Thus, there is a mystical difficulty before everyone—not an ordinary empirical difficulty which we can understand and probe into. Something has involved us very, very intricately within its web of interconnections, and it is not for nothing that we are given this admonition in the Bhagavadgita: tad viddhi pranipatena pariprasnena sevaya, upateksyanti te jnanam jnaninas tattva-darsinah. “You have to go to great masters and be students of these great ones, with utter patience.”

Impatience is our problem. We are push-button people, and we want to push a button and yoga should suddenly flood us. This is not the way in which things work. The world is not operating with push-button systems. It has its own graduated, evolutionary method of working. Therefore, undaunted vigour of patience is necessary in the practice of yoga. One may have to suffer for a long time. One suffers due to one’s own weaknesses, not due to the impositions of discipline from a Guru or the requirements of religion or spiritual practice.

It sometimes appears that, in this century, the world is not prepared for yoga. It is unfit for yoga in the true sense of the term because it has descended too far into a mechanical way of living and a love of comfort—always after ease, satisfaction of the body, and social relations of the best type possible; and, yoga has to somehow or other get accommodated to this mechanistic way of living where comfort is the first thing that we seek and the satisfaction of the ego is certainly unavoidable, and our attitude is: yoga may come, if it wants to come.

We will not find a true yogi anywhere. We may run from earth to heaven, but we will not find one. The difficulties are obvious. We have make-believes, whitewashes before our eyes, and they can satisfy us. Anything can satisfy us, as we are prepared to be carried away by the winds of the world. We can have warmth blown on our face for the time being, and when we are warmed up, we seem satisfied. Our satisfactions are puerile good-for-nothings, and we are carried away by these satisfactions. We do not want Gurus; we want only pleasure, satisfaction, comfort, and an appeasement of our ego. If a Guru of that type comes, okay; otherwise, we have nothing to do with a Guru.

In fact, we have nothing to do with God Himself, truly speaking. It is difficult to believe that we are honestly seekers of God. We are pleasure-lovers of the ego first and foremost, seeking satisfactions of various types in society—the type of which is very clear before us in this Twentieth Century. Let each one probe into one’s own heart. Is one fit to confront the fiery face of God—which is that energy which can engulf us and transform us as if we are reborn, as Christ put it? Unless we are reborn, there is no entry into the kingdom of heaven.

We have to understand what this getting reborn is. It does not mean entering into the mother’s womb once again. It is a different kind of spiritual rebirth that we are expected to undergo. Hard it is, and we cannot understand what this self-transformation and rebirth is. It is a birth into the life of eternity, from this realm of phenomena. It is a withdrawal from this relative world of phenomenal connections and a birth into the cosmic noumenal existence. That is the rebirth Christ speaks of. Not entering into a mother’s womb once again—he is not speaking of that rebirth. We would not like to have that kind of birth once again. We have seen it once; enough of it!

But, everything does not seem to be in our hands. We are helpless persons. We are helpless because we are caught in a stream of the current of life which goes the way it goes, and we seem to be satisfied. It is impossible to avoid the great requirement of study and discipline under a great master. Nobody should be under the impression that one can stand on one’s own legs. Such legs are not provided to us. At least, to my eyes, such legs do not exist. The master is essential.

A few of us in the Ashram are standing witnesses to this necessity for a great master. A few of us here consider ourselves blessed—thrice blessed, one thousand times blessed —because we had this divine gift of having the divine satisfaction of living with a master. If we are anything today, whatever we may be, it is not due to the books that we studied, not due to the intellect that seems to be operating in us. They are nothing. There is a supernatural element that seems to have saturated us, which is not due to any kind of empirical training or yoga conferences, or any kind of known methods of training or sessions of meditation. Nothing of the kind did we have. We had no lectures, no sermons, no teachings of any kind, and nothing was told to us.

But, we were bathed in the sunlight of a great, protective force, which is what gives us satisfaction; and if the whole world goes to the dogs, we shall still be happy. It cannot affect us. If the sun falls on our heads, we shall still be happy. If the earth cracks under our feet, we shall still be happy, due to a reason which does not come from textbooks or from anything that we grasped intellectually by any kind of experience. We feel ourselves immensely grateful to God who made this world, for having given us this little titbit of the glorious adventure of being physically in contact with a supernatural person, Swami Sivananda. I do not hope to see another person of that type in this world, at least in this physical existence of mine, unless a miracle takes place.

I mention this because none of you should be under the impression that a little yoga camp or a yoga course of three months is enough for you. You will be the same person again, because the world is too hard for every one of us. It is a terrible ogress, and you cannot stand before her. This little training is a scratching on the rock with a little needle, which is only a little satisfaction for you—a kind of satisfaction that something worthwhile has been done. You have scratched on the rock a little bit, but it is not enough. So, you must be really honest and sincere students in the pursuit of the great ideal and goal of yoga, and not merely curiosity-mongers trying to find out if something is there—if God is there at all. If this is the attitude, you will get nothing. You will go back disappointed, worse than what you were before.

This predicament should not befall you. It is essential for you to be honest to your own selves first and foremost, before you try to be honest to others. To thine own self be true. Nothing can be more difficult for us than to do this, because we can be carried away by our own impulses unwittingly, unknowing to our own selves, and we will not know what is happening to us.

Therefore, have good friends. Be always in the company of people who will give you spiritual sustenance, strength, and enable you to imbibe a higher force in life. Do not be in the midst of people who will distract you, talk nonsense, gossip, and waste your time. Be in the midst of people who will speak good things, glorious things, and who have divine ideals. When you study books, study only those great glorious texts which will inspire you to a realm which is beyond this world—like the gospel of Christ, which goes by the name of The Sermon on the Mount, or the Bhagavadgita, the great Upanishads, the proclamations of the Zen masters and the great Sufi mystics like Jalaluddin Rumi and such other great, glorious teachers whose words will inspire you beyond your wits. Good company is very important. Do not be in the midst of friends who will waste your time and distract your attention, who speak nonsense and of worldly things.

This world is going to be the same thing that it was. Nobody can change it. God has made it with His ordinance, and nobody can change His ordinance. Many have come and many have gone, and the world is the same; it cannot be changed. It cannot be changed because the very structure of things is beyond the capacity of human understanding. Therefore, we have to be very practical to hope always for the best, yet be prepared for the worst if it comes, so that we will not be taken by surprise by the events of the world. If something wonderful takes place, be happy, God is very kind. If something bad takes place, be satisfied, because the world can give us only this much.

In a cloth shop we can get only cloth, and not salt. In a salt shop we can get only salt, and not sweetmeats—and so on. This world cannot give us any satisfaction; it can give us only pain. Anityam asukham, duhkhalayam asasvatam is the description of the world given in the Bhagavadgita. It is transient: anityam. Asukham: unpleasant, because it is a relative world. It is not a substantial thing and, therefore, it cannot give us pleasantness always. Dukhalayam: the abode of sorrow is this world. No one is wholly happy, and no one can be entirely happy. Asasvatam: that which comes and goes. It is like a mirage, a city in the clouds, etc. These are the comparisons made in regard to the pageant of this world.

We have to be very cautious because at any moment we can be snatched away from this world by the powers that be. We are working hard in this world—not for this world, though we may be under the impression we are working for this world. Here again we are under a deception. We do not know how many minutes we are going to live in this world. If it is not certain as to how many hours and days we are going to live in this world, why are we working for this world? We are misguided, and in a predicament where nobody knows how many minutes one is going to live in this world. It is impossible to believe that anyone can work for this world. No intelligent person will work for the welfare of this world, because one does not know how many minutes one is going to live in this world.

Unconsciously we are working for an achievement which is not of this world—unconsciously, because consciously we do not know this. We are caught so tightly in the network of relations that we are made to believe that we are working for this world—though, really speaking, we are working for another welfare altogether which is not of this realm. We are totally deluded in the impression that we are of this world. We think that we work for this world, that this world is ours. Not so is the case.

May we awaken our minds, and pray to the Almighty: dhiyo yo nah prachodayat. May our understanding be rightly directed. May we expect nothing from anyone, not even from God, except right understanding—not satisfaction, not pleasure, not happiness, not long life, not anything that one would usually expect in this world, but right understanding. May our understanding not be tarnished, may it not be muddled. May it not be caught up in delusions. May it be directed along the channel of the movement of the spirit toward its glorious destination.

This is our prayer, and may this prayer be granted. May the blessings of all the masters, sages and saints of yore— those who have been in this world and are now invisible, and also those who are now visible—may their blessings be upon us all. May the Almighty be kind to us, be merciful to us. May blessedness be on the whole world, and glory to you all!