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1961
From the point of view of spiritual realisation, the time has no concrete reality; all depends on the sincerity and intensity of the aspiration, on the steadiness of the effort. Some can do in a few weeks and even days what takes years for others. Moreover, as the mind and the vital, the chief factors of progress, are not submitted to the same rules of decay as the material body, the age factor loses all its importance when we speak of spiritual and intellectual growth; there is no time limit nor age limit for the mental progress which can go on steadily for hundreds of years.
Secondly, failure is not the sign of incapacity — far from that.
Repeated failures come always. to those who have something exceptional to do; it is only those who are satisfied with a commonplace and ordinary realisation who succeed easily in what they attempt to do. The natures of a special value have always to face many ordeals.
And thirdly, when I say to take refuge in the Divine's love, I do not mean that it is all sufficient in itself. Not so; personal effort and favourable circumstances are also necessary for the promptness of the advance. But those who can take refuge in the Divine's love find there a support, a protection and a joy that give them strength to face all the ordeals and surmount all the difficulties.
January 31
You ask me what you must do. It would be better to ask what you must be, because the circumstances and activities in life have not much importance. What is important is our way of reaching them.
Human nature is such that when you concentrate on your body you fall ill, when you concentrate on your heart and feelings you become unhappy, when you concentrate on the mind you get bewildered.
There are two ways of getting out of this precarious condition. One is very arduous; it is a severe and continuous tapasya. It is the way of the strong who are predestined for it.
The other is to find something worth concentrating upon that diverts your attention from your small personal self—The most effective is a big ideal, but there are innumerable things that enter into this category. Most commonly people choose marriage because it is the most easily available. To love somebody and to love children makes you busy and compels you to forget a little your own self. But it is rarely successful, because love is not a common thing.
Others turn to art, others to science, some choose a social or a political life, etc., etc.
But here also all depends on the sincerity and the endurance with which is followed the chosen path. Because here also there are difficulties and obstacles to surmount.
So, in life nothing comes without an effort and struggle. And if you are not ready for the effort and struggle, then it is better to accept the fact that life will be dull and unsatisfactory and submit quietly to this fact.
February 7
"Prasad" is a spiritual gift, a way of transmitting the Divine Force; it is considered as a sacred thing.
March 10
Death is not at all what you believe it to be. You expect from death some neutral quietness of an unconscious rest. But to obtain that rest you must prepare for it. When one dies, one leaves or loses only one's body and at the same time the possibilities of relation with and of action on the material world.
All that belongs to the vital plane does not disappear with the material substance,
frustration and disappointment, and all that keeps you restless and prevents you from getting the expected peace.
To enjoy a peaceful and eventless death you must prepare for it. And the only effective preparation is the abolition of desires, a steady detachment from the fruit of action.
So long as we have a body, we have to act, to do something, to work; but if we work simply because it has to be done, without seeking for the result of our action or wanting it to be like this or like that, little by little we get detached and prepare ourselves progressively for a truly restful death.
In fact, if you do not expect any satisfaction from physical life, you are no more tied to it and get above all sorrow.
March 16
The hell from which physical death cannot deliver you, is the hell of being in the grip of a devil who makes of you his plaything and takes his greatest pleasure in torturing you.
When someone is in the grip of a devil, which is the cause of his sufferings, the body may die, but the vital being who feels the sufferings will, after the dissolution of the body, continue to feel as much and perhaps even more.
But there is none more deaf than he who refuses to hear.
No child can be cured if he refuses to be cured and pretends to be a fool in order not to listen.
March 31
When I speak of 'New Birth', I am always speaking of the birth of a new consciousness.
May 31
There is something important that you must understand.
This body with the bit of Consciousness in it which you call The Mother, has no power of its own, no will of its own. The Lord alone has the power. The Lord alone has the will —- all is willed by the Lord, all is done by the Lord, and it is He alone who can save you from your predicament.
August 20
Yes, I can help you and, in fact, I never stopped doing so.
But I need your collaboration, without it nothing permanent can be done.
You must steadily, obstinately refuse to listen to "him" (the devil) and follow his suggestion — then it will be possible to push him away, finally he will stop coming to you and harassing you.
But as the habit of listening and obeying is a long standing one, it may take some time before he loses all hope of catching hold of you again — and we must be very obstinate in our resolution of refusing to hear him.
Be certain that nothing can discourage me and I will always be by. your side in this fight against these powers of falsehood.
September 22
Truth is Supreme harmony and Supreme delight.
All disorder, all suffering is a falsehood.
This world of misery and confusion is a world of falsehood. Only a change of consciousness and the conquest over falsehood can change the conditions of this world. . . . .
Do not take my silence for lack of interest or of love. It is in silence that my action is most powerful. . . . .
Alas ! my poor little child, this kind of devil is immortal and will disappear from the earth atmosphere only with the disappearance of falsehood. . . . .
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