Then there is the other part of the study, not so necessary in our social life, which tends to liberation. Its direct action is to free the soul, to take the torch into the gloom, to clean out what is behind, to shake it up or even defy it and to make us march onward piercing the gloom. That is the goal- the superconscious. Then, when that state is reached, this very man becomes divine, becomes free. And the mind thus trained to transcend all, gradually this universe will begin to give up its secre ts; the book of Nature will be read, chapter after chapter, till the goal is attained, and we pass from this valley of life and death to that One, where death and life do not exist, and we know the Real and become the Real.

The first thing necessary is a quiet and peaceable life. If I have to go about the world the whole day to make a living, it is hard for me to attain to anything very high in this life. Perhaps in another life I shall be born under more propitious t get which you really wanted? It could not be. For it is the want that creates the body. It is the light that has bored the holes, as it were, in your head, called the eyes. If the light had not existed you would have had no eyes. It is sound that had m ade the ears. The object of perception existed first, before you made the organ. In a few hundred thousand years, or earlier, we may have other organs to perceive electricity and other things. There is no desire for a peaceful mind. Desire will not come unless there is something outside to fulfil it. The outside something just bores a hole in the body, as it were, and tries to get into the mind. So, when the desire shall arise to have a peaceful, quiet life, where everything shall be propitious for the development of the mind that shall come-you may take that as my experience. It may come in thousands of lives, but it must come. Hold on to that, the desire. You cannot have the strong desire if the object lives, but it must come. Hold on to that, the de sire. You cannot have the strong desire if its object was not outside for you already. Of course, you must understand, there is a difference between desire and desire. The master said, "My child, if you so desire after God, God shall come to you." The di sciple did not understand his master fully. One day both went to bathe in the river, and the master said, "Plunge in", and the boy did so. In a moment the master was upon him, holding him down. He would not let the boy come up. When the boy struggled and was exhausted, he let him go. "Yes, my child, how did you feel there?" "Oh, the desire for a breath of air!" "Do you have that kind of desire for God?" 'No, sir." "Have that kind of desire for God, and you shall have God. ' That, without which we canno t, must come to us, life could not go on.

If you want to be a Yogi, you must be free and place yourself in circumstances where you are alone and free from all anxiety. He who desires for a comfortable and nice life and at the same time wants to realize the Self is like the fool who, wanting t o cross the river, caught hold of a crocodile mistaking it for a log of wood.

"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Unto him comes everything who does not care for anything. Fortune is lik e a flirt; she cares not for him who wants her, but she is at the feet of him who does not care for her. Money comes and showers itself upon one who does not care for it; so does fame come in abundance, until it is a trouble and a burden. They always com e to the Master. The slave never gets anything. The Master is he who can live in spite of them, whose life does not depend upon the little, foolish things of the world. Live for an ideal and that one ideal alone. Let it be so great, so strong, that there may be nothing else left in the mind; no place for anything else, no time for anything else.

How some people give all their energies, time, brain, body, and everything, to become rich! They have no time for breakfast! Early in the morning they are out and at work! They die in the attempt-ninety percent of them-and the rest when they make mone y, cannot enjoy it. That is grand! I do not say it is bad to try to be rich. It is marvelous, wonderful. Why, what does it show? It shows that one can have the same amount of energy and struggle for freedom as one has for money. We know we have to give u p money and all other things when we die, and yet, see the amount of energy we can put forth for them. But we, the same human beings, should we not put forth a thousand fold more strength and energy to acquire that which never fades, but which remains to us forever? For this is the one great friend, our own good deeds our own spiritual excellence that follows us behind here with the body.

That is the one great step- the real desire for the ideal. Everything comes easy after that. That the Indian mind found out; therein India, men go to any length to find truth. But here, in the West, the difficulty is that everything is made so easy. I t is not truth, but development, that is the great aim. The struggle is the great lesson. Mind you, the great benefit in this life is struggle. It is through that we pass-if there is any road to Heaven is always the way. When the soul has wrestled with c ircumstance and has met death, a thousand times death on the way, but nothing daunted has struggled forward again and again and yet again-then the soul comes out as a giant and laughs at the ideal he has been struggling for, because he finds how much gre ater is he than the ideal. I am the end, my own Self, and nothing else, for what is there to my own Self? Can a bag of gold be the ideal of my Soul? Certainly not! My Soul is the highest ideal that I can have. Realizing my own real nature is the one goal of my life.

There is nothing that is absolutely evil. The devil has a place here as well as God; else he would not be here. Just as I told you it is through Hell that we pass to Heaven. Our mistakes have places here. Go on! Do not look back if you think you have done something that is not right. Now, do you believe you could be what you are today had you not made those mistakes before? Bless your mistakes, then. They have been angels unawares. Blessed be torture! Blessed be happiness! Do not care what be your lo t. Hold on to the ideal. March on! Do not look back upon little mistakes and things. In this battlefield of ours, the dust of mistakes must be raised. Those who are so thin skinned that they cannot bear the dust let them go out of the ranks.

So, then, this tremendous determination to struggle, a hundred fold more determination than that which you put forth to gain anything which belongs to this life, is the first great preparation. And then along with it, there must be meditation. Meditat ion is the one thing. Meditate! The greatest thing is meditation. It is the nearest approach to spiritual life - the mind meditating. It is the one moment in our daily life that we are not at all material - the Soul thinking of Itself, free from all matt er - this marvelous touch of the Soul!

The body is our enemy, and yet is our friend. Which of you can bear the sight of misery? And which of you cannot do so when you see it only as a painting; it cannot bless us, it cannot bless us, it cannot hurt us. The most terrible misery painted upon a piece of canvas, we may even enjoy; we praise the technique of the artist, we wonder at his marvelous genius, even though the scene he paints is most horrible. That is the secret; that non-attachment. Be the Witness.

No breathing, no physical training of Yoga, nothing is of any use until you reach to the idea, "I am the Witness". Say, when the tyrant hand is on your neck, "I am the Spirit! Nothing external can touch me." When evil thoughts arise, repeat that; give that sledgehammer blow on their heads, "I am the Spirit! I am the Witness, the Ever Blessed! I have no reason to do, no reason to suffer. I have finished with everything. I am the Witness, the Ever Blessed! I have finished with everything. I am the Witn ess. I am in my picture gallery- this universe is my museum, I am looking at these successive paintings. They are all beautiful, whether good or evil. I see the marvelous skill, but it is all one. Infinite flames of the Great Painter!" Really speaking, t here is naught- neither volition nor desire. He is all. He- She- the Mother is playing, and we are like dolls, Her helpers in this play. Here, She puts one now in the garb of a beggar, another moment in the garb of a king, the next moment, in the garb of a saint, and again in the garb of a devil. We are putting on different garbs to help the Mother Spirit in Her play. When the baby is at play, she will not come even if called by her mother. But when she finishes her play, she will rush to her mother, an d will have no play. So there come moments in our life, when we feel our play is finished, and we want to rush to the Mother. Then all our toil here will be of no value; men, women and children- death, name, and fame, joys and glories of life- punishment s and successes- will be no more, and the whole life will seem like a show. We shall see only the infinite rhythm going on, endless and purposeless, going we do not know where. Only this much shall we say: our play is done. (Complete Works of Swami Vivek ananda, Vol. V, pp. 249-54)

The Goal and Methods of Realization

The greatest misfortune to befall the world would be if all mankind were to recognize and accept but one religion, one universal form of worship, one standard of morality. This would be a death blow to all religious and spiritual progress. Instead of trying to hasten this disastrous event by inducing persons, by good or evil methods, to conform to our own highest ideal of truth, we ought rather to endeavor to remove all obstacles which prevent men from developing in accordance with their attempt vain to establish one universal religion.

The ultimate goal of all mankind, the aim and the end of all religions is but one- reunion with God, or, what amounts to the same, with the divinity which is every man's true nature. But while the aim is one, the method of attaining may vary with the different temperaments of men.

Both the goal and the methods employed for reaching it are called Yoga, a word derived from the Sanskrit root as the English "yoke" meaning" to join", to join us to our reality, God. There are various such Yogas or methods of union- but the chief ones are- Karma-Yoga, Bhakti -Yoga, Raja-Yoga, and Jnana -Yoga. Every man must develop according to his own nature. As every science has its methods, so has every religion. The methods of attaining the end of religion are called Yoga by us, and the different forms of Yoga that we teach, are adapted to the different natures and temperaments of men. We classify them in the following way, under four heads:

1. Karma-Yoga - The manner in which a man realizes his own divinity through works and duty.
2. Bhakti -Yoga - The realization of the divinity through devotion to, and love of, a Personal God.
3. Raja-Yoga - The realization of divinity through the control of the mind.
4. Jnana-Yoga - The realization of a man's own divinity through knowledge.

Give up all evil company, especially at the beginning. Avoid worldly company that will distract the mind. Give up all "me and mine". To him who has nothing in the universe the Lord comes. Cut the bondage of all worldly affections; go beyond laziness a nd all care as to what becomes of you. Never turn back to see the result of what you have done. Give all to the Lord and go on and think not of it. The whole soul pours in a continuous current towards God; there is no time to seek money, or fame, no time to think of anything but God; then will come into our hearts that infinite, wonderful bliss of Love. All desires are but beads of glass. Love of God increases every moment and is ever new, to be known only by feeling it. Love is the easiest of all, it w aits for no logic, it is natural. We need no demonstration, no proof. (C.W. Vol.VII, p. 10). Give up, renounce the world. Now we are like dogs strayed into a kitchen and eating a piece of meat, looking round in fear lest at any moment some one may come a nd drive them out. Instead of that, be a king, and know you own the world. This never comes until you give it up and it ceases to bind. ...

Learn to feel yourself in other bodies, to know that we are one. Throw all other nonsense to the winds. Spit out your actions, good or bad, and never other nonsense to the winds. Spit out your actions, good or bad, and never think of them again. What is done is done. Throw off superstition. Have no weakness even in the face of death. Do not repent, do not brood over past deeds, and do not remember your good deeds; be azad (free). The weak, the fearful, the ignorant will never reach Atman. You cannot undo; the effect must come, face it; but be careful never to do the same thing again. Give up the burden of all deeds to the Lord; give all both good and bad. God helps those who do not help themselves.

"Drinking the cup of desire, the world becomes mad." Day and night never come together, so desire and the Lord can never come together. Give up desire. (C.W.,Vol.VII, pp.90-91).

FIRST among the qualifications required of the aspirant of Jnana, wisdom, come Shama and Dama, which may be taken together. They mean the keeping of the organs in their own centres without allowing them to stray out. I shall explain to you first what the word "organ" means. Here are the eyes; the eyes are not the organs of vision but only the instruments. Unless the organs also are present, I cannot see, even if I have eyes. But, given both the organs and instruments, unless the mind attaches itself to these two, no vision takes place. So, in each act of perception, three things are necessary-first, the external instruments, then, the internal organs, and lastly, the mind. If any one of them be absent, there will be no perception. Thus the mind a cts through two agencies- one external, and the other internal. When I see things, my mind goes out, becomes externalized; but suppose I close my eyes and begin to think, the mind does not go out, it is internally active. But, in either case, there is ac tivity of the organs. When I look at you and speak to you, both the organs and instruments are active, but not the instruments. Without the activity of these organs, there will be no thought. You will find none of you can think through the same symbol. I n the case of the blind man, he has also to think through some figure. The organs of sight and hearing are generally very active. You must bear in mind that by the word "organs" is meant the nerve centre in the brain. The eyes and ears are only the instr uments of seeing and hearing and the organs are inside. If the organs are destroyed by any other means, even if the eyes or the ears be there, we shall not see or hear. So in order to control the mind, we must first be able to control these organs. To re strain the mind from wandering outward or inward, and keep the organs in their respective centres, is what is meant by the words Shama and Dama. Shama consists in not allowing the mind to externalize, and Dama in checking the external instruments. 

Now comes Uparati, which consists in not thinking of things of the senses. Most of our time is spent in thinking of sense -objects, things which we have seen, or we have heard, which we shall see or shall hear, things which we have eaten or are eating or shall eat, places where we have lived, and so on. We think of them or talk of them most of our time. One who wishes to be a vedantin must give up this habit.

Then comes the next preparation (it is a hard task to be a philosopher!), Titiksha, the most difficult of all. It is nothing less than forbearance-" Resist not evil ". This requires a little explanation. We may not resist an evil, but at the sa me time we may feel miserable. A man may say very harsh things to me, and I may not outwardly hate him for it, may not answer him back, and may restrain myself from apparently getting angry, but anger and hatred may be in my mind, and I may feel very bad ly towards that man. This is not non-resistance; I shall be without any feeling of hatred may be in my mind, and I may feel very badly towards that man. This is not non-resistance; I should be without any feeling of hatred or anger, without any thought o f resistance; my mind must then be as calm as nothing had happened. And only when I have got to that state, have I attained to non-resistance; and not before. Forbearance of all misery; without even a thought of resisting or driving it out, without even any painful feeling in the mind, or any remorse- that is Titiksha. Suppose I do not resist, and some great evil comes thereby; if I have Titiksha, I should not feel any remorse for not having resisted. When the mind has attained to that state, it has bec ome established in Titiksha. They bear tremendous heat and cold without caring, they do not even care for snow, because they take no thought for the body; it is left to itself, as if it were a foreign thing.

The next qualification required is Shraddha, faith. One must have tremendous faith in religion and God. Until one has it, one cannot aspire to be a Jnani. A great sage once told me that not one in twenty millions believed in God. I asked him wh y, and he told me, "Suppose there is a thief in this room, and he gets to know that there is a mass of gold in the next room, and only a very thin partition between the two rooms; what will be the condition of that thief?" I answered, "He will not be abl e to sleep at all; his brain will be actively thinking of some means of getting at the gold, and he will think of nothing else." Then he replied, "Do you believe that a man could believe in God and the consequent eagerness to reach Him constitute Shraddh a.

Then comes Samadhana, or constant practice to hold the mind in God. Nothing is done in a day. Religion cannot be swallowed in the form of a pill. It requires hard and constant practice. The mind can be conquered only by slow and steady practice.

Next is Mumukshutva, the intense desire to be free. Those of you who have read Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia remember his translation of the first sermon of Buddha, where Buddha says: "Ye suffer from yourselves. None else compels. None other holds you that that ye live and die, And whirl upon the wheel, and hug and kiss Its spokes of agony, Its tire of tears, its nave of nothingness."

All the misery we have is of our own choosing; such is our nature. The old Chinaman, who having been kept in prison for sixty years was released on the coronation of a new emperor exclaimed, when he came out, that he could not live; he must go bac k to his horrible dungeon among the rats and mice; he could not bear the light. So he asked them to kill him or send him back to the prison, and he was sent back. Exactly similar is the condition of all men. We run along headlong after all sorts of miser y, and we are unwilling to be freed from them. Every day we run after pleasure, and before we reach it, we find it is gone, it has slipped through our fingers. Still we do not cease from our mad pursuit, but on and on we go, blinded fools that we are.

In some oil mills in India, bullocks are used that go round and round to grind the oil-seed. There is a yoke on the bullock's neck. They have a piece of wood protruding from the yoke, and on that is fastened a wisp of straw. The bullock is blindfolded in such a way that it can only look forward, and so it stretches its neck to get at the straw; and in doing so, it pushes the piece of wood protruding from the yoke, and on that is fastened a wisp of straw. The bullock is blindfolded in such a way that it can only look forward, and so it stretches its neck to get at the straw; and in doing so, it pushes the piece of wood out a little further; and it makes another attempt with the same result, and yet another, and so on. It never catches the straw, but goes round and round in the hope of getting it, and in so doing, grinds out the oil. In the same way you and I who are born slaves to nature, money and wealth, wives and children, are always chasing a wisp of straw, a mere chimera, and are going through an innumerable round of lives without obtaining what we seek. The great dream is love; we are all going to be happy and never meet with misery, but the more we go towards happiness, the more it goes away from us. Thus the world is going on, society goes on, and we blinded slaves, have to pay for it without knowing. Study your own lives, and find how little happiness there is in them, and how little in truth you have gained in the course of this wild-goose chase of the world.

Do you remember the story of Solon and Croesus? The king said to the great sage that Asia Minor was a very happy place. And the sage asked him. "Who is the happiest man? I have not seen anyone very happy." "Nonsense," said Croesus, "I am the happiest man in the world." "Wait, sir, till the end of your life; don't be in a hurry," replied the sage and went away. In course of time that king was conquered by the Persians, and they ordered him be burnt alive. The funeral pyre was prepared and when poor Cr oesus saw it, he cried aloud "Solon!" On being asked to whom he referred, he told his story, and the Persian emperor was touched, and saved his life.

Such is the life-story of each one of us; such is the tremendous power of nature over us. It repeatedly kicks us away, but still we pursue it with feverish excitement. We are always hoping against hope; this hope, this chimera maddens us; we are alwa ys hoping for happiness.

There was a great king in ancient India who was once asked four questions, of which one was: "What is the most wonderful thing in the world?" "Hope", was the answer. This is the most wonderful thing. Day and night we see people dying around us, and ye t we think we shall not die; we never think that we shall die, or that we shall suffer. Each man thinks that success will be his, hoping against hope, against all odds, against all mathematical reasoning. Nobody is ever really happy here. If a man be wea lthy and have plenty to eat, his digestion is out of order, and he cannot eat. If a man's digestion is good, and he has the digestive power of a cormorant, he has nothing to put into his mouth. If he were rich, he has no children. If he were hungry and p oor, he has a whole regiment of children, and does not know what to do with them. Why is it so? Because happiness and misery are the obverse and reverse of the same coin; he who takes happiness without misery, and it has taken such possession of us that we have no control over the senses.

When I was in Boston, a young man came up to me, and gave me a scrap of paper on which he had written a name and address, followed by these words: "All the wealth and all the happiness of the world are yours, if you only know how to get them. If you come to me, I will teach you how to get them. Charge,$5." He gave me this and said, "What do you think of this?" I said, "Young man, why don't you get the money to print this? You have not even enough money to get this printed!" He did not understand this. He was infatuated that he could get imme nse wealth and happiness without any trouble. There are two extremes into which men are running; one is extreme optimism, when everything is rosy and nice and good; the other , extreme pessimism, when everything seems to be against them. The majority of men have more or less undeveloped brains. One in a million we see with a well-developed brain; the rest have peculiar idiosyncrasies, or are monomaniacs.

Naturally we run into extremes. When we are healthy and young, we think that all the wealth of the world will be ours, and when later we get kicked about by society like footballs and get older, we sit in a corner and croak and throw cold water on the enthusiasm of others. Few men know that with pleasure there is pain, and with pain, pleasure; and as pain is disgusting so is pleasure, as it is the twin brother of pain. It is derogatory to the glory of man that he should be going after pleasure. Both should be turned aside by men whose reason is well balanced. Why will not man seek freedom from being played upon? This moment we are whipped, and when we begin to weep, nature gives us a dollar; again we are whipped, and when we weep, nature gives us a piece of gingerbread, and we begin to laugh again.

The sage wants liberty; he finds that sense objects are all vain and that there is no end to pleasures and pains. How many rich people in the world want to find fresh pleasures! All pleasures are old, and they want new ones. Do you not see how many fo olish things they are inventing every day, just to titillate the nerves for a moment, and that done, how there comes a reaction? The majority of people are just like a flock of sheep. If the leading sheep falls into a ditch, all the rest follow and break their necks. In the same way, what one leading member of a society does, all the others do, without thinking what they are doing. When a man begins to see the vanity of worldly things, he will feel he ought not to be thus played upon or borne along by n ature. That is slavery. If a man has a few kind words said to him, he begins to smile, and when he hears a few harsh words, he begins to weep. He is a slave to a bit of bread, to a breath of air; a slave to dress, a slave to patriotism, to country, to na me, and to fame. He is thus in the midst of slavery and the real man has become buried within, through his bondage. What you call man is a slave. When one realizes all this slavery, then comes the desire to be free; an intense desire comes. If a piece of burning charcoal be placed on a man's head, see how he struggles to throw it off. Similar will be the struggles for freedom of a man who really understands that he is a slave of nature.

We have now seen what Mumukshutva, or the desire to be free, is. The next training is also a difficult one. Nityanitya-Viveka - discriminating between that which is true and that which is untrue, between the eternal and the transitory. God alone is et ernal, everything else is transitory. Everything dies; the angels die, men die, animals die, earths die, sun, moon, and stars, all die; everything undergoes constant change. The mountains of today were the oceans of yesterday and will be oceans tomorrow. Everything is in a state of flux. The whole universe is a mass of change. But there is One who never changes and that is God; and the nearer we get to Him, the less will nature be able to work on us; and when we reach Him, and stand with Him, we shall c onquer nature, we shall be masters of these phenomena of nature and they will have no effect on us.

You see, if we really have undergone the above discipline, we really do not require anything else in this world. All knowledge is within us. All perfection is there already in the soul. But this perfection has been covered up by nature; layer after la yer of nature is covering this purity of the soul. What have we to do? Really we do not develop our souls at all. What can develop the perfect? We simply take the veil off; and the soul manifests itself in its pristine purity, its natural, innate freedom.

Now begins the enquiry: Why is this discipline so necessary? Because religion is not attained through the ears, nor through the eyes, nor yet through the brain. No scriptures can make us religious. We may study all the books that are in the world, yet we may not understand a word of religion or of God. We may talk all our lives and yet may not be the better for it; we may be the most intellectual people the world ever saw, and yet we may not come to God at all. On the other hand have you not seen wha t irreligious men have been produced from the most intellectual training? It is one of the evils of your Western civilization that you are after intellectual education alone, and take no care of the heart. It only makes men ten times more selfish, and th at will be your own destruction. When there is a conflict between the heart and the brain, let the heart be followed, because intellect has only one state, reason, and within that, intellect works, and cannot get beyond. It is the heart, which takes one to the highest plane, which intellect can never reach; it goes beyond intellect, and reaches to what is called inspiration. Intellect can never become inspired; only the heart when it is enlightened, becomes inspired. An intellectual, heartless man never become an inspired man. It is always the heart that speaks in the man of love; it discovers a greater instrument than intellect can give you, the instrument of inspiration. Just as the intellect is the instrument of knowledge, so is the heart the instr ument of inspiration. In a lower state it is a much weaker instrument than intellect. An ignorant man knows nothing, but he is a little emotional by nature. Compare him with a great professor- what wonderful power the latter possesses! But the professor is bound by his intellect, and he can be a devil and an intellectual man at the same time; but the heart can never be a devil; no man with emotion was ever a devil. Properly cultivated, the heart can be changed, and will go beyond intellect; it will be c hanged into inspiration. Man will have to go beyond intellect in the end. The knowledge of man, his powers of perception, of reasoning and intellect and heart, all are busy churning this milk of the world. Out of long churning comes butter, and this butt er is God. Men of heart get the "butter", and the buttermilk is left for the intellectual.

These are all preparations for the heart, for that love sympathy appertaining to the heart. It is not at all necessary to be educated or learned to get to God. A sage once told me. "To kill others one must be equipped with swords and shields, but to c ommit suicide a needle is sufficient; so to teach others, much intellect and learning are necessary, but not so for your own self-illumination." Are you pure? If you are pure you will reach God. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." If you are not pure, and you know all the sciences in the world, that will not help you at all; you may be buried in all the books you read, but that will not be of much use. It is the heart that reaches the goal. Follow the heart. A pure heart sees beyond the intellect; it gets inspired; it knows things that reason can never know, and where there is a conflict between the pure heart and the intellect, always side with the pure heart, even if you think what your heart is doing is unreasonable. When it is desirous of doing good to others, your brain may tell you that it is not politic to do so, but follow your heart, and you will find that you make less mistakes than by following your intellect. The pure heart is the best mirror for the reflection of trut h, so all these disciplines are for the purification of the heart. And so soon as it is pure, all truths flash upon it in a minute; all truth in the universe will manifest your heart if you are sufficiently pure. 

The great truth about atoms, and the finer elements, and the finer perceptions of men, were discovered ages ago by men who never saw a telescope, or a microscope, or a laboratory. How did they know all these things? It was through the heart; they puri fied the heart. It is open to us to do the same today; it is the culture of the heart, really, and not that of the intellect that will lessen the misery of the world.

Intellect has been cultured with the result that hundreds of sciences have been discovered, and their effect has been that the few have made slaves of the many- that is all the good that has been done. Artificial wants have been created; and every poo r man, whether he has money or not, desires to have those wants satisfied, and when he cannot, he struggles, and dies in the struggle. This is the result. Through the intellect is not the way to solve the problem of misery, but through the heart. If all this vast amount of effort has been spent in making men purer, gentler, more forbearing, this world would have a thousandfold more happiness than it has today. Always cultivate the heart; through the heart the Lord speaks, and through the intellect yo u yourself speak.

You remember in the Old Testament where Moses was told, "Put off the shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." We must always approach the study of religion with that reverent attitude. He who comes with a pure heart an d a reverent attitude, his heart will be opened; the doors will open for him, and he will see the truth.

If you come with intellect only, you can have a little intellectual gymnastics, intellectual theories, but not truth. Truth has such a face that any one who sees that face becomes convinced. The sun does not require any torch to show it; the sun is se lf-effulgent. If truth requires evidence, what will evidence that evidence? If something is necessary as witness for truth, where is the witness for that witness? We must approach religion with reverence and with love, and our heart will stand up and say , this is truth, and this is untruth.

The field of religion is beyond our senses, beyond even our consciousness. We cannot sense God. Nobody has seen God with his eyes or ever will see; nobody has God in his consciousness. I am not conscious of God, nor you, nor anybody. Where is God? Whe re is the field of religion? It is beyond the senses, beyond consciousness. Consciousness is only one of the many planes in which we work; you will have to transcend the field of consciousness, to go beyond the senses, approach nearer and nearer to God. What is the proof of God? Direct perception, Pratyaksha. The proof of this wall is that I perceive it. God has been perceived by thousands before, and will be perceived by all who want to perceive Him. But this perception is no sense perception at all; i t is supersensuous, superconscious, and all this training is needed to take us beyond the senses. By means of all sorts of past work and bondages we are being dragged downwards; these preparations will make us pure and light. Bondages will fall off by themselves and we shall be buoyed up beyond this plane of sense-perception to when we shall speak a strange language, as it were, and the world will not understand us, because it does not know anything but the senses. True religion is entirely transcendental. Every being that is in the universe has the potentiality of transcending the senses; even the little worm will one-day transcend the senses and reach God. No life will be a failure; there is no such thing as failure in the universe. A hundred times man will hurt himself, a thousand times he will tumble, but in the end he will realize that he is God. We know there is no progress in a straight line. Every soul moves, as it were, in a circle, and will have to complete it , and no soul can go so low but there will come a time when it will go upwards. No one will be lost. We are a ll projected from one common center, which is God. The highest as well as the lowest life God ever projected, will come back to the Father of all lives. "From whom all beings are projected, in whom all live, and unto whom they all return; that is God." 

(C.W., Vol.I, pp.405-16).