The Ascent to Moksha

by Swami Krishnananda

Discourse 14: The Importance of Having Clarity of Our Ideal

In all our efforts, whatever be the direction in which we move, we keep an objective or an aim before us, and every instrument that we use and every idea that we entertain are seen to contribute to the fulfilment of this objective. But it is not always that we keep a clarity of consciousness in regard to this aim. Much of our difficulty in life is due to a mix-up of matters. The aim gets lost in the midst of the turmoil of effort, and a part of the effort itself may get converted into a temporary aim, by which the original intention of the final aim can easily get missed. This is what generally happens not only in the world of seekers of truth, or sadhakas, but also in the people of the workaday world, in family circles and in ordinary life.

We cannot always keep up the consciousness of the ideal in our minds. If it had been so simple as that, we would have rushed towards the aim like an arrow hitting its target. But many are the vicissitudes through which we have to pass in the fulfilment of our aim, whatever be that aim, as I mentioned. Even if it be a secular or a temporal aim – it may be even an economic or social aim, and not necessarily spiritual or cultural – nevertheless, the aim can get missed by a confusion of ideals which present themselves in multitudes when we enter into the field of work.

Now, the field of work is like a field of battle. Very pertinently is this world compared to Dharmakshetra or Kurukshetra. The Mahabharata, the epic of Vyasa, is only a symbolic magnificent presentation of our own day-to-day struggle. We know very well how in this vast oceanic tide of life's problems we sink down as if we are lost in the waves, and occasionally rise up to the surface only to take a breath and realise that we are still alive, to sink again to the bottom by the dash of another wave, and perhaps rise up again. This is called samsara.

How can we keep up a consciousness of our aim when this is what we have to experience, when these are the daily unforeseen problems that we have to face? We cannot know today what our problems will be tomorrow, though when we first placed our foot on the field of this battle of life we had a satisfactorily adequate conception of our goal or aim. It may be the goal of education or the goal of ascending in the career of one's office or in the field of earning one's daily bread, yet with all this apparent simplicity of the concept of the ideal before us, life does not present itself as so simple.

Everything that we touch in the world is a network of problems. There is no simple fact in this world. Everything is connected with many unknown factors which are unforeseen and undreamt of by us, and when we touch any point of the world, we seem to be opening Pandora's box. We do not know what is coming out of it. The whole thing is a muddle, and either we retrace our steps because of the fear of the unknown before us, not having the courage to pierce through the veil of the unknown, or we speciously argue within ourselves as to the error or the mistake that we have committed in having taken the initial step, and turn in another direction altogether which is quite different from the aim that we have chosen in the beginning.

I am particularly making mention of the problems of spiritual seekers because their problems are harder of solution than the problems of others. The difficulties of the ordinary man of the world are large enough, no doubt, but they can be solved by appropriate means because the aims of the ordinary man of the world are temporal. They are within the purview of sensory perception, and the means as well as the end are both confined to the world of perception. The end, or the aim in view, is not beyond perception. We have a very clear idea of what we want to achieve in this world in case our achievement is temporally circumscribed; therefore, the means we adopted are also naturally within the temporal world.

But the question of the spiritual seeker is a little deeper, and so the problems that arise in spiritual adventures may be even hazardous, risky, and it may be absolutely impossible to have a notion of the future that is before the spiritual seeker. The end or the aim of the spiritual seeker is non-temporal. This is the main difficulty. Inasmuch as it is non-temporal, it is also non-perceptional, non-cognitional, non-intellectual, and it is impossible to rationally convince oneself as to the nature of the experience that one may have to confront the next day because the non-temporal does not come within the purview of mental operations. Thus, the preparations that the sadhaka has to make are much more than the preparations that the man of the world has to make for his ordinary acquisitions.

What sort of preparations have we to make? The most important factor that we have to bear in mind is that we have to be personally fit in ourselves for the task that we have undertaken. Personal fitness is the most important factor in any work, in any field of life. If we are personally unfit, our effort will not be of much avail, whatever be the assistance that we may be able to command in the field of our enterprise.

Now, personal fitness in the spiritual sense is very peculiar. It is a kind of qualification that the supernatural forces will demand of us, not what the man of the world will regard as competency. The competency in the eye of the man of the world is quite different from the competency which we are called upon to entertain or furnish within ourselves in the eyes of the forces of nature. Suppose we have a degree, a qualification from a university. The forces of nature are not going to regard it. University degrees will do nothing before the powers of the world, though the man of the world lays much store with them because the world's powers are the world's bylaws and rules, which do not necessarily operate in the society of human beings. Therefore, we should not make the mistake of imagining that the guarantee that human society gives us is also a guarantee that the cosmos or the world of nature will give us. While we may look very secure in the eyes of society, we may be totally insecure in the eyes of the forces of nature.

You have seen how this can happen. While you may be a very important person in society, perhaps a raja, a king or an emperor with all the retinue and the forces that you can command, you can simply be buried in the earth, under the ground, if the forces of nature are to attack you. No one has been spared. Not even the mightiest monarchs that trod on the earth could live, with all their powers, with all their riches, with all their associations and friendships, and with all the learning and the pedigree under their command. This is to tell us that social security is not real security. We have to be secure really, and not only notionally or conceptually. The powers that an official commands are notional; they are not real, because they are invested upon a person by associations which are purely in the minds of other people.

The powers of a political chief, to give one instance, are in the minds of those people who obey the orders of that particular chief. If tomorrow the minds of other people change and the whole group of persons under him disobey his orders, his powers cease to exist in a second. They are notional, psychological, and not real. All our powers in the world are of that nature; they are only mental. They are only within our heads. They are not really there. As long as society collaborates with us in thinking as we think and follows the system of thinking as it has been mutually agreed upon, so long we are in a fool's paradise, thinking that this life is wonderful, and beauty is the world.

But notional reality is not absolute reality. It is not reality at all because that would be to trust the mind of a monkey. The real forces that govern the world are not subject to the psychological whims of the human being. They are governed by principles which are impersonal. They are not notional, not psychological, and therefore, not personal. They are impersonal. So the physical fitness or fitness of learning or academic recognition is not what the world of nature will expect of us. Personal fitness of a spiritual seeker is of a different kind altogether. It is a qualification that he acquires in the eyes of the forces of the world, and not in the eyes of people who see him physically. So personal fitness, which is so essential in spiritual sadhana, is to be acquired by a knowledge of the constitution of the world, the powers of nature and the forces that govern the world.

The world is impersonal; therefore, the first, and perhaps the last, qualification of a spiritual seeker is the acquisition of impersonality in his character. This is also what is known as control of the senses, indriya-nigraha, or in short, what is known as self-control. We insist on self-control because self-control is the effort at the planting of impersonality in our character. We become more and more personal the more we become physical and also social; inasmuch as society is nothing but a group of objects which are sensorily perceived, in this world of society we also lose energy through sensory perception and sensory contact. All indulgences of sense are depletions of energy. All of us are weaklings physically and mentally and volitionally because of the fact that we have been losing our energy though perceptions and cognitions based on sense perception. Voluntarily we lose energy, and mostly also we lose energy unconsciously without our knowing it. Our contact with objects is a kind of loosening of the bund that we have put as a barrier for the flow of energy.

Energy is again difficult to define, and energy strength is what gives us power. When we lack energy we become poor in strength. There is a very beautiful passage in the Upanishads which says nāyam ātmā bala-hīnena labhyaḥ (Munduka 3.2.4): A weakling cannot attain to the Atman. Now, a weakling is one who has fallen in the moral sense, and on account of that, fallen in every sense because we become weak, we become bala-hīnena, the moment we disconnect ourselves from the forces that sustain us.

We should not make the mistake of imagining that we are sustained by other people. When I say “the forces that sustain us”, it cannot mean other persons, other people, or the things of the world as they appear to the senses. People do not sustain us, because the people who appear to sustain us today can desert us tomorrow. Today's friend is tomorrow's enemy. So this is not the force that sustains us. There is some other unknown and invisible power which keeps us intact in this physical complex called the body, and keeps us also possessed of some sort of strength mentally and physically. The more we conform to the laws of this unknown and invisible force, the more also is the physical, psychological and moral strength that we gain within ourselves. But the more we depart from the centre of this source of energy, the more also do we become weak physically, psychologically and morally.

Unless we assess our strengths in all these levels of our personality, it would be a hazardous attempt on our part to sit for meditation or to attempt at concentration on higher realities. How many of us are able to sit for meditation and how many among us feel so confident that the mind is capable of being absorbed into the object of meditation the moment we sit for it?

What we generally experience is a rebuff from the object. There is, first of all, a feeling that meditation is a kind of imposition, a kind of trouble that has come upon us on account of a very unthought enterprise which we have undertaken and we are not sure whether we are going to succeed or fail, whether we are going to achieve anything at all. All these suspicions are at the background of our very attempt at sitting for meditation, and the weakness of our will, the imbecility of our character, contributes to the failure of our attempts.

We are not to forget that spiritual meditation is the apex of our spiritual efforts. It is not the beginning of our spiritual practice. It is the last step taken in the adventure of the spirit, and we should not, therefore, be under the impression that it is a task which can be taken up by any Tom, Dick and Harry. It will not be a success because the concept of reality is the determining factor of the success in meditation. Whatever be our notion of reality, that is the determining factor of the achievement in our meditation.

Most of our concepts of reality are limited to the world of the objects of the senses, and to us the world of reality is the world of objects. Now, the world of objects has two peculiar characters. One is that the objects are always far away from us in space and also occasionally in time. The objects of the world which are regarded by us as realities are not in our possession. Perhaps we have very little contact with many of the objects of the world. Secondly, no object of the world can be in all places. It can only occupy one place at a given moment of time. Every object, therefore, is limited in space and in time. So our concept of reality is limited to space and to time. It cannot comprehend the entirety of reality. But also we have a very untutored feeling in our mind that the purpose of our spiritual meditation is a little far removed from the world of reality in which we are today, namely, the world of objects.

There is a conflict in our mind in the very concept of reality. This concept is that while on the one hand we cannot give up the notion that reality is confined to the objects of sense, on the other hand we are pulled by another longing of an ideal which seems to be removed from the world of physical perception.

What we seek to achieve through meditation spiritually is not an object of sense, as we know very well, and yet we cannot give up the notion that reality is confined to the objects of sense. If the world of objects were not a reality, we would not be pulled by them. Unrealities cannot attract us. We are attracted to reality, and the fact that the world engages our attention to such an extent as to immerse us there completely shows that we have taken the world of objects for reality. Yet, we meditate on reality in our spiritual pursuits, which is quite different from the reality in which we are. So there is a double reality, a conflict of character in our psychological makeup, which has contributed much to our failure in our attempt at meditation for so many years. We have not been able to reconcile between the pull of the ideal and the attraction of the real.

The ideal is somewhere which beckons us with its magnificence, with its notional infinitude and the imagined immortality or the Godhood with which we invest it on the one side, but on the other side, the world is not prepared to leave us. When we open our eyes the world is there as real as it was, and we do not come down to the world of perception with any different idea about it. Just watch your own mind. Be seated for meditation for an hour, or two or three, and deeply concentrate on your spiritual ideal in your meditation. When you come down from your meditation even after three hours, the world of perception, the world of objects, will be as real as it was. It will make no difference. That means to say, our psychological life is far weaker than our physical life. While our meditations are psychological activities, our life is confined to physical levels. We live in a physical world of physical realities, which have a greater say in the matter of our living than the psychological attempts that we are putting forth in the way of meditation.

Now, we have to first of all disillusion ourselves by a clarity of thought, namely, that the psychological world is not to be a handmaid of the physical world. Modern psychologists, the western behaviourists and materialists, are of the opinion that the mind is an offshoot of matter. As wax comes out of a tree or a flash of flame comes out of a matchstick, mind exudes from the brain cells. Well, it is another way of saying the mental operation is only another activity of matter. But this opinion held by psychologists and even the common man in the street has a serious consequence.

We are always under the control of physical objects, and the mind has to dance to the tune of the objects of sense. We have already accepted the fact that the mind is weaker than the physical objects and the physical level in which we are living. The mind is only an instrument to fulfil the needs of the physical body and the physical attractions of sense. This is a very subtle analysis that we have to make to understand where we are actually placed in this world. Why is it that people think that the mind is only an offshoot of matter? It is because the mind is subsidiary in function to the objects of sense, and our mental activities are unable to change any event in the physical world. Whatever be the depths of our thought and the intensity of our ideas, it cannot bring about any physical change in the world.

Now, this has led people to the conclusion that the mind is only a toy in the hands of the physical forces of nature, and we would only be contributing much more to this false notion if after such a deep meditation of several hours we come back to the same physical world of objects of sense and get attracted to them and get engaged in the work of the world in the same intensity in which we left it.

Unconsciously and subconsciously we are wedded to the objects of sense. Subtly we are accepting the fact that even today, at this very moment, we are slaves of the objects of sense, notwithstanding the fact that we have undertaken another religious activity called meditation, which is of no utility in our practical life. Inasmuch as our spiritual activities do not seem to have any practical utility, we have become lost and bewildered in the world of ideals and achievements.

Spiritual seekers are likely to get lost both ways on account of this conflict in their minds – the conflict between the ideal and the real. It is very difficult to find a successful spiritual seeker. While there are many spiritual seekers, most of them are failures in their attempts. There are frustrations, setbacks and various kinds of defeatist attitude which somehow are not allowed to enter into the sanity of their concepts because of a tentative physical satisfaction that they give to their senses. This is a very important factor which we have to remember. We have to be very cautious in knowing what our actual situation is in our present spiritual life. We are not very secure and safe. There is an unknown fear ahead of us caused by this conflict or rift in our personalities – the physical and the psychological.

The first step that a spiritual seeker has to take in his endeavours is to bring about a harmony between the psychological personality and the physical personality. Now the physical personality is dominating the psychological personality. The mind is to work according to the demands and orders of the senses. The five senses command the mind to act in a particular manner. Any one of us can dispassionately judge our own selves and see if we are doing this or not. Whatever we do is in accordance with the call from one of the senses of our personality. It may be the call of the eyes or the ears or the taste, or whatever it is. A particular sense demands a particular attitude from us, and we immediately manifest that attitude. This means to say, the mind is a slave of the senses, which is another way of saying that the mind is a slave of physical matter and we are only agreeing with the behaviourist psychologists that mind has come from matter.

The lowest condition of the human being is the dominance of the physical personality over the psychological personality, which is the present state of affairs. All of us are in that condition. Let us not think that we are superior to it. We, all of us without exception, are dominated by the physical personality, and the psychological personality is completely under the thumb of the physical forces of the world, and of our personal body also.

So the first ascent in spiritual life would be a harmonisation of the mental and the physical forces, and the next step is the dominance of mind over the material world. Instead of the body controlling the mind, the mind controls the body. Instead of the physical forces controlling us, we shall control the physical forces. That is a much higher state, a large, unforeseen and magnificent spiritual attainment which is very far from us from our present point of view. But that is not an impossibility if we take proper steps to see that our personality is not in a chaotic condition caused by this rift between mind and body.

As I said, the fitness of personality is a very important factor contributing to success in spiritual life. Self-control is impossible as long as there is a conflict between the mind and the body. We should not imagine that we are masters of the body, masters of the senses or masters of the world. We are not. Our daily life demonstrates how the body has a say over the senses and the mind, and the extent to which bodily changes affect our mind. We know it very well. But when there is a harmony brought about between the mind and the body, the mind at least is equal to the body in its status; it is one step in achievement, and this is also the first step in self-control. Self-control, or atma-nigraha, or indriya-nigraha, is the process by which we gradually gain control over the lower levels of being through the instrumentality of the higher levels. Instead of the cause being determined by the effect, the effect has to be determined by the cause. Now the cart is before the horse. The effect seems to be controlling the cause; and the spirit, which is our ideal, our goal, which is the object of our meditation, is almost non-existent for all practical purposes of our life. The spirit is dead almost. We cannot see it, we cannot even think it. On such a thing we have to meditate. While the spirit is completely non-existent for practical purposes of our life, the mind is a subservient element and the body is ruling us. So we can know now where we stand.

From the physical level of the body we have to rise to the mental level, from the mental we have to rise to the spiritual level, and meditation is a spiritual activity. It is not even an ordinary thinking process of the mind, much less to do with the physical body.

In the beginning the meditational process is mental and psychological, though in the end it becomes spiritual. But even this psychological act of meditation is quite different from the ordinary thoughts that are in the mind. Meditation may also be regarded as a kind of thought that we entertain in our mind but this thought, which we call meditation, is different from the thought of an ordinary sense object which attracts us or repels us.

The difference lies here. While in the thought of a sense object the mind is dissipated, in the thought of the object of meditation it is gathered into a focus. There is a difference between a dissipated condition and a gathered-up condition. The thoughts of the mind run pell-mell in ordinary perception and conception of objects. The mind is not concentrating on any object when it is sensorily attracted or repelled by an object. Concentration is the total activity of the mind on a given object, total in the sense that every force which constitutes the mind is gathered up for the sake of the thought of that given object. But in ordinary sense perception what happens is a part of the mind is given to the thought of the object, and another part is given to another object, or perhaps many objects.

To give an instance, you are engrossed in your work in an office, but you cannot be said to be meditating on the office work though it is deep thought that is bestowed upon the work. Why it is not called meditation? Because while you are wholly engrossed, so to say, on the duty or the work which you are performing in your office, a part of the mind is subconsciously working in relation to your duties at home. You have got a family, you have got children, you have got some responsibilities, and somebody is sick at home. You may have many problems privately in your life which are not completely brushed aside even while you are concentrating on the office work. So the mind is not wholly thinking of the work though for all practical purposes, for outside perception, it looks engrossing. Likewise, you may be divided among many concepts in the ordinary thought of things. The mind can subtly relate itself to many other sense objects though consciously, at a given time, it may look that it is concentrating on one thing. As I mentioned, when you are doing the work in the office you seem to be wholly engrossed in it, but you are not really wholly engrossed. You have got many other responsibilities which are hovering around your mind, and perhaps worrying your mind, which you have suppressed for the sake of fulfilling a particular duty with which you are engaged at that given moment. But meditation is not like that. Meditation is not office work. It is not a work at all. It is not a duty that you are performing. Meditation is not an activity. It is not any kind of social or personal enterprise in the sense of contact sensorily or physically.

Mental operations in spiritual meditation are quite different from mental operations in social work, office work, or any other work in the world. So while meditation may be regarded as a kind of thought of the mind, it is qualitatively a different kind of thought. You are wholly gathered up by what you know as pratyahara, and the subconscious activities of the mind do not distract your attention in respect of other objects. Just as while you are doing office work you may be subtly thinking of your home, you are not supposed to think of something else when you are engaged in meditation. Then it is not meditation. But most of us do that. For us, spiritual meditation is something like office work. We allot one hour for that, as we allot one hour for office work or some other duty in life. This is not like that. We cannot allot a little time for meditation as if it is one of the activities of our life. It is a point at which we arrive when we forget all other engagements, and collect our energies for the sake of an achievement which is not one of the many achievements of the world but the only achievement that is before our mind. That is why we call it the goal of life. Office work is not the goal of life. Home work is not the goal of life. No work in the world can be called the goal of life, but that thing before us in meditation is our goal of life. So there is a great difference between temporal objectives of the workaday world in which we may get engaged and the non-temporal objective which is the ideal of our meditation. They are two different things. So when we are seated for meditation, we are not seated for doing some work or business. We are a different personality altogether when we are in a mood to meditate.

It is impossible to describe in language what that mood is. It is impossible to describe it in words because there is nothing comparable with it. We cannot compare this mood with any other mood of our day-to-day activities. We get roused into a sense or a consciousness with which we cannot compare any other sense or consciousness in our life. If we have had moments of such enthusiasm in moods of meditation, we know how incomparable it is.

Very rarely in our lives do we get roused to such moods. Very rarely are we in moods of meditation. Daily we cannot be in a mood of meditation, though we may sit for it, because the mood for meditation sometimes looks like the grace of God. It is a tremendous blessing that comes upon us, and if really we are in a mood of meditation even for a few minutes, we will come out as a different person altogether. We will not think as we thought before, and we will not speak as we spoke before. Our attitude to things will be different. We will come as if we have drunk some nectar. Though it is only a drop that has gone into our gullet when we swallow a drop of nectar, we can never forget its taste, if we are really in the mood of meditation. I am talking only of the mood, and not the absorption of consciousness in the object.

The mood to meditate is a preparation of the whole soul for rising into the Absolute. It is like an entire army ready to take action. We can imagine the totality, the collective force of the army. When the general gives a command to begin the attack, all the thousands are gathered up into a single attitude, a single mood, and prepared for a single action. It is not that every soldier thinks differently at different times when that order is given. Similarly, when the soul gives an order to meditate, every cell begins to meditate. All the pranas get collected, and the mind immediately obeys its order. Remember this small analogy I gave of the command of an army general, with thousands of soldiers thinking a single thought. The soldiers are thousands in number, but they think a single thought at that time. They are in a single mood, and they are for a single action. It is as if one thought is given by all the soldiers put together with tremendous force because of the obedience of that one order of the general.

Likewise, the order of the soul is the call of God, and when this order comes from within, the whole personality gets gathered up. We are withdrawn. This is what is called pratyahara. The whole energy of the body is collected. The cells of the body, the muscles, the nerves, the pranas and the mind stand in unison, in one mood, for one thought, in one action. That is meditation. And if we can be in that mood for even a few minutes, as I mentioned, we will come out as a different person. You can test yourself to see whether you are the same person or are different. If you sit for meditation for two or three hours and that meditation has no effect, there is some serious defect at the very outset. That is something like forgetting to put on the switch when the electrical installation is complete. There will be no effect because we have forgotten to put on the switch, whatever be our effort at the installation. Likewise, if we are prepared in every way but forget the essential point, there will be no meditation. It will be a lifeless activity. It will be a corpse sitting, not a human being meditating.

Suffice it to say that even a few minutes of meditation will change our attitude to life. It is a touchstone of success in meditation. We can know whether or not we are really meditating by the effect that follows from the nature of the mood with which we get up from meditation, and the release of tension as well as the delight and satisfaction that we feel when we rise from meditation. The more we sit, the more we would like to sit; such is the delight of the gathering up of the mind. While activities, work, business and professions tire us, meditation does not tire us. While we can be fed up with activity, we cannot be fed up with meditation.

The reason is simple. All activity is an external emanation from our personality into space and time, but meditation is the reverse process of the entry of forces into us rather than the movement of forces away from us as during other worldly activities. This is the difference. Forces enter into us in meditation, while forces leave us in activity. Therefore, we are tired of work but feel joyful and delighted in meditation. We gain strength in meditation but become weak after toilsome work, so work and meditation are two different things. Meditation is not an activity, it is not a business, it is not an imposition, it is not a fatiguing work; it is the soul of our soul. It is what gives life to us.

So the concept of reality, to come to the point again, is the determining factor of success in our meditation, and to the extent the concept of reality is clear, to that extent meditation is successful. If we have a very crass, materialistic, gross conception of reality, there will be no success in meditation. We will come out as if we have achieved nothing. The concept of reality is the motive force that supplies energy in meditation because meditation is nothing but the fixing of consciousness on reality. As reality is unseen, meditation is the dwelling of consciousness on a concept of reality in the earlier stages, and later on the concept slowly merges into being through a gradual ascent of consciousness.

In the beginning, thought and reality are different. Consciousness and objects seem to be sundered apart, but in the gradual ascent of the soul to reality, this gulf between consciousness and matter, thought and being, becomes lesser and lesser, gets narrowed down until the gulf vanishes. There is no difference at all between thought and reality when we reach reality. That union of thought and reality is called sat-chit, a state in which being and consciousness become one. Now they are quite different – being is somewhere, consciousness is somewhere else – so consciousness has to attempt, put forth effort, at bringing reality into its being. In the beginning, consciousness assumes reality in itself. Then it realises it in itself. The process of this gathering up of energy for the sake of the entry of reality into consciousness is self-control, atma-nigraha.

Thus, the fitness of our personality is moral and spiritual. Social or political recognition are not what we are required to entertain or present before the judge of the cosmos. The universal forces have a law of their own. They are impersonal, spiritual, and therefore, spiritual life is obedience to the laws of the cosmos. The more we abide by these laws, the more we are protected by them. A spiritual seeker is fearless because the world protects him. The world protects him because he obeys the laws of the world. The laws of the world do not mean the laws of the government or the laws of society, but the laws of the reality of the world, the laws of the forces of nature, the laws by which the whole cosmos is determined.

This is something glorious. Spiritual life is magnificent, and nothing can be equal to it. And to sit for meditation is to dwell on reality, to set our foot on the path to the eternal, which we regard as the goal of life. When we say it is the goal of life, nothing can be equal to it, nothing else can detract our attention from it, and concentration on it or meditation upon it is equal to acquisition of every other benefit in the world. We cannot be detached in meditation because what we achieve in meditation is equal to and much more than what we achieve through any other effort in other fields of life.

Thus, it is essential to have a clarity of concept, a beautiful notion of what our ideal is, and with this unshaken strong foundation of a clarified concept of our ideal we should engage ourselves in spiritual pursuits and not allow ourselves to get dissipated or be in a mood of melancholy, dispiritedness and defeatism as if there is nobody to support us, nobody to help us and as if we are going to achieve nothing. This attitude should be completely vanquished from the mind, and a positive attitude of our total dependence on the laws of the world, on the laws of reality, has to be entertained. The world will take care of us. The forces of nature will protect us, and God shall be with us always.