outlook which gives the soul bewilderment. He does not feel proud to laugh at others, but it is no doubt amusing. As much as he is amused at others, he is amused at himself. When a person goes another step forward an understanding comes that changes his outlook and manner. Generally what happens is this: from morning till evening he reacts against every good and bad thing. But good he sees very rarely and bad things he always sees, or he meets someone who is nervous and excited, or dominant or selfish, and so all the time a continually jarring effect comes from everyone he meets. Then without knowing it his continual reaction is of despise, of hatred; the thought to get away is all the time before him. If he can say, “I don't like” “I dislike” he can say it from morning till evening with everyone he meets, for there is rarely one person about whom he will not say such words. And this reaction he expresses in words or thought, by feeling or action. When one reaches this third stage, the stage of understanding, one begins to understand instead of reacting. Then there is no reaction: understanding comes and suppresses it. It is just like a boat which is anchored; it produces tranquillity, stillness, weight in the personality. It does not move with every wind that blows, but stays like a heavy ship on the water, while a light ship moves with every wave that comes. That stability a person reaches in this third stage of unfoldment; he is ready to tolerate, to understand both the wise and the foolish-all. Is it not amusing to think that the foolish person disagrees more with others than the wise? One would think that he knows more than the wise one. The wise one agrees with both the foolish and the wise; he is ready to understand everybody's point of view. It may not be his ideal his way of looking, but he is capable of looking at things from the point of view of others. It is not one eye that sees fully; to make the vision complete two eyes are needed, and so the wise one can see from two points of view. If we do not keep away our own thoughts and preconceived ideas, if we cannot be passive and desirous of seeing from the point of view of another, we make a great mistake. This third stage gives a tendency to understand every person we meet. Then again there is a fourth stage of unfoldment. In this stage we not only understand, but sympathize; we cannot help but sympathize, for we can see that life in the world is nothing but limitation. Whether a person is rich, in a high position, or in a wretched condition—whatever condition he is in, or whatever he is—he has to experience this limitation and that itself is a great misery. Every person therefore has his problem before him, and when we begin to see that every person on this earth has a certain problem and weight to carry through life, we cannot help but sympathize. The one who can awake to the pain of mankind, whether it is his friend or his foe, cannot help sympathizing with him. Then he develops an outgoing tendency; be has always a feeling that he should go out to every person he meets and then, naturally, by his sympathy he looks for good points, for when one looks at a person without sympathy one will always touch his worst point. When one goes a step further still, then a way is open to communicate. Just as there is a communication between persons who love each other very much, so the sympathy of a person whose soul has unfolded itself is so awakened that not only every person but even every object begins to reveal its nature, its character and secret. To him every man is a written letter. We hear stories of saints and sages who talked with rocks and plants and trees. They are not only stories; it is reality. It is also told of the apostles that at the moment when the Spirit descended upon them they began to speak many languages. When they understood so many languages, they understood the language of every soul. It means that the illuminated soul understands the language of every soul. And every soul has its own language. It is that which is called revelation. All the teachings that the great prophets and teachers have given are only interpretations of what they have seen. They have interpreted in their own language what they have read from the manuscript of nature: that trees and plants and rocks spoke to them. Did nature only speak to those in the past? No, the soul of man is always capable of that bliss if he only realized it. Once the eyes of the heart are open, man begins to read every leaf of the tree as a page of the sacred Book. The Unfoldment of the Soul It is in unfoldment that the purpose of life is fulfilled, and it is not only so with human beings but also with the lower creation; even with all the objects that exist the fulfillment of their existence lies in their unfoldment. When the clouds gather the purpose of their gathering is shown when it is raining: it is the unfoldment of that gathering of clouds which shows itself in the rain. Not in the gathering of the clouds was a purpose accomplished, it was accomplished in the raining; the gathering was a preparation. One finds the same thing in nature which works the whole year long and brings forth its fruits in the autumn. Not only human beings but even birds and animals can watch and be delighted to see the purpose of nature's continual working fulfilled in the spring. We learn from this that every being and every object is working towards that unfoldment which is the fulfillment of its purpose. There is a saying of a Persian poet, Sa'adi, that every being is intended to be on earth for a certain purpose, and the light of that purpose has been kindled in his heart. In all different purposes which we see working through each individual, there seems to be one purpose which is behind them all, and that is the unfoldment of the soul. The ancient Hindus therefore held that object before them in all walks of life. Not only those who sought after truth were seeking for the soul's unfoldment, but an artist, a scientist, a learned man, a man of industry, of commerce, each one thought that through his particular occupation he was to come to that end. The great misfortune we find today is that humanity is divided in its different occupations and has lost that thread which binds humanity into one and gives that impetus which results in the benefit of all. When the scientist stands on his ground, strong and firm, the artist in his sphere, the industrial man in his world, and the man of commerce in the world of commerce, it is natural that their souls do not come in contact with one another giving them the force to combine for the betterment of the whole. Although a degeneration caused by extreme materialism prevails throughout the whole world, yet it is not too late to find examples of personalities who through all walks of life still wish to arrive at the proper goal. Our modern poet Tagore brought out a translation of poems by Kabir, a man who was never educated, who from childhood was a weaver and whose livelihood depended upon his weaving. Through his work he arrived at that goal, and he gave his experience in his ordinary language in a book which today is taken by the people as a Scripture. This makes us wonder whether it would not be possible for a scientist to arrive through his scientific occupations at the same truth, or for an artist through the practice of art, or for a man of industry or commerce to arrive at that central truth which concerns every soul. When we look at humanity we find that we can not only divide it into different races and different nations, but we can also divide it into people of different occupations. In this age of materialism, if there is anything that unites us, it is only our material interest. And how long can we be united by a material interest? A friendship formed in materialism is not a friendship which will endure, for in that friendship the one depends upon the other for his own interest. It is sacrifice which enables us to be friends and to Join with one another, and it is in sacrifice that the sign of spirituality is seen. We do not unite together in sacrifice today, our unity is in what we can gain by it. It is a matter for distress that in order to unite we are holding on to a lower ideal which will never prove a center of unity. It is the high ideal which can unite, and that is the hope in which we can unite-if ever we can unite. Now coming to the main part of our subject: how can the unfoldment of the soul be defined? The soul can be likened to the rose, and as a rosebud blooms so the soul unfolds itself. For the rosebud to bloom five conditions are required: fertile soil, bright sun, water, air and space. And the same five things are required for the unfoldment of the soul. As a fertile soil is required for the roseplant in order to grow, so it is necessary for the child to be given education in the spiritual ideal from the moment it is born. When a child is deprived of that most important education in its childhood, then the soil is taken away from the roots of the roseplant. How many people there are who, with every possibility, with every tendency to become interested in all that is spiritual, in everything that is lofty and high, yet are afraid of the terminology in which it is expressed. What does this show? It shows that in childhood something was removed from them, and now that they have grown up they feel a desire for it, they want it but, when they look at it in a form they are not accustomed to, they are afraid of it. I have sometimes been amused more than words can express hearing someone say, “I am so interested in all you have to say, but I cannot make myself believe it.” Is there one soul, however materialistic, which does not wish to unfold? There cannot be. Every soul has been born to unfold itself; it is its innate tendency, it cannot help it. Only, if the soul is deprived of the necessary conditions, then it ceases to develop. There are many people who do not believe in any particular religion, do not profess any particular faith, do not adhere to any form, but who at the same time have great spiritual qualities. One might ask what is meant by that education. Is it a religious or a moral education that is meant by it? One might say that today we give more education than ever, even so much that a child who goes to school is busier than a workman going to the factory. Every year it is more difficult to get a degree in a university. Every year a greater and greater burden is put upon the student, a burden which is of no use to him or to anybody else. Education therefore can be divided into two parts: a real education and a superficial one. An education which comes from book knowledge, from learning is a superficial, outward education. The other education gives a deeper insight into life, and that alone can be called a real education. What we recognize as education today, what we mean by it, is the outward education significant of a certain degree or title. But the outward education ends; this inner education never ends because it is unlimited. It is as vast as the ocean, as wide as the horizon. No soul is too young to receive this education, and no soul is too old to receive it, for it is unlimited. There are mothers, impressed by the modern conditions, who ask advice saying, “What shall I do for my child? He receives all the education that school or college gives. I have not sent him to any religious place fearing that he will receive something different. Will you tell me what I must do to inspire this child which is constantly searching after something higher?” The answer is that for a really important education there is no institution; it is an education which one should acquire oneself and one should impart it to a little child. Now one may ask what is meant by the water that nourishes the rose. That water is the love element. If that element is kept away in a person's life, with all his intellectual knowledge and with every desire to seek after truth, he will remain backward. And unfortunately this element seems to be missing in the life of culture. A learned man will say that it has no place in the world of reason, and this separates outer learning from the religious ideal which calls God love. What is it that takes the part of the sun in the life of a person, as the sun takes part in the growing of the rose? It is intelligence. Everyone may not seem to be intelligent, but the soul itself is intelligence. When the intelligence is covered by the mist of impressions and ideas of this earth, that intelligence becomes drowned in something, buried under something. When it is discovered then it is as bright as the sun. The mission of Buddha was mainly intended for that purpose. All Buddha wished to teach his disciples was to discover that pure intelligence which is above all reasoning and which is the essence of all reason. What place does the air take in the growing of the soul? The air is symbolical of the inspiration which comes to the heart that is prepared for it. It is not only by outward learning, but by what one learns through inspiration, that the soul is elevated towards unfoldment. What is meant by the space which is needed around the roseplant in order to let it grow? Symbolically it means a wide outlook on life. A person may live a hundred years, and with a narrow outlook will never see the light. In order to see life clearly the outlook must be wide. There is much to fight with in life in order to keep our outlook wide, because the nature of our life in the world is such that it drags us down and puts us in a sphere where we cannot but be narrow. A great person is not great because of his merits, qualities or reputation; the greatest thing that he can show proving his greatness is his vast outlook. And it is wonderful to notice how, even unconsciously, people who have arrived at a stage of being great in whatever walk of life automatically begin to show a vast outlook on life. What manures the plant and makes roses bloom is, symbolically, that teaching given by the great masters of humanity. How can this development of the soul in which the purpose of life is fulfilled be recognized? What are its indications, its signs? The soul becomes like a rose and begins to show the rose quality. The rose holds together many petals, and so the person who comes to the unfoldment of the soul begins to show many different qualities. These qualities emit fragrance in the form of a spiritual personality. The rose has a beautiful structure, and so the personality which proves the unfoldment of the soul has also a fine structure in manner, in dealing with others, in speech, in action. It is like the perfume of the rose that the atmosphere of the spiritual being pervades all. The rose has in its heart its seeds, and so the developed-souls have in their heart that seed of development which produces many roses. The rose comes and fades away, but the essence that is taken from the rose lives and keeps the fragrance that it had in its full bloom. Personalities who touch that plane of development may live on the earth for a limited time, but the essence which is left by them will live for thousands and thousands of years, ever keeping the same fragrance and giving the same pleasure that once the rose gave. Divine Impulse The first question to be considered in reference to the subject of divine impulse is: where does every impulse come from? Every movement, every vibration, every motion has one source. One sees a hint of this in the Bible where it says, “The word was God.” The word means vibration and vibration means movement. In the Vedanta nada Brahma means sound. Vibration was the first or original aspect of Brahma, the Creator. In the Qur'an we read, “Be—He said-and it became.” Every impulse, every action on any plane of existence has its origin in the one source. It is also said in the Qur'an, “God is all power; there is no power but God's.” In all that is done, what is done is by His power. Now the question arises: If all the scriptures say this, where does Satan come in? What is the meaning behind the power of Satan? Another power is suggested besides the power of God, and sometimes the power attributed to Satan seems mightier than the power attributed to God. This is a puzzle to many who wonder where the action of Satan comes in. The explanation is to be found in the understanding of metaphysics and of the laws of nature. There is one law, the natural law, and all that comes directed by nature's law is harmonious. The gardens that man has made may seem for a moment to improve upon the forests, but in the end, on examination, the garden with its artificial structures proves limited in beauty and harmony. The inspiration one gets in the forest, in the wilderness is much greater than in the manmade garden, for there man has made inspiration limited, because the life he radiates is limited. Man makes a law and finds he cannot keep it; so he makes another law and is never satisfied, for he takes no account of nature's laws of peace and harmony. Men say that nature is cruel; yes, but man is far more cruel than the animals. Animals have never destroyed so many lives as man has. All the apparent cruelty of nature cannot compare with the cruelty, ignorance and injustice of man. Jesus Christ said, “Thy will be done.” There is much for us to learn in this. Man makes another world in which he lives, a world different from the plan of God, from the laws of nature, and so the will of God is not done. The prayer teaches man that he must find what is the will of God. It is not necessary for the animals and birds to find out the will of God, for they are directed by nature's impulse, they are closer to nature than man. The life of man is so far removed from the life of nature, and so every movement is difficult. We do not see this at present; with all our knowledge we make life more and more complicated and so the strife becomes greater and greater. For every person, old or young, rich or poor, life is a difficult struggle, for we go further and further from the impulse which comes direct from the source whence every impulse comes. From the metaphysical point of view there are different rhythms describing the condition of man; they are spoken of in the Vedanta as sattva, raj as and tammas. Sattva is a harmonious rhythm, rajas a rhythm which is not in perfect harmony with nature and tammas is a rhythm which is chaotic by nature and destructive. Every impulse that comes to man while he is in this chaotic rhythm is followed by destructive results. Any impulse coming to a person when he is in the rhythm of rajas is accomplished, but the impulse that comes when he is in the rhythm of sattva is inspired and is in harmony with the rhythm of the universe. The active life of man gives little time for concentration and for putting mind and body into the condition in which he can experience the rhythm that gives inspiration and meets with the will of God. This experience comes in answer to the prayer of Christ, “Thy will be done oil earth as it is in heaven.” By producing this condition of mind and body one tunes oneself to a certain pitch which is harmonious and heavenly and in which the divine will is easily done, as it is in heaven. It is in this rhythm alone that the will of God can be done. It was not any prejudice against the world that made the great ones leave the world and go to the forests and caves; they went in order to tune themselves to that rhythm in which they could experience heaven. Heaven is not a country or a continent; it is a state, a condition within oneself, only experienced when the rhythm is in perfect working order. If one knows this, one realizes that happiness is man's own property. Man is his own enemy: he seeks for happiness in the wrong direction and never finds it. It is a continual illusion. Man thinks, “If I had this or that I should be happy for ever” and he never arrives at happiness because he pursues an illusion instead of the truth. Happiness is only to be found within, and when man tunes himself he finds all for which his soul yearns within himself. The nature of every impulse is such that it goes through three stages and after the process of these three stages it is realized as a result, whether it is right or wrong, beneficent or disadvantageous, as soon as the impulse springs from within. There is no impulse which in its beginning is wrong or purposeless or inharmonious, for in the total sum of all things every impulse has its purpose. It is our limited outlook that judges. The justice behind is so great that in the ultimate result everything fits into its proper place. But in the process through which the impulse passes it becomes right or wrong—not in the beginning or in the end, for the beginning has a purpose and the end has answered the demand. This is a question of metaphysics and one must study it from different points of view or one will be very much confused. Man with his little knowledge is ready to condemn or to admire, and thousands of times he falls to judge rightly. All great souls have realized this in their attainment. Christ says, “Judge not.” Then tolerance comes, and when one realizes what is behind the impulse one says very little. The first process through which the impulse rises takes place in the region of feeling, and in this region the impulse is either strengthened or destroyed. The feeling may be love or hatred, kindness or bitterness, but whatever the feeling may be where the impulse rises, it gains strength to go forward or it is destroyed. For instance, a person may have a great feeling of kindness; then the impulse of revenge may rise, but it is destroyed. Another person has a great feeling of bitterness, and if the impulse is to forgive it will be destroyed before it ever touches the reason. Or a person is most kind and, when the impulse towards revenge has arisen, he feels very uncomfortable; he will not have to call on thought to judge the impulse, for his feeling will destroy it. Or a person has a great feeling of bitterness and the impulse of doing a service of kindness comes, but it will be destroyed before it reaches the realm of thought. Or if the impulse rises till it reaches the realm of thought, then one reasons, “Why should I help? Why should I serve? Does he deserve it? Will he benefit by it? Is it right?” All these problems are settled in this region. Then thirdly comes the realm of action. If the mind consumes the impulse it goes no further, but if the mind allows it, it comes into the region of action and is realized as a result. Now one may ask how sages and thinkers have distinguished the divine impulse among the different impulses that arise in the heart of man. First we must understand what the word divine means. Divine means: in a state of perfection. This state is experienced by God through man. In other words, when man has risen to the stage of development where he can be the perfect instrument of God, when nothing of his own being stands in the way of the direct impulse that comes from within—that spirit may be called perfect. That which is most precious, that which is the purpose of man's life is-to arrive at that state of perfection when he can be the perfect instrument of God. Once a man has risen to this stage he at first begins to realize at moments; then, as he develops, for a longer time, and those who develop still further pass most of their time in that realization. Then feeling and thought no longer hinder the divine impulse, for it rises freely and results in a divine purpose. The message of the prophets and teachers of all times has been to teach man how to make peace with God. The fulfillment of life's purpose is in harmonizing with God, and this is done by distinguishing the divine impulse. How can one distinguish the divine impulse? Just as in music one can distinguish the true note from the false, the harmonious chord from the discord; it is only a matter of ear-training. When the ear is trained one can find out the slightest discord; the greater the musician, the more capable he is of finding out harmony and discord, the true and the false note. Many think that what we call right or wrong, good or bad, is something we learn or acquire. That is true when it is man-made right or wrong, but of nature's right and wrong every little child has a sense. The child feels a wrong vibration at once; the infant feels if its surroundings are harmonious or inharmonious, but man confuses himself so that he can no longer distinguish clearly. For man to learn to know for himself is a great advance along the spiritual path. When man is clear as to the feeling he gets from every impulse, he has advanced far. There are some who say after the result, I am sorry” but it is too late then, it was not true ear-training. The divine impulse is an impulse full of love, it gives happiness, it is creative of peace. The difficulty is that not every man observes the beginning of the impulse, he only observes the result. He is like an intoxicated person and so in time, as in the condition of a drunken man, he becomes confused and depressed, and there is struggle and strife. But man was not born for this. He is born for happiness. Peace, love, kindness and harmony are parts of his own being, and when a person is unhappy it means that he has lost himself, he does not know where he is. Man is seeking for phenomena, he wants wonderworking, communication with ghosts or spirits, he is looking for something complex, and yet the simplest thing and the most valuable thing in life is to find one's true self. The Symbol of the Cross The cross which is usually taken as the symbol of the cross on which Christ died has many mystical meanings. It shows a vertical line and a horizontal line: everything that exists extends vertically and horizontally. This may be seen in the leaf. It has length and breadth. All that exists has come from these two lines, the vertical and the horizontal. The cross therefore, in its first meaning, is the symbol of manifestation. Then, whenever someone begins to speak, to act for the truth, his way is barred, there is a cross against it. Speak the truth before the nation and there comes the cross, the bar from the nation. Speak the truth in the face of the world and the cross comes from the world against you. You may ask, “If all comes from the One, the Same, why is one thing truth and one falsehood?” Truth is that which lives, which remains, which stands upright. False is that which falls, which is dead. While we are alive we stand upright; when we are dead we have fallen down. What is dead? This false self, this mortal self. This is fana, destruction. The cross shows that in fana—in the ending of the mortal, of that which is changing, dying every moment, which lives upon mortal food in mortal surroundings—is the immortal life. What is not fani the Sufi calls baqi. This I can explain as ba yaki, oneness. In the death of the mortal there is life, immortality, the one immortal life. There is another great mystery of the cross which is very little understood. Everywhere without us there is space. We call space that which can accommodate, which can contain. Within us there is space too; the space within extends in another direction. It is always a puzzle for the materialist when he hears of the two worlds, this world and the other, the next world. He says, “This world I know, but the other world I do not know. Where is the other world?” Our eyes can give us an idea, a picture of the other world. These little eyes, not an inch in length, contain so many miles of country, such vast tracts, the sun, the moon, the whole cosmos, millions upon millions of miles. These are not contained in the physical eyes but in the eyes within. The space within is much vaster than the space without; it can contain hundreds and thousands of times all that is in the world without. In this meaning the cross signifies the two worlds. People have thought that the next world is above the sky, beyond the stars. It is not above but within. This world is contained in it. Many think that this symbol has existed from the time of Jesus Christ, and no doubt it became better known after the time of the master, but in fact it is an old symbol known at different times and at all times known by the mystics. The mystery of the symbol contains a great truth. There are two sides to this mystery. One side is the journey towards a spiritual ideal, the reaching of a spiritual ideal, and if any picture of this can be given there cannot be a better picture than a cross. The other side of this mystery represents the destiny of a teacher, the life of a teacher, signifying what he has to meet with when delivering the message of truth. Besides this, the cross is a natural sign that man has always made from his artistic or from his reasoning faculty. It is the nature of light to spread rays, especially when the light is in its perfection. For instance, sometimes by looking at the sun—at the setting sun in particular—one Finds lines forming on the sky and on the earth: first there is one straight line and if one watches that first line minutely a horizontal line develops out of it. By keen observation of light one can find that it is in the nature of light to form one perpendicular and one horizontal line. If it is the nature of the external light to form a cross it is also the nature of the inner light: the external light is the reflection of the inner light, and it is the nature of the inner light that is expressed in the outer light. So one can see that not only the inner light is manifest in the outer light, but that the outer light is the picture of the inner light. We can also see by observing nature's forms—the form of a tree, of a plant, of a flower, the forms of the animals and birds, and in the end the most developed and finished form of the human being-that they all present a cross. One cross may be seen by observing the formation of man's head, the other cross can be seen by the whole form of mankind: it is ever a horizontal and a perpendicular line which suggest the symbol of the cross. There is no form that does not have a horizontal and a perpendicular line, and it is these two different aspects or directions which form the cross. In this way one can understand that in the mystery of form the cross is hidden. Now coming to the first mystery mentioned above, namely that man's journey towards spiritual ideal can be pictured as a cross: in the first place man's ego, man's self is his enemy and stands as a hindrance to his progress. Feelings such as pride, conceit, selfishness, jealousy, envy and contempt are all feelings which hurt others and which destroy one's own life making it full of the misery which springs from that selfish personal feeling, that ego of man. The more egoistic, the more conceited he is, the more miserable a life he has in the world, the more he makes the lives of others miserable. It seems that this ego, which in Sufi terms is called nafs, is a natural development in man's life or heart. The more he knows of the world, the more egoistic he becomes; the more he understands and experiences the world, the more avaricious he becomes. It is not that man brings his faults with him. He comes with innocence, with the innocent smiles of the infant, the friend of everyone who comes to him, ready to smile and ready to throw his loving glance on everybody, regardless of whether he is rich or poor, friend or foe; attracted by beauty in all forms. It is this in the infant which attracts every soul. This shows that the soul which comes with such purity of heart, purity of expression in the countenance, beauty in every movement it makes—that this same soul develops in his nature, as he grows up in the world, all that is hurtful and harmful to himself and others. This also shows that it is in the world that, growing up, he creates all this and this creation is called nafs or ego. Yet at the same time in the depth of the heart there is that goodness which is the divine goodness, that righteousness which man has inherited from the Father in heaven. A longing for joy and rest and peace is in him, and this shows that in man there are two natures: one which is in the depth of his heart, another which has developed from his coming on earth. A conflict arises, a struggle between these two natures, when the nature which is in the depth begins to feel that it yearns for something, longs for something and feels it must have it: it must have goodness from other people, it must have peace in life. And when it cannot find these the inner conflict begins. Man creates his own disharmony in his soul and then treats others in the same way; therefore he is not satisfied with his own life, nor is he satisfied with others because he feels that he has a complaint against others, although mostly it is caused by himself. What he gives he receives back, but he never sees that. He always thinks: what the depth of his being yearns for—love, goodness, righteousness, harmony and peace everybody must give to him. But for him when it comes to giving he does not give because he lives in the other life he has created. This makes it plain that in every man a being is created; that being is called nafs and is the same as the conception of Satan which has always existed in the scriptures and traditions. People have many times divided the world between two spirits: a small part of humanity for God and a great part of humanity for Satan, thus making the control of the Satan-spirit larger perhaps than the control of God. But if only one could understand the meaning of the idea of Satan, one would understand that it is this spirit of error which has collected and gathered in man after his coming on earth; it is nafs and stands as Satan, always guiding man astray and closing the eyes of his heart to the light of truth. But when a revolution comes in the life of a man, as soon as he begins to see deeply into life, to acquire goodness—not only to get but to give—as soon as he begins to enjoy not only the sympathy of others but giving sympathy to others, then comes a period when he begins to see this Satan-spirit as apart from his real original being, standing before him constantly in conflict with his natural force, freedom and inclination. Then he sees that sometimes he can do what he desires, and that sometimes this spirit gets hold of him and does not allow him to do what he desires. Sometimes he finds himself weak in this struggle and sometimes he finds himself strong. His experience is that when he finds himself strong in this battle he is thankful and satisfied, and when he finds himself weak in it he repents, he is ashamed of himself and wishes to alter himself. This is the period in which another epoch begins in man's life; from this time there is a constant conflict between himself and that spirit which is his ego. It is a conflict, it is a kind of hindrance to his natural attitude, to his natural inclination to do good and right. He constantly meets with that spirit because it was created in his own heart and has become part of his being. It is a very solid and substantial being, as real perhaps as he understands himself to be, and mostly more real: something real in the depth of his being, which is covered by it. This constant conflict between his real original self and that self which hinders his spiritual progress is pictured in the form of a cross. This cross a man carries during his progress. It is the ugly passions, it is the love of comforts, and it is the satisfaction in anger and bitterness that he has to combat first. When he has conquered these, the next trouble he has to meet is that still more subtle enemy of himself in his mentality: the sensitiveness to what others say, to the opinion of others about himself. He is anxious to know what anybody holds as an opinion about him, what anybody says against him, or if in any way his dignity or position is hurt. Here again the same enemy, the nafs, takes another stand, and the crucifixion is when that thought of self, that nafs, is fought with-until there comes an understanding that there exists no self before the vision of God. It is this which is the real crucifixion, but with this crucifixion there comes still another, which has always followed and which every soul has to experience; the perfection of every soul, the liberation of every soul lies in this crucifixion. It is that part of his being which he has created in himself, that false part of his being, which is crucified, not his real self, although on the way it always seems that he has crucified his own self. This is not self-denial, it is the false self that is denied. The mystery of perfection lies in annihilation—not in annihilation of the real self, but of the false Self, of the false conception which man has cherished in his heart and always has allowed to torture his life. Do we not see this with our friends and acquaintances? In those who attract us and whom we deeply love and admire there is only one quality which can really attract us: apart from our other interests in life it is man's personality alone which attracts us. It is not only that selflessness and the extent of that selflessness attract us, but what repels us in the life of others is nothing else than the grossness of their nafs—or one might call it the denseness and hardness of that spirit. The teaching of Christ when he said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” is little understood. He does not mean poor in divine spirit, but poor in this self-created spirit. Those who are poor in this self-created spirit are rich in divine spirit, and those who are rich in divine spirit are poor in this self-created spirit. The word which is used in the scriptures for nafs is that spirit of grossness—or spirit—but the better word is ego. There have always been two tendencies: one of sincerity and the other of insincerity and falsehood. They have always worked together; the false and the true have always existed in life and in nature. Where there is real gold there is false; where there is a real diamond there is an imitation diamond; where there are sincere people there are insincere ones. In every aspect of life-in the life of spirituality, in the acquisition of learning, in the arts and sciences-we can see sincerity and insincerity. And the only way to recognize real spiritual development is to understand to what extent there is selflessness. However much a person pretends to spirituality and wishes to be godly or pious or good, nothing can hide his true nature, for there is the constant tendency of that ego to leap out. It will leap out without man's control, and if he is insincere he cannot hide it. Just as the imitation diamond, however bright it may be, is dull compared with the real one and when tested and examined will prove to be an imitation, so real spiritual progress must be proved in the personality of a soul. It is the personality that should prove that he has touched that larger Self where self does not exist. Now coming to the next and still greater mystery of the cross: this mystery can be seen in the life of the messengers, the prophets and holy beings. In the first place no one has entrance into the kingdom of God, into the abode of God, who has not been so crucified as I have said just now. There is a poem by the great Persian poet Iraqi in which he tells, “When I went to the gate of the divine Beloved and knocked at the door, a voice came and said—Who art thou?” When he had told, “I am so and so” the answer came, “There is no place for anyone else in this abode. Go back to whence thou hast come.” He turned back and then, after a long time, after having gone through the process of the cross and of crucifixion, he again went there-with the spirit of selflessness. He knocked at the door; the word came, “Who art thou?” and he said, “Thyself alone, for no one else exists save Thee.” And God said, “Enter into this abode for now it belongs to thee.” it is such selflessness, to the extent that the thought of self is not there, it is being dead to the self, which is the recognition of God. One finds this spirit to a small extent in the ordinary lover and beloved, when a person loves another from the depth of his heart. He who says, “I love you but only so much, I love you and give you sixpence but I keep sixpence for myself, I love you but I stand at a distance and never come closer, we are separate beings”—his love is with his self. As long as that exists, love has not done its full work. Love accomplishes its work when it spreads its wings and veils man's self from his own eyes. That is the time when love is fulfilled, and so it is in the life of the holy ones who have not only loved God by professing or showing it, but who have loved God to the extent that they forgot themselves. It is that state of realization of being which can be termed a cross. Then such souls have a cross everywhere; every move they make is a cross, a crucifixion. In the first place, living in the world, a world full of falsehood, full of treachery, deceit and selfishness, every move they make, every act they perform, all they say and think, prove that their eyes and hearts are open to something else than that at which the world is looking. It is a constant conflict. It is living in the world, living among people of the world and yet looking at a place different from that which the world sees. If they tried to speak they could not. Words cannot express the truth; language is too inadequate to give a real conception of the ultimate truth. As it is said in the Vedanta, and as it was said in ancient times, the world is maya. Maya means something unreal, and to these souls the world becomes most unreal as soon as they begin to see the real, and when they compare the world with this reality it seems even more unreal. No one in the world can imagine to what an extent this world manifests itself to their eyes. Think of people who are good—yet not having arrived at spiritual perfection—who are sensitive, tender and kind, and see how the world treats them, how they are misunderstood. See how the best is taken by the selfish, how the generous one has to give more and more, how the one who serves has to serve more and more, and still the world is not satisfied. He who loves has to love more and more, and the world is not satisfied. How Jarring life is to these! Then think of those who have arrived at such a stage of realization that there is a vast gulf between the real and the unreal. When they arrive at that realization their language is not understood; they are forced to speak in a language which is not their own and to say something different from what they are realizing. It is more than a cross. It is not that Jesus Christ alone had a cross, but every teacher who has a portion of the message has a cross. But then you may say, “The masters of humanity who have come at all times and had such a cross to bear, why did they not go to the forests, to the caves, to the mountains, why did they stay in the world?” There is a beautiful picture that Rumi has made. He tells why the melody of the reed flute makes such an appeal to your heart. It is, he says in his poetry, because first it is cut away from its original stem, then in its heart holes are made and, since the holes have been made in the heart, the heart has been broken and it begins to cry. So it is with the spirit of the messenger, with the spirit of the teacher: by bearing and by carrying his cross his self becomes like a reed, hollow. There is scope for the Player to play his melody when it has become nothing; then the Player takes it to play his melody. If something was still there the Player could not use it. God speaks to everyone, not only to the messengers and teachers. He speaks to the ears of every heart, but it is not every heart which hears it. His voice is louder than the thunder, and His light is clearer than the sun-if one could only see it, if one could only hear it. In order to see it and in order to hear it man should remove this wall, this barrier which he has made of the self. Then he becomes the flute upon which the divine Player may play the music of Orpheus which can charm even the hearts of stone; then he rises from the cross into the life everlasting. The Mystical Meaning of the Resurrection What is exactly meant when the resurrection is spoken of in the Bible? The resurrection is that moment after death when the soul becomes conscious of all its experience. As the soul is connected with everything in the universe, the individual resurrection is a universal resurrection. Now I will explain two passages from the Bible.” In one of them it is said: “Now is Christ risen from the dead and gone unto the Father, and is become the first-fruits of them that slept, and whosoever believeth in him should not die but live.” The dead are those who have not realized their immortality. from which he rises who realizes his immortality. “He is gone unto the Father” means that he has gone from the personal being, which was meant for his message to be delivered upon earth, to that unlimited existence. “He hath become the first fruits of them that slept', means: he has become an example to those who sleep, to those who are unconscious of their divine being. “Whosoever believeth in him” has been interpreted to mean: who believes in his limited personal being. It means: who has the knowledge of God, of immortality, shall never die, and those whom the world calls dead, but who have the belief in God, which is knowledge, are not dead. In another passage it is said, “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from the dead.” Man alone understands what death is; beasts and birds feel the inactivity, the absence, but they do not realize what death is. I have seen a bird, when its mate fell dead shot by hunters, settle beside it, feel it with its beak and, when it felt the stillness and lifelessness, before the hunter could approach, it dropped its head and its life was gone. I have also seen a dog die instantly, when its companion dog with whom it had spent its life was dead. But still, animals feel only the inactivity, the absence of the friend. They do not realize the true nature of death. It is only man who has understood the real nature of death in its full extent. Therefore Sufis in the East often make their houses, their cottages in the jungle or else near cemeteries: that by seeing the dead they may realize that now is the time to awaken, to conquer death, to realize their immortality. And it is again man, as the holy being, who awakens man to the knowledge of his immortality. If the resurrection merely meant that Christ after his death rose again, it would be a story to be believed or disbelieved. If it were believed as a belief, how long would this last? Its lesson is much greater than that. It means the resurrection from this mortal life to immortality. Christ said, “The children of this world marry and are given in marriage, but they who are accounted worthy to obtain the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more; they are the children of the resurrection, being the children of God. “I' Those who have arisen to that immortal One Being where there is no distinction of husband and wife, brother or sister, father, mother, or child-they are the sons of the resurrection. The story is that, when Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb where Christ had been laid, they found the stone that was before the tomb rolled away, and looking in they saw the clothes* lying there, the turban lying by itself. But the body of Christ was not there. The stone is the same stone that is spoken of in the Hindu myth. Krishna is called Girldhar, he who holds the stone, who lifts it up. Under this stone, the stone of the external self, every individual soul in the world is suppressed. When it is lifted up, then man rises to immortality. From what does he rise? He rises from the body and above the mind. The clothes and the head-cloth lying separately, symbolizing the body and the mind, show this. Great poets, great musicians, great writers often rise above the body. They do not know where they are sitting or standing, they are lost in their imaginations, unconscious of the physical existence, but they do not rise above the mind. When the consciousness rises above the mind, above the thoughts, then it is free, it is active in its own element, and then this consciousness can give of itself to the mind. The rising to that consciousness in which there is no distinction is the highest degree of resurrection. There are other degrees, just as in the lift one cannot arrive at the seventh floor without passing by the second, third, fourth and all other floors. There is that resurrection in which there is the exact counterpart of the physical body which walks, sits down, and can do all that the physical body can do. This is called by Sufis alm-e-mithal. There are mystics who have mastered this so completely that they can act independently of the physical body; death is nothing to them for they remain alive after death. This is done by amal. Someone who had been studying this wrote to me the other day, “I have lost all fear of death, because death has tied a turban on me.” There is no death when this is mastered. If a poet is writing his poetry and his wife, his servant, a hundred people pass before him, he does not see them, he does not know whether anyone has been there. If a little love of poetry can do this, how much more can the love, the absorption in the life within draw the consciousness within! It is told in the Gospel that Christ after his resurrection was seen by the disciples several times. It is the experience of every person who has practiced concentration, who has meditated, that he sees that which he has held in his consciousness not only inwardly but outwardly before him. This is the first experience that every mystic has. The disciples were lost, absorbed in the thought of Christ—how should they not see him? Christ's words are, “Handle me, and see that it is myself, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me having.” And he said unto them, “Children, have ye anything to eat?” And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and he took it and did eat before them. The word spirit is used in many different meanings. It is used for ghost, or for the soul, but really it means the essence which is the opposite pole to substance. All that the eye has seen resurrects in the eye. If someone mentions a certain person—though you had forgotten the person altogether-he rises up in your eye: in that house, in that place where you had seen him. It is not in this physical eye, but in that eye which is beyond. The materialist may say, “It is all in the brain.” How could the brain contain so many thousands and millions of things and beings! Of course without training a person does not see the spirit, but I will say that in the dream you see yourself, you experience yourself, in different surroundings, in the company of different people. If you say, “It is a dream” I will Answer: When do you call it a dream? You call it a dream when you wake up. When you see the contrast with your surroundings in waking condition, then you say, “it was a dream. If not, it would have remained with me, but everything is different.” But if, while you are dreaming, someone comes to you and says, “It is a dream you will never believe it. The resurrection is the rising to that real life, that true Friend on whom alone we can lean-upon all other things and beings upon which we think we can lean, we cannot rely that Friend who alone is always unchanged, who has always been with us and will always be with us. Spiritual Circulation through the Veins of the Universe When one observes keenly the nature of this life of variety, one finds that behind the world of variety there is one life, the source and goal of all things. It is that life which may be called the blood of the universe circulating through the veins of the universe. It is substance or spirit or life: something out of which all that is seen and all intelligence is molded, kept alive and in working order. It is this life which is so to speak the veins of the universe and we know it as what we term intelligence. No doubt we often confuse intelligence with intellect, but intelligence is something which is to be found even in the lower creation. It can be traced in plant life and sensed even in the heart of the rock. The difference between modern psychology and ancient thought is that according to the former the intellect is a development which manifests in the life of man as mind, but that animals have no mind, that mind is a development of matter, the work of the brain. The idea of the mystics of all times, of the prophets and all meditative souls is different. They say, “What was, is, and will be; if that is the same substance or life it is not subject to change, nor does it develop.” Yet a different grade which we are capable of grasping gives us the feeling that it is a development rising from matter. The great ones, the meditative souls who sat in the wilderness and the forests and communicated with the life around them, realized this truth, and very often they experienced a greater harmony, peace and upliftment where there was no visible life. Life is intelligence, even in the rock, and the more one communicates with life, the more one feels that even the rock is not without life, that through it pulses the blood of the universe. Someone said to a Brahmin, “0 Brahmin, how absurd it is for you to worship a God made of stone, an idol! The true God is the formless one, the one above all things of the world.” The Brahmin replied, “Do you know the phenomenon of faith? If you have faith in the God of rock, you will get your answer, but if you have no faith in your formless God even He will not communicate with you.” Life seen from this point of view tells us that there is no place, no object which is not sacred, that even in a rock one sees the source and goal of all things in that particular form. Many who are experienced in plant life know how responsive plants are to the sympathy of a man who loves nature and looks after them. I was much interested in meeting a scientist in California who devoted his life to research into plant life. How true it is that through whatever channel one pursues truth one arrives at an experience which shows truth. I was especially interested when he said, “I regard plants as really living beings. I work with them always feeling that they are living creatures, that they have their own trend of mind. They show obstinacy, they feel your sympathy, and if you learn to understand them you can manage to derive a great deal of benefit from them. All through my life I have talked to plants as I would talk to men.” Here again is the blood of the universe in circulation-in a higher grade than in the rock. Another scientist, Professor Chandra Bose of Bengal, has devoted much time and thought to prove that plants breathe. If breath is to be found in plant life, certainly there is intelligence too. I once happened to see a stone whose owner called it a magic stone. In reality it was quite ordinary, but it often changed its color; especially when in the hand of a particular person it showed a different color and shade. So a stone can respond to a person's mind, and this teaches that there is a great deal to explore in the mineral kingdom. This is not a discovery of today; it was known to the people of ancient times. We read in the Persian poems of Jelal-ud-Din Rumi that God slept in the mineral, dreamed in the vegetable, became conscious in the animal, and realized Himself in the human being. But this one life is to be seen more pronounced in human beings, in the intellect they show, in the work they do, in the magnetizing of the atmosphere, in the thought power they exercise, in the influence of healing. Although one person is separated from another, although there may be no outer connection, yet even from a distance the influence of thoughts and feelings is felt. There were many instances of this during the war, when mothers and wives of soldiers in times of sorrow, illness and death felt their trouble without any outer source of communication. How often when people are in close touch do they feel each other's condition, not only by thought waves but in the realm of feeling also. This shows that there is one body, and in that body is one life which continually circulates, as does the blood in the veins. This gives a logical explanation of the law of cause and effect. A wrongdoer may escape earthly witness, but he cannot escape this one life in which he lives and moves and has his being. A person who has done good to another may never see that other again, yet good must return to him because there is one body and one life. Just as with the circulation in the physical body all we eat is absorbed as essence in the blood, so our every thought, word and action affects the one life. Often people wonder about certain superstitions and ridicule them, saying, “How can past, present and future be read from cards?” This, the science of astrology and crystalgazing may be explained by the understanding that there is one life in which the circulation is always pulsing, one music, one rhythm. A person only needs to be acquainted with the theme of the music—then he can read and understand. Not only by cards and crystal-gazing can he read the past, present and future, but by all means. If a person is able to communicate with even one vein of this one life he is in touch with the veins of all the universe. Some means are better, some are worse, but through any medium he can understand, thus proving that there is one life behind all. Man may be taught to do good, to learn righteousness, but this is virtue forced upon him as the result of a certain teaching. Real virtue only comes by understanding the oneness of life, binding man to friend or enemy. Jesus Christ teaches, “Love your enemies.” While it is often difficult to love our friends, we are not able to love our enemies, unless we realize the secret of the one life behind all—inspite of the world of variety which continually creates illusion. If by religion, philosophy, or mysticism this realization is attained, then the secret of life is touched and without any wonder-working a mighty power is gained. This lesson is easy to learn intellectually, but that is not enough. This truth can be taken—like food—in a moment, but to digest it the whole of life is not sufficient, for truth is mixed with facts, and when truth becomes a fact it has no importance. Absorbed in the world of variety we are apt to forget truth, for we are always absorbed in facts. Therefore meditative people who spend much time in meditation try to think of the oneness of being, try to meditate on the ultimate truth of being. It works like the winding of a clock: it only takes a minute to wind and all day long it goes on. So in meditation the same thought goes on, and in everything one does or says one uses this same truth. What effect is caused by the lack of understanding of this truth? All disasters such as wars, floods, earthquakes, famines, all the things that cannot be helped by man, come from disorder in the body: the only body that exists. When the blood is disordered all goes wrong, and although sometimes it seems that what is disadvantageous to one part is advantageous to another, yet in the long run one sees that all suffer; the after-effect is felt by the whole world as strain and pain and all kinds of suffering. The soul of the whole creation is one, the life behind all these ever-moving phantoms is one. Meditation on this and awakening to this truth will harmonize the condition of the world. The prophets and great mystics have come to the world from time to time as the physician comes to help the patient whose health is in disorder. And each time the great ones have come they have brought to the world another life, a new life brought to the whole organism of the universe to help it to run smoothly. The Sufis who in all times have existed as mystics, whose lives have been devoted to meditation and spiritual practices-what have they learned from these meditations? They have learned the essence of all, the oneness or unity, and in unity—in thinking it, realizing it and living it-one fulfils the purpose of life. The Divine Blood Circulating Through the Veins Of the Universe Often man has vague ideas as to the meaning of the word divine. The divine has become his ideal, but this ideal is first to be made a reality. An ideal can only serve its proper purpose when it is made into reality and if it is not made into reality its purpose is not accomplished. In the first place we must inquire what it is that reminds us of the divine. What brings us a feeling of the existence of the divine Being? It is what may be called beauty: the beauty, delicacy, and color in the flower, the brilliancy and life of the precious stone; for what is beautiful in all this is intelligence—even manifest through material objects. The secret of fragrance, the secret of the brilliancy of the diamond, the beauty of the pearl, the secret beneath all that appeals to man and attracts him is intelligence. Only, the intelligence in all things is so to speak imprisoned, covered. In living beings it begins to manifest itself. In man is the greatest possibility for the manifestation of this intelligence. Therefore, either in things or in beings, if anywhere a trace of the divine is to be found, it is in intelligence. As many degrees may be found in beautiful flowers—one more beautiful than the other—and many different degrees between pebbles and a diamond, a million more degrees may be found between man and man. At this present time when man disregards that beauty and value which are hidden in the human personality, he disregards that divine substance which is hidden in man. Today there is no place, no recognition for human culture, whereas every other object is classified, its value fixed. There are different studies and practices, different degrees in the universities and colleges, there are ranks and divisions in all other parts of life, but there is no distinct place for the understanding, for the intelligence of man in its true aspect. There is no loss for the person who possesses this wealth; only before the world there is nothing to distinguish him from others, and not for everyone is there a chance to find out what is behind the veil. If one could explain the real meaning of education, of true education, it would be from the beginning to the end of man's life the realization of the circulation of the divine blood through the veins of the universe-for there is no limitation of time for the study and practice of this: it is endless! The secret behind magnetism which has its different aspects is one and the same. No doubt personal magnetism is of several distinct kinds. There is a physical magnetism which comes with youth, with energy, with the healthiness of the body. The more healthy a person is, especially at the time of youth, the more he begins to show a certain energy in every action and in his every movement; by this he expresses magnetism. Then there is a greater magnetism: the magnetism of mind. A person with a living mind is like a light, and as light attracts and its warmth comforts, so comfort comes out of this person as radiance. Besides this there is a magnetism of culture. When a person is well trained and has a certain culture, his action, word and thought all become rhythmic. A fourth kind of magnetism is that of the soul, the soul that is living, which means that it is not closed or covered by a grave, but manifests outwardly as well as inwardly. It is that soul which has another, a still greater magnetism, the greatest of all other aspects of magnetism. Now the question rises: how can one attain to this highest magnetism which alone is endurable? It is by watching the divine essence, by noticing the divine essence in all things. When comparing two persons of different temperaments you will always find that one of them is appreciative of music, poetry and art, respondent, ready to admire all that is good and beautiful, while the other closes himself, he is not open to appreciate anything, nor ready to respond or willing to admire. When the door is closed to the divine manifestation which is in all things, then the continual source of attracting that new life and magnetism is closed and the soul dies of poverty. As to the physical body, since it is limited, its sustenance is also limited. But as the soul is not limited, so its sustenance is not limited. The soul is not satisfied with one moment's meditation only, nor is the soul satisfied by one good action in the week, nor by attending one prayer in perhaps a week's time. The soul's hunger is greater than the hunger of body or mind. Its hunger is satisfied by beauty, beauty in all aspects, beauty of color, beauty of thought and imagination. Therefore the soul of the artist, the poet, the musician, of a thinker naturally is always living. But at the same time the one who is fond of beauty and derives that nourishment from beauty also has only a limited food, for perfect satisfaction only comes when one knows all beauty to be one beauty, and that one beauty to be the divine beauty. Very often man questions the idea of divine communication, but it is not impossible, it is the most desirable thing there is. But the person who thinks that divine communication can be made by going to heaven and leaving this earth may well wait for some time. We have no lack of examples in the world, if only we can see. For instance, to a true musician, a real musician music is not only an art, a symphony, it is something which speaks to him, with which he communicates. When a musician arrives at this stage he may strike one chord and the continual striking of this one chord will bring him to ecstasy. For another person it is only striking a chord, but for him it is speaking with the piano, conversing with it. Besides all the great men I have seen in my country I have met the great pianist of the Western world Paderewski and I valued my privilege of hearing him at his house when there were not many people, while he was himself. When he began to play it seemed as if there was a question of his soul and an answer of the piano. The whole time it was a question of his soul and an answer of music and in the end it seemed as if the soul of the player and the music became one and perfect. Now this is one example, but there are many others. In order to attain this perfection one need not be a musician. The whole life before us can speak to us from morning to evening if we are able to speak to it, if we establish a communication with life. When man is not open he is not even open to himself, he cannot communicate with life; then he is lonely. The man who is in communication with himself may be in the forest, in the wilderness, yet he is in the world, the whole universe is around him. How many souls are among our friends who living in the world of crowds are yet lonely, while it is so natural and possible that a man outside that world keeps in connection with the whole Being. A scientist has discovered that by touching an electric current, or by attaching oneself to it, one can obtain more energy in a certain part of the body where there is less energy. If this material aspect of electricity can give a new life, a new vigor to the body then, if one could come in contact with that continual battery of life, could one not obtain from it all one desires? An energy which is everywhere and with which one can get in touch everywhere, if only one knew how to communicate with it; an energy which is not without intelligence, but the perfection of intelligence. Mind and soul can become more and more intelligent by coming into contact with it. Now one might ask, “How can we attain to it?” As it is necessary in order to sing well to cultivate the voice and as it is necessary in order to get muscular strength to make physical exercises, so it is most necessary in order to get in touch with the divine life which is all around and about us, which is within and without us, to practice getting in touch with it and to keep in touch with it. We see this in all different occupations of life, whether they concern scientific inventions, industry or business: one must be absorbed in it in order to do something worthwhile! The same law applicable to material work can be applied to spiritual work. Concentration is the main thing and, when concentration is not attained, whatever a person will do will not bring about worthwhile results. In all different occupations the cause of failures in ninety-nine among a hundred cases is lack of concentration. When a student falls in his examination, when a businessman falls in making a real success, when an industrialist fails to bring about success, in all these cases it is lack of concentration which causes the failure. Spiritual or religious attitude apart, even from a material and selfish point of view one cannot deny the great value of concentration in life. When we come to realize that there is one energy, an energy which is not only energy but intelligence itself, which is divine and all over, then we have come face to face with the object we are searching. Then all that remains is to know that intellectual knowledge does not satisfy our purpose. What remains is to try to find out how we can communicate, how we can come into touch with this all-pervading energy. The answer is that one has to mould oneself, one has to prepare oneself in order to become a fitting instrument, in order to fit in with this all-pervading energy. If one asks how we have to prepare ourselves, the answer is that every soul has been made to respond in this symphony of the whole universe as a certain note. When a person will not give that note he will not fulfil his life's purpose, and thereby he will always feel dissatisfied with himself and others. How will he be able to attain that note or to tune himself to it? By ear training in symbolical expression; plainly speaking, by studying the law, the nature and the secret of harmony in life. And how will he fit in with the rhythm? All distress, all misunderstanding, all the tragedy one experiences is also the lack of keeping a certain rhythm which life asks of man. Does this not teach us that there are two important things to remember: developing the sense of harmony in our everyday life and developing the sense of rhythm in everything we do? If one has developed the sense of harmony and yet does not know the secret of rhythm, he still will have difficulties. If one knows the rhythm of the universe and how to fit in with it and yet has no sense of the nature and secret of harmony, he also will meet with failures. It teaches us that the whole of life is as music and in order to study life we must study it as music. It is not only study, it is also practice which makes man perfect. If someone tells me that a certain person is miserable or wretched or distressed, my answer will be that he is out of tune. Distress, disappointment or failure is caused by falling short of answering one's own duty in playing one's part in the symphony. Often people ask, “Here is a good man-why must he suffer? Here is a very nice person, a religious person-why has he distress?” There are others who will answer with a thousand different reasons. They will say that in a former life the person perhaps has done something wrong and therefore has to pay his debts, or some people will say that goodness must always suffer. But coming to the practical side of the question the answer is simple: man-made goodness is not nature's goodness. Nature demands, life demands a certain standard of understanding, of thinking, of living, and this can be learned by learning the tune and the rhythm—not only learning it, but putting oneself to that tune and setting oneself to that particular rhythm which make the music of life. It is in this manner that happiness is attained-that happiness which is the seeking of every soul-and it is in this manner that one will progress continually until one touches the divine Spirit, the Spirit that pervades all and is everywhere.