The Path of Discipleship

BY

Annie Besant

 

FOUR LECTURES DELIVERED AT THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY

OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, AT ADYAR, MADRAS,

DECEMBER 27, 28, 29 AND 30, 1895

 

SECOND EDITION 

BENARES

THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY

1899

 

 

FIRST STEPS.

KARMA –YOGA. PURIFICATION.

                  1.                                                BROTHERS, - When first I spoke in this Hall two years ago, I led your attention to the building of the Kosmos as a whole, to the steps through which that evolution took place, the methods, as it were, of the vast succession of phenomena. Last year I dealt with the evolution of the Self, the Self in man rather than the Self in the Kosmos, and tried to show you how from sheath after sheath the Self gained ex­perience and obtained sovereignty over its lower vehicles - still with the man as with the universe, still with the individual as with the Kosmos, seeking ever reunion with the Self, seeking ever That whence it had come. But sometimes men have said to me when discussing these lofty topics: “What bearing have these on the life of men in the world, sur­rounded as we are with the necessities of life, surrounded as we are with the activities of the phenomenal world, continually drawn away from the thought of the one Self, continually forced by our Karma to take part in these multifarious activities? What bearing then has the higher teaching on the lives of men, and how may men in the world rise upward until the higher life becomes possible also for them?” It is that question that I am going to try to answer this year. I am going to try to show you how a man in the world, surrounded with family obligations, with social duties, with all the many activities of worldly life, may yet prepare himself for union and take the first steps on the path that leads him to the One. I am going to try to trace for you the steps of that path, so that beginning in the life that any man may be leading, starting from the standpoint where most of you may be stand­ing at the moment, you may recognize a goal to be reached, you may recognize a path to be trodden - ­the path which begins here in the life of the family, of the community, of the state, but which ends in that which is beyond all thinking and lands the traveller ultimately in the home which is his for evermore. Such is the object then of these four lectures, such the steps along which I trust you will accompany me; and in order that we may understand our subject let us glance for a moment at the course of evolution, at its meaning, at its object, so that from what must be but a bird’s-eye view of the whole, we may be able, appreciating the whole, to understand the congruity of the steps which one by one we are to take. We realize that the One has become the many. Glancing backward into the primal darkness that shroudeth all, we can hear out of that darkness but a whisper­ - a whisper: “I will multiply”. That multiplication is the building of the universe, and of the individuals who live within it. In that will to multiply of the “One which is without a second”, we see the source of manifestation, we recognize the primal germ, as it were, of the Kosmos. And as we realize that beginning of the universe and as we see the com­plexity, the multiplicity, that result from the primal simplicity, from the primal unity, we realize also that in each of these phenomenal manifestations there must be imperfection, and that the very limi­tation which makes a phenomenon possible is also the inevitable mark that it is less than the One, and therefore by itself imperfect. So we understand why there should be variety, why there should be this vast multiplicity of separate and living things. And we begin to understand that the perfection of the manifested universe must needs lie in this very variety; that if there be more than the One then there must be well-nigh infinite multiplicity, in order that the One, which is as a mighty sun sending forth beams of light in all directions, may send beams everywhere, and in the totality of the beams will be the perfection of the lighting of the world. The more numerous, the more wonderful, the more vari­ous the objects, the more nearly, though still imper­fectly, will the universe image forth That whence it comes.

                  2.                                                The first effort in the evolving life must be to make many, to make separated existences - apparently separate - so that looked at from without there shall seem many, although looked at in their essence we see that the Self of all is One. Realizing that, we understand that in the process of multiple individual­izing, the one as individual comes into manifestation as a faint and limited reflection of the Self. And we begin to understand also what is to be the outcome of this universe, why it is that these many individuals should be evolved, why it is that this separateness should be a necessary part in the evolution of the whole. For we begin to see that the result of the universe is to be the evolution of the LOGOS of an­other universe, of the mighty Devas who are to be the guides of all the kosmic forces of that universe in the future, and of the divine Teachers whose duty it will be to train the infant humanity of another Kosmos. What is going on today in all these worlds of individual existences is a steady process of evolution, by which one universe gives to a future universe its LOGOS, its Devas, the earliest of its Manus, and all those great Ones that will be necessary for the building, for the training, for the governing, for the teaching of the universe which is yet unborn. Thus are the universes linked together, thus does Manvantara succeed Manvantara, thus are the fruits of one universe the seeds of the universe that succeeds it. In the midst of all this multiplicity there is being evolved a yet vaster unity which shall be the framework of the unborn Kosmos, which shall be the Power which in the future Kosmos shall guide and rule.

                  3.                                                And then the question arises - as I know it arises in many minds, for it has been put to me both in the East and in the West over and over again - why so much difficulty in the evolution, why so much apparent failure in the working, why should men go wrong so much before they go right, why should they run after the evil that degrades them instead of following the good that would ennoble them? Was it not possible for the LOGOS of our universe, for the Devas who are His Agents, for the great Manus who came to guide our infant humanity - was it not possible for Them to plan so that there might be no such apparent failure in the working out? Was it not possible for Them to guide so that the road might have been a straight and direct one instead of so devious, so circuitous?

                  4.                                                Here comes the point that makes the evolution of humanity so difficult, having in view the object which is to be gained. Easy in truth would it have been to have made a humanity that might have been perfect, easy to have so guided its dawning powers that those powers might have travelled towards what we call the good continually, and never have turned aside towards what we call evil. But what would have been the condition of such an easy accomplish­ment? It must have been that man would have been an automaton, moved by a compelling force without him which imperiously laid upon him a law which he was compelled to fulfil, from which he could not escape. The mineral world is under such a law; the affinities that bind atom to atom obey such an imperious com­pulsion. But as we rise higher we find greater and greater freedom gradually making its appearance, until in man we see a spontaneous energy, a freedom of choice, which is really the dawning manifestation of the God, of the Self, which is beginning to show itself through man. And the object, the goal which was to be attained, was not to make automata who should blindly follow a path sketched out for their treading, but to make a reflection of the LOGOS Himself, to make a mighty assemblage of wise and perfected men who should choose the best because they know and understand it, who should reject the worst because by experience they have learnt its inadequacy and the sorrow to which it leads. So that in the universe of the future, as amongst all the great Ones who are guiding the universe of today, there should be unity gained by consensus of wills, which have become one again by knowledge and by choice, which move with a single purpose because they know the whole, which are identical with the Law because they have learned that the Law is good, who choose to be one with the Law not by an outside compulsion, but by an inner acquiescence. Thus in that universe of the future there will be one Law, as there is in the present, carried out by means of Those who are the Law by the unity of Their purpose, the unity of Their knowledge, the unity of Their power - not a blind and unconscious Law, but an assemblage of living beings who are the Law, having become divine. There is no other road by which such goal might be reached, by which the free­will of the many should reunite into the one great Nature and the one great Law, save a process in which experience should be garnered, in which evil should be known as well as good, failure as well as triumph. Thus men become Gods, and because of the experience that lies behind them, they will, they think, they feel, the same.

                  5.                                                Now in working towards this goal the divine Teachers and Guides of our humanity planned many civilizations, all moulded towards the end that was in view. I have no time to go back to the great civilization of the Fourth Race that preceded the birth of the mighty Aryan people. I may only say in passing that there was a great civilization which was tried, which for a time under its divine Rulers succeeded; then the divine Rulers withdrew their immediate guiding - as a mother withdraws her hand from her babe that is learning to walk, in order to see if without her supporting arm it is able to make its own steps, it is able to use its own limbs, so for the same purpose They withdrew into the darkness - the divine Guides and Rulers - to see if the child-humanity making these early steps would walk or would stumble on its way. And that infant humanity stumbled and fell, and the great civilization -mighty as it was perfect in its social order, glorious in the strength and the wisdom by which it was builded - broke into pieces under the selfishness of man, broke into pieces under the yet unconquered lower instincts of humanity. Another attempt had to be made, and the great Aryan race was founded - again with divine Rulers, again with divine Guides, with a Manu who gave it its law, founded its civilization, sketched out its polity, with the Rishis who gathered round Him, who administered His laws and guided the infant civilization; thus again humanity was given a pattern, again the race was shown a type towards which it should evolve. Then once more the great Teachers drew back for awhile to let humanity again try its own strength, again experiment if it were strong enough to walk alone, self-reliant, guided by the Self from within, instead of by outer manifestations. And again, as we know, the experiment has largely been a failure. Again, as we know, glancing backward, we see this civilization originally divine gradually degenerating under the still unconquered lower nature of man, again going downward for a while under the still uncurbed passions of humanity. Looking back, as we now do, to the India of the past, we see its perfect polity, its marvellous spirituality, and we trace its degradation millennium after millennium as the guiding hand withdraws out of the visible sight of man, and once more humanity blunders and fails as it tries to walk. We see how in each case there has been the failure of the realization of the divine ideal. We glance over the modern world and we see how the lower nature of man has triumphed over the divine ideal which was set before him at the beginning of the Aryan race. We see how in that day there was the ideal of the Brahmana, an ideal that might be summed up as that of the soul approaching liberation, which asks no longer for the goods of earth, which asks no longer for the enjoy­ments of the flesh, which asks no longer for the gifts of wealth, of power, of authority, of earthly pleasure, the type of the Brahmana being that he was poor, but wise; whereas today we too often find the man who bears the Brahmana name not poor and wise but wealthy and ignorant. There in that caste you have one of the signs of the degeneration by which the ancient polity fell; and the same with each of the four castes.

                  6.                                                Let us now see how it was proposed by the great Teachers that man by experience should learn to choose of his own free will the ideal which was placed before him, and from which he turned aside how the great Teachers endeavoured to build up from the imperfect humanity towards the perfected ideal manifested in the beginning for the guidance of the race, and unrealized in evolution by the weak­ness and the childishness of men.

                  7.                                                In order that, in the course of ages, this might be achieved, what is called Karma-Yoga was taught to the people - Yoga, or union, by action. That is the form of Yoga which is fitted for the men of the world, beset with life’s activities; it is by these very activities, by the training afforded by them, that the first steps towards union must be taken. And so you find laid down for the training of men this Karma-Yoga.

                  8.                                                Note the juxtaposition of the words “action” and “union”. Action so performed that union may result, action so carried out that union may be the outcome. It is a thing to remember that it is our activities that divide us, it is our actions that separate us, it is all this changing and multifarious activity by which we are drawn and kept apart. It seems almost a paradox then to speak of union by action, union by that which was ever a means of division, union by that by which separation was brought about. But the wisdom of the divine Teachers was equal to the task of reconciling, of ex­plaining, the apparent paradox. Let us follow the steps of the explanation and see what it is.

                  9.                                                Man runs wild, runs wild in every direction, under the influence of the three energies in nature, the gunas. The dweller in the body finds himself under the domination of these gunas. They are at work! they are active, they make the manifested universe, and he identifies himself with these activities. He thinks he is acting when these are acting. He thinks he is busy when these are bringing about results. Living amongst them, blinded by them, under the illusions which they produce, he loses entirely all recognition of himself, and is taken here and there, blown hither and thither, carried away by the currents, and so the activity of the gunas is all that the man sees in life; clearly he is not fit under these conditions for the higher forms of Yoga. Clearly until these illusions are at least partially conquered the loftier steps on the Path will be beyond his treading. He must begin then by un­derstanding the gunas, by separating himself from these activities of the phenomenal universe. And the great scripture of Yoga, as it may be called, the scripture of this Karma-Yoga, is that which was re-proclaimed by Shri Krishna on the field of Kuruk­shetra, when he taught this form of Yoga to Arjuna, to the prince, to the warrior, the man who was to live in the world, to fight in the world, to rule the state, and take part in all external activities; here is the eternal lesson for men who are living in the world, how gradually they may rise beyond the gunas and so reach union with the Supreme.

              10.                                                It will then first be in what we may call the train­ing and regulation of the activities of the gunas that this Karma-Yoga will consist. There are, as you know, three gunas, Sattva, Rajas and Tamas, the three gunas out of which all around us is builded and combined together in various ways, mingled in various fashions. Here one is acting and the other is working in every direction. They have to be brought into equi­librium; they have to be reduced to subjection. The dweller in the body, the lord of the body, must be­come sovereign master and distinguish himself from the gunas. That, then, will be the work that has to be done; their functions must be realized, their activities must be controlled and directed. You cannot at once rise above them, you cannot at once cross beyond them - any more than a child can do the work of a full-grown man. Can humanity in its unevolved and in its imperfect state accomplish perfection of Yoga? Nay, it is not even wise that man should try; for if the child be put to the work of the full-grown man, he will not only fail to ac­complish it, but he will overstrain his powers in the attempt, and the result will be not only failure in the present, but also failure in the future. For the task too great for his powers will thwart and distort them. They must be trained to strength before they can accomplish, and the child must grow to man­hood before manhood’s work should be his. Take for a moment the function of Tamas - translated dark­ness, or sluggishness, or inertia, or negligence, and so on. What function can that play, if it is to be used for human evolution? What use has this particular guna in the growth of the man, in the liberating of the soul? The particular use of that guna, the use to which it will be put in Karma-Yoga, is to act as a force which is to be struggled against and overcome, so that strength may be evolved in the struggle, power of will may be developed by the effort, self-­control and self-discipline may be accomplished by the attempt. It may be said to serve in the evolu­tion of man as the club or dumb-bell serves the purpose of the athlete. He could not strengthen his muscles unless there was something against which he exercised them. He could not gain muscular vigour unless there were opposing weights by strug­gling to lift which the muscles should grow strong. The value is not in the weight itself, but in the use to which it is put, and if a man wants his physical muscles, the muscles of his arms, to grow very strong, the best way to strengthen them is to take a club or dumb-bell and daily exercise the muscles against that opposing force. In this way Tamas, negligence or darkness, plays its part in the evolution of the man; he has to overcome it, he develops his strength in the struggle; the muscles of the soul grow powerful as he overcomes the negligence, the sloth, the indifference which is the tamasic quality in his nature.

              11.                                                So you will find for the overcoming of these the rites and ceremonies of religion are ordained, part of their function being to train man to overcome the sloth and the laziness and the indolence of his lower nature, and by placing before him certain duties to be done at a particular time - whether at that time he is inclined to do them or not, whether at that time he is feeling active or feeling lazy - by imposing on him duties at a particular time he is trained to overcome the sloth and heedlessness and obstinacy of his lower nature and to compel it to walk along the path that the will has determined it should follow.

              12.                                                And so if we take Rajas: you will find the activities of man are guided in Karma-Yoga along certain definite paths which I now propose to follow, so that you may see how this quality of activity, which is so much at work in the modern world, which is manifesting itself in every direction, which leads to hurry, bustle and constant effort to accom­plish things in the lower life, material manifestations, material results, material phenomena - how this shall be gradually directed, trained and purified until it no longer has the power to hinder the real manifesta­tion of the Self. The object of Karma-Yoga is to substitute duty for self-gratification; man acts to gratify his lower nature; he acts because he wants to get something; he acts for fruit; he acts for desire, for reward. He works because he wants money in order that he may enjoy. He works be­cause he wants power in order that the lower self may be gratified. All these activities, these raja­sic qualities, are set going with the purpose of ministering to his lower nature. In order that these activities may be trained and regulated to serve the purpose of the Higher Self, he is to be taught to substitute duty for self-gratification, to carry on work as work because it is his duty, to turn the wheel of life because it is his function to turn it, that he may do as Shri Krishna said He does Himself. He does not act because there is anything for Him to gain either in this world or in any other; but He acts because without his action the world would cease, He acts because without His action the wheel would no longer revolve. And those who accomplish Yoga must act in the spirit of His acting, acting for the whole and not for the separated part, acting for the carrying out of the divine will in the Kosmos and not for the pleasure of the separated entity that imagines itself to be independent when it ought to be a co-worker under Him. This object is to be gained by gradually raising the sphere of these activities. Duty is to be substituted for self-gratification, and religious rites and ceremonies are ordained to train men gradually towards the true life that is their function. Every religious ceremony is but a way of training men into the true and higher life. A man meditates in the early morning and at the going down of the sun, but ultimately his life will be one long meditation. He meditates for an hour to prepare himself for meditating always. All creative activities are the result of meditation, and you will remember that it is by Tapas that all worlds are created. In order then that man may reach that mighty and creative power of meditation, in order that he also may be able to exercise that divine power, he must be trained towards it by religious ceremonies, by intermittent thought, by Tapas taken up and laid down again. Set meditation is a step towards the accomplishment of constant meditation; it takes a part of daily life in order to permeate the whole, and men practise it daily in order that gradually it may absorb the life. The time comes when for the Yogi there is no fixed hour for medi­tation, for all his life is one long meditation. No matter what outer activities he may be doing he meditates; and he is ever at the Feet of his Lord although both mind and body may be active in the world of man. And so with all other forms of action; first a man learns to perform action as a sacrifice to duty and a paying of his debt to the world in which he is - the paying back to all the different parts of Nature of that which they give to him. And then later, sacrifice becomes more than the paying of a debt; it becomes a joyful giving of everything the man has to give. The partial sacrifice is the debt that is paid, the perfect sacrifice is the gift of the whole. A man gives himself, with all his activities, with all his powers, no longer paying part of his possessions as a debt but all of himself as a gift. And when that stage is reached Yoga is accomplished and the lesson of Karma-Yoga has been learned.

              13.                                                Take as one step towards this those five daily sacrifices which are familiar in name at least to all of you, and realize what underlay the ordination of those sacrifices. Each one of the five is the payment of a debt, the recognition of what man as a separated individual owes as a debt to the whole around him. And if you consider them for the moment one by one, however hastily, you will see how thoroughly each is this payment of a debt. Take the first: the sacrifice to the Devas. Why is that sacrifice ordained? It is because man has to learn that his body owes a debt to earth and to the Intelligences that guide the processes of Nature by which earth brings forth her fruits, by which she produces nourishment for man; as man takes the nourishment for his body, his body owes back, in payment of the debt, the returning to Nature an equivalent for that which has been given it through the instrumentality of those kosmic Intelligences, those Devas, who guide the forces of the lower world. And so man was taught to pour his sacrifice into the fire. Why? The phrase that was given as an ex­planation was: “Agni is the mouth of the Gods”, and people repeat the phrase and never try to understand its meaning, nor to go below the surface of the external name of the Deva to His function in the world. The real meaning of course that underlies the phrase is that all around on every side there are the conscious and sub-conscious workers in Nature in grade after grade, a great kosmic Deva at the head, as it were, of each division of that vast army; so that below the Deva as a Ruler in fire, in air, in water, in earth, below that particular Deva come a vast number of lower Gods who carry on the different and separated activities of the natural forces in the world, the rain, the productive powers of the earth, the fertilizing agencies of various sorts. And this first sacrifice is a feeding of these lower agencies, a giving to them of food by fire; and fire is called “the mouth of the Gods” because it disintegrates, because it changes and transmutes the solid and fluid things which are placed in it, turns them into vapour, dis­integrates them into finer materials, and thus passes them on into etheric matter to become the sustenance of those lower grades of elemental lives that carry out the commands of the kosmic Devas. And in this way a man pays his debt to them, and then in return in the lower regions of the atmosphere the rain falls, and the earth produces, and nourishment is given to man. And that was what Shri Krishna meant when he bade man “nourish the Gods and the Gods shall nourish you”. For it is that lower cycle of nourish­ment, as it were, which man has to learn. At first he accepted it as a religious teaching; then came the period in which he thought it superstition, knowing not the inner working and seeing only the outer appearances; and then comes deeper knowledge when Science, which tends first to materialism, by deeper study rises towards recognition of the spiritual realm. Scientific knowledge begins to say in scien­tific terms what the Rishis said in terms of the spirit, that man may rule and regulate the working of the lower powers of Nature by action that he himself performs, and in this way growing knowledge justifies the ancient teaching, justifies to the intellect what the spiritual man sees by direct intuition, by the spiritual sight.

              14.                                                Next, there is the sacrifice to the ancestors; the recognition of what man owes to those who went before him in the world, the payment of the debt that he owes to those who worked in the world ere his last coming, the gratitude and veneration which are due to those who partly made the world for us, and brought about improvements that we should inherit them. That service is a debt of gratitude due to those immediately before us in human evolution, who took their part in it during their earthly lives and bequeathed to us the result of their labours. As we reap the benefit of their work, we pay back the debt of grati­tude. And so this is one of the daily sacrifices, the recognition of this debt of gratitude to those who have gone before.

              15.                                                And then of course comes the sacrifice of knowledge, that of study, in order that by the study of the sacred words men may be able to help and train those more ignorant than themselves, and may also evolve in themselves the knowledge necessary for the manifestation of the Self within them.

              16.                                                Fourthly, the sacrifice to men, the payment to some particular man of the duty owed to humanity, the feeding of some particular man as a recognition that men owe to each other all kindly deeds in the physi­cal world, all the assistance that brother can give to brother. The sacrifice to men is the formal recognition of this duty, and in feeding those who are hungry, and in showing hospitality to those who are in need of it, while you feed one man as a concrete fact you feed all humanity ideally and in in­tention; when you give hospitality to one man who comes past your door, you open the door of your heart to humanity as one great entity, and in help­ing and sheltering one you give help and shelter to humanity as a whole.

              17.                                                And so also with the last of the five sacrifices, that to animals; food is to be placed on the ground by the householder that any passing animal may take. In this you recognize your duty to the lower world, your duty of giving help, of giving food, of giving training to them. The sacrifice to animals is meant to impress on his mind that we are here as trainers, as directors, as helpers, of the lower creatures that stand beneath us on the ladder of evolution. Every time we sin against them by cruelty, by harshness, by brutality of any sort, we sin against Him who is dwelling within them and whose lower manifestations they also are. And in order that man might recognize the good within the brute, in order that he might understand that Shri Krishna is in the lower animal, although more veiled than He is in man, man was bidden to sacrifice to the animals, not to the outer form but to the God within. The only way we can sacrifice to them is by kindness, by gentleness, by compassion, by training, by helping forward the animal evolution, and not by beating it back by the brutality and by the cruelty we see around us on every side.

              18.                                                Thus man was taught by these outer rites and ceremonies the inner spiritual truths, by which his life was to be permeated. And when the five sacri­fices were over, he was to go out into the world of men still to sacrifice by other forms of action, still to sacrifice by the performance of his daily duties. And his daily life that was begun by these five sacrifices passed out consecrated into the outer life of men. With gradual carelessness as to the five sacrifices has grown carelessness of duty in that outer life of men. Not because these sacrifices in them­selves will be for ever necessary, for a time comes when a man rises above them. But remember this he only rises above them when his whole life has become one long and living sacrifice. Until that is accomplished, these formal recognitions of duty are necessary for the sake of the raising of the life,

              19.                                                And unhappily in India today these have largely dropped out of account, not because men have risen above them nor because all their lives are pure, spiritual and lofty, so that they have no need of the lower training and the continual reminder; but be­cause they have become careless and materialistic, and have fallen so far below the ideal of their Manu. They refuse all dutiful recognition to the Powers above them, and therefore they fail in their duty to the men around them.

              20.                                                Let us consider next the outer daily life - the duty of the individual in the world. Wherever it is, he is born into some particular family; that marks his family duties. He is born into some community; that marks out his communal duties. He is born into a particular nation; that marks out his national duties. For each man the limitations of duty are set by the circumstances of his birth, which, under the good Law, under the karmic direction, give to each man the place of his working, the training ground on which he is to learn. Therefore is it said that each man should do his own duty, his own Dharma. Better to do your own, although imperfect, than to try to do the higher Dharma of another. For that into which you are born is that which you need; that into which you are born is your wisest training. Do your own duty careless of results, and then you will learn the lesson of life, and you will begin to tread the path of Yoga. At first of course action will be done for its fruit; men will do it be­cause they desire to gain its reward. And here we understand their early training, where men were taught to work for results in the world of Svarga. The child-man is trained by rewards; Svarga is held out to him as a thing to be gained by work; as he accomplishes his religious rites and duties he ensures their svargic recompense. And in this way he is in­duced to practise morality, just as you induce a child to learn its lessons by giving it some reward or some prize. But if action is to be used for Yoga and not for the gaining of reward, either here or in any other world, then it must be done only as duty.

              21.                                                Consider for a moment the four great castes and see how each of these was meant to be used. The Brahmana was to teach in order that there might be a succession of wise teachers to guide the evolution of the race. He was not to teach for money, he was not to teach for power, he was not to teach for any­thing he got for himself; he was to teach in fulfilment of his Dharma, and he was to have knowledge that he might in turn hand it on to others. Thus in a well-regulated nation there would be always teachers to instruct, able to guide and advise un­selfishly and without a selfish object; thus nothing would be gained by him for himself, but everything would be gained by him for the people. In this way his Dharma would be accomplished and the soul set free.

              22.                                                Then there came the Yoga which was the fitting of the active man of the world for governing and regulating, the training of the dominant class, the Kshattriya. There you had the man who was to rule. Why? Not that he might gratify himself by power, but in order that justice might be done, in order that the poor man might feel secure and the rich man might be unable to tyrannize, in order that fairness and impartial justice might prevail in the struggling world of men. For in the midst of this world of struggle, in the midst of this world of anger and strife, in the midst of this world where men are seeking to gratify the spirit of self instead of the common good, they have to be taught that jus­tice must be done, that if the strong man abuses his strength the just ruler will restrain that unfair exercise of strength, that the weaker shall not be trampled upon, that the weaker shall not be op­pressed. And the duty of the king was to do justice between man and man, so that all men might look to the throne as the fountain from which divine justice flowed. That is the ideal of the divine king­ship that is the ideal of the divine ruler. Rama came to teach it, Shri Krishna came to teach it; but men were so dull that they would not learn the lesson. The Kshattriya used his strength to gratify himself and oppress others, and took their wealth for his own and used their labour for his personal advantage. He lost the ideal of the divine ruler who incarnated justice in the warring world of men. But he was meant to make that ideal the object of his life, and his duty, therefore, was to administer the land, to administer it for the good of the nation and not for the gratification of himself. And so also when his duty was the duty of the soldier. The nation was to carry on its functions in peace. Poor men and harmless men were to live secure with their households round them in happiness and prosper­ity. The merchant was to carry on the work of a merchant in peace. All the various avocations of life were to be carried on fearlessly, secure against aggression. And so the Kshattriya was taught that when he was to fight, he fought as the defender of the helpless and gave his life freely that they might enjoy their lives in peace. He was not to fight because he wanted gain. He was not to fight because he wanted land. He was not to fight be­cause he wanted power or dominion. He was to stand as an iron wall round the nation so that every attack should break itself against his body, and within the circle made by him all men should live in peace, in security and in happiness. If he was to follow Yoga within the duty of the Kshattriya, he must look on himself as the agent of the divine Actor, and therefore it was that Shri Krishna taught that He had done all and that Arjuna but repeated the action in the world of men. And when the divine Actor is recognized in every action of the man, then he can accomplish action as duty without desire, and it loses its binding power on the soul.

              23.                                                So again with the Vaishya who was to accumulate wealth. He was to do it not for his own gratifica­tion, but for the support of the nation. He was to be rich in order that every activity that needed wealth should find a store of wealth at hand and be carried out in every direction. So that everywhere there might be homes for the poor, everywhere rest­-houses for the traveller, everywhere hospitals both for men and beasts, everywhere temples for wor­ship, and everywhere the wealth which was needed to support these activities of perfect national life. And so his Dharma was this accumulation for the common good and not for individual self-gratification. In this way he too might follow Yoga, and by Karma-Yoga prepare himself for the higher life.

              24.                                                So also with the Shudra, who was to perform his Dharma in the commonwealth. His work lay in accomplishing the duty of forming the great hand o the nation, which brought into it what was wanted and carried on the serving external activities. His Yoga, if it were to be accomplished, lay in gladly discharging his duties, doing them for the sake of doing them and not for the reward that by doing them he might gain.

              25.                                                First men do action for self-gratification, in that way experience is gained; then they learn to do it as duty, and so they begin to practise Yoga in their daily life; lastly they do it as a joyful sacrifice for which they ask nothing back, but give every power they possess for the accomplishment of the work. And in this way union is accomplished.

              26.                                                We understand what is meant by purification, when we notice these stages of self-gratification, of doing duty as duty, of giving everything as a free­will sacrifice. These are the stages of the path of purification. But how shall such purification be made as shall lead to the higher steps, to the beginning of the discipleship for which all created activity is to be the preparation? Every part of man must be purified, body as well as mind. On the purification of the body I have not time to dwell, but I may remind you that according to the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita it is by way of moderation that this purification is accomplished and not by self­-torturing asceticism, torturing the body and Him that dwells within it, as Shri Krishna says. Yoga is accomplished by temperate self-control, by deliberate training of the lower nature, by quietly choosing the pure path in food, by care and moderation in all physical activities, thus gradually training and regulating and moderating until the whole body comes under the control of the will and of the Self. Therefore the household life was ordained; for men were not fit for the hard road of celibacy, save here and there a few. Brahmacharya was not for all. By household life were men taught to control and moderate their sexual passions, not by crushing them out - which is for the mass of men impossible, and if attempted with unwise energy often result in a re-action that throws the unwise person into the worst profligacy of life - not by single effort which tries to kill and to uproot in a moment, but by gradual training in moderation, and by practising the self-denial of the home, where the lower nature should be slowly trained to temperance and be accustomed to be controlled by the higher, trained out of its over-activity and made utterly subordinate to the One. There is where this Karma-Yoga comes in. The householder has gradually to learn self-control, moderation, making the lower nature yield to the higher, training it day by day until it is absolutely subject to the will. In that way he purifies the body and becomes fitted for the higher paths of Yoga. Then again he must purify the passions of the lower nature all through. Take as an illustration of it - I want to give you three illustrations of this so that you may work it out in your lives - take the passion of anger, and see how it may be worked upon in Karma­-Yoga, in order that it may be transmuted in quality. Anger is an energy, an energy that goes out of man to fight his way. You see it in an undeveloped and untrained man as passion, showing itself in many brutal forms, beating down opposition, caring not what methods are used if he strikes out of his way all that which opposes the gratification of his will.

              27.                                                And in that form it is an undisciplined and destructive energy of Nature which he who would do Karma-Yoga must most certainly subdue. How shall he subdue and train the passion of anger? He gets rid of the personal element to begin with. When a personal injury is done to him he trains himself to cease to resent it. There is the duty which lies before many of you. Some man does you a wrong; some one does an injustice against you. What shall you do? You may let the passion of anger carry you away and you may strike at him. He has cheated you: you try to injure him in re­turn, and to take advantage of him. He has injured you: you try in turn to injure him. He has gone behind your back: you go behind his back and do him wrong in turn. And so the passion of anger rages, and destruction is seen on every side in what should be the society of men. How shall this passion be purified? You may take the answer from any one of the great Teachers who taught Karma-Yoga, who taught how action in the world of men might be used for the purposes of the Self. You may remember that amongst the ten-fold system of duty which Manu laid down, forgiveness of injuries is one of the duties. You may remember that when the Buddha was teaching He taught: “Hatred ceases not by hatred at any time, hatred ceases by love”. You may remember that the Christian Teacher followed the same line of thought and He said: “Be not over­come of evil, but overcome evil with good”. That is Karma-Yoga. Forgive the injury; give love for hatred; overcome evil with good. In that way you eliminate the personal element; you will no longer feel angry because you are wronged; you will have purified away the personal element, and anger in you will no longer be of this lower kind. But still a form of anger may remain of a higher kind. You see a wrong done to the weak: you are angry with the wrongdoer; you see an animal ill-used: you are wrathful with the person who is cruel; you see a poor man oppressed: you are angry against the oppressor. Impersonal anger - far nobler than the other, and a necessary stage in human evolution; far nobler and better to be angry with a wrongdoer than pass by in stolid indifference, because you have no sympathy with the suffering that is inflicted. That higher, impersonal anger is nobler than indifference, but it is not the highest. It also in turn has to be changed, and it has to be changed into the quality of doing justice to the strong and the weak alike; which compassionate the wrongdoer as well as the wronged; which sees that he injures himself even more than the person whom he hurts; which is sorry for him as well as for the person who suffers under him; which embraces all, wrongdoer and sufferer, in one embrace of love and of justice. The man who has thus purified the passion of anger stops the wrong because it is his duty to stop it, and is gentle to the wrongdoer because he also must be helped and trained; thus what was anger striking back against a personal wrong becomes justice which stops all wrong and makes the strong and the weak equally safe and equally protected. That is the purification which is done in the world of action, that the line of daily effort by which the lower nature is purified in order that union may be attained.

              28.                                                Take again love. You may have that in the lower brutal form - the animal passion between the sexes of the very lowest and the poorest kind, which cares nothing for the character of the one for whom the attachment is felt, which cares nothing for the beauty of the mental and of the moral nature; it cares only for the physical beauty, the physical attraction, and the physical pleasure. There is passion in its lowest form. Self is sought and only self. That is purified by the man who follows Karma-Yoga into love which sacrifices itself for the one who is loved; he performs family duties, he takes care of wife and of child and does his very best for them at the sacrifice of his own inclina­tions, of his own leisure and his own gratification; he works in order that the family may be better supported, he works in order that the family wants may be supplied; in him love no longer seeks only its own pleasure but seeks to help those who are beloved, and to take on itself the evil that threatens them in order that they may be sheltered and spared and guarded; by following Karma-Yoga the man purifies his love from the selfish elements, and that which was an animal passion for the other sex becomes the love of the husband, of the father, of the elder brother, of the relative, who fulfils his duty, working for the sake of the loved and in order that their lives may be fairer and happier. And then there comes the last stage, when the love that is purified from self goes out to all. Not only in the narrow circle of the home does it work, but it sees in every one whom it meets a person who is to be helped, sees a brother to be fed in every starving man, sees a sister to be protected in every woman who is left forlorn. Finding any one who is lonely, a man thus purified becomes father and brother and helper to that one, not because he loves personally but because he loves ideally, and because he seeks to give for love’s sake and not even for the gratification of being loved in return. The highest love, the love that grows out of Karma-Yoga, asks nothing back in return for what it gives; it seeks no gratitude; it asks for no recognition; it is willing to work un­known; nay, it is more glad to work unknown and unrecognized than to work in a way that brings recognition and that brings praise. And the ultimate purification of love is where that love becomes absolutely divine, where it gives because it is its nature to spread happiness, where it asks nothing for itself but seeks only that others should be glad.

              29.                                                And so again with greed, covetousness. Men seek to gain in order that they may enjoy; they desire gain in order that they may have power; they strive to gain in order that they may be lifted up. They purify that first form of greed; and they begin to desire gain that the family may be better off, that the family may be in a better position, that the family may be beyond suffering and want and starvation; thus they grow less selfish than before. Then they go further. They desire power in order that they may use it for good, that they may spread it to do good over a wider area than the family, that they may serve in a wider field than the home; and at last, as in the case of love, they learn to give without any return. They learn to desire knowledge and power not that they may hold it but that they may give it, not that they may enjoy it but only in order that it may be spread. And in this way selfishness is burned up.

              30.                                                Have you ever wondered why He to whom is given the name of Mahadeva, why He dwells in a burning-ground? A strange place, men would have thought, in which the Mightiest One should dwell. Strange surroundings with which to environ Him who is purity itself. What is hidden under the symbolism of the burning-ground is human life; and in that burning-ground where Shiva dwells all the lower things in human life are consumed as by fire. If He dwells not within it, then these earthly things remain to putrefy, to corrupt, to be a source of danger, to spread disease and corruption everywhere. But in the burning-ground in which He dwells, through which His fire passes from side to side, is burned up everything that is selfish, everything that is personal, everything which is of the lower nature; out of those regenerating flames the Yogi rises triumphant, with nothing of the personal element left within him; for the fire of the Lord has burned up all lower passions, and there is nothing there remaining to corrupt or to spread disease. Therefore is He called the Destroyer - the Destroyer of the lower in order that regeneration may come; for out of His Fire the soul was originally born, and from that burning-ground the purified Self arises.

              31.                                                Thus do these first steps lead onward towards true discipleship, lead onward towards the finding of the Guru, lead onward towards the Inner Temple, the holiest of holies, where the Guru of humanity resides. These are the first steps that you must take, this is the route by which you must travel. Men you are, living in the world and bound by worldly ties, men living the social and political life; and yet at the back of your hearts you are desiring true Yoga and the knowledge which is of the permanent and not only of the transitory life. For in the hearts of every one of you, if you go down to the very bottom of them, you will find a yearning to know something more, a desire to live more nobly than you live today. You may have the outer appearance of loving the things of the world, and you do love them with your lower natures; but in the heart of every true Hindu, who is not absolutely renegade and apostate to his religion and his country, there is still an inner yearning for some­thing more than the things of earth, still a faint longing, if only from the past traditions, that India shall be nobler than she is today and her people more worthy of her past. Here then is the route that you must begin to tread: no great nation unless individuals are great; no mighty people if individuals are sordid and poor and selfish in their lives You must begin where you are today, in the life that you are leading and following these lines that I have roughly sketched you will take your first steps to­wards the Path.

              32.                                                Let me close by reminding you of what the end of that Path is, although I have still to take you further towards it in the lectures that lie before us in these morning hours. The end of the Path is union - the Karma-Yoga which we have been studying is Union by Action. There are other steps to take, but what is “union”? You remember how Shri Krishna gave the marks of the man who had passed beyond the gunas, the marks of the man who had crossed beyond them and who was fit for the nectar of immortality, the man who was ready to know that which is Highest, to come into union with the Supreme. He perceives no agent save the gunas. He knoweth That which lies beyond. He sees the gunas acting; he desires them not when they are absent, he repels them not when they are present. He is balanced amidst friends and foes, balanced in praise and in shame, self-reliant, looking on all things with an equal eye, on the clod of earth, on the piece of gold, on friend and on enemy alike. He is the same to all, for he has crossed over the gunas, and is no longer deluded by their play. That is the goal that we are seeking. These are the first steps towards the Path that crosses over. Until these are trodden no other steps are possible; but as these are gradually accomplished the beginning of the true Path is seen.

              33.                                                QUALIFICATIONS FOR DISCIPLESHIP.

 

              34.                                                CONTROL OF MIND. MEDITATION. BUILDING OF CHARACTER.

 

 

              35.                                                BROTHERS, - The special section of the subject with which I am to deal this morning is the qualifi­cations for discipleship. And let me begin by draw­ing your attention to the question of re-birth, and the way in which a man may realize what is meant by discipleship, and may deliberately choose that as his future path in life. You will remember what was said yesterday, how I traced for you the different stages of action: how a man first performed action for the gratification of his own lower nature ever seeking for fruit, how then he gradually learnt in the practice of Karma-Yoga to perform action not for the sake of the fruit for the lower self, but because the action ought to be done, thus identifying himself with Law, thus consciously taking part in the great work of the world. Then I hinted to you that there was a stage beyond that where the sacrifice was made not only as duty but as a joyful giving of everything that a man possessed. It is clear that when that stage is aimed at, when a man performs work not merely because it ought to be done but because he desires to give everything that he is and has to the service of the Supreme, then it is that it becomes possible for a man to break what are called the bonds of desire and in that way to liberate himself from re-birth. For that which draws man to re-birth in the world is desire; the desire to enjoy the things that here may be enjoyed, the desire to achieve the things that here may be achieved. Every man who puts before him some earthly aim, every man who makes the goal of his life some earthly object, that man is evidently bound by desire. And so long as he desires that which the earth can give him, he must return for it; so long as any joy or any object belonging to the transitory life - physical life upon earth - is a thing that has power to attract, it is a thing that has also power to bind. Every attraction in other words is that which binds the soul, and brings it back to the place where the desire may be accomplished.

              36.                                                Man is so divine in his nature, so God-like in him­self, that even this out-going energy of his, that we speak of as desire, has in itself the power of accom­plishment. That which he desires he attains, that which he desires nature gives to him in due course when the time is ripe; so that man, as has often been said, is master of his own destiny, and whatever he demands from the universe that the universe will give. He must of course take the results of the desire in that portion of the universe to which the de­sire belongs. So that if he desires the things of earth, he must come back to earth in order that the desire may be accomplished. So again a man is bound to re-birth by any of those desires which find their satis­faction in the temporary and transitory worlds on the other side of death; those worlds which are tran­sitory, beyond the gate-way of death, all lead back again, as we know, to re-birth here; so that if a man’s desires are fixed on the joys of Svarga, if he looks for the fruits of his life in this world in some other world which is also transitory, supposing that he denies himself earthly joys with the deliberate ob­ject of attaining the joys of Svarga, then those joys are the fruit of his work, and that fruit will be given to him in due course. But inasmuch as Svarga is itself fleeting, inasmuch as Svarga is itself transitory, he has only taken for his path what has been called the path of the Moon, the path that leads to re-birth­ - you may remember it is written that “the moon is the door of Svarga” - and then from Svarga the soul comes back to the earthly world of men. In that way desire - whether it is to be accomplished in this world or in some other world, also transitory and fleeting - ties the soul to re-birth, and therefore it is that it is written that only when “the bonds of the heart are broken” can the soul reach liberation.

              37.                                                Now liberation pure and simple (for an age) may be gained by this mere destruction of desire. With­out any very, very high achievement, without any very lofty stage in the evolution of the soul, without the unfolding of all the divine possibilities that lie enwrapped in human consciousness, without attain­ing those great heights on which the Teachers and the Helpers of mankind are standing, man may gain, if he so desire it, a liberation which is fundamentally selfish, which lifts him indeed out of the world of change, which breaks indeed the bonds that bind him to the worlds of life and death, but which helps not in any way his brethren, which does not break their bonds nor set them free; this is a liberation which is for the unit rather than for the whole, in which a man passes out of humanity and leaves humanity to struggle along its way. I know that many men have in life no higher thought than that; that there are many who seek simply for liberation, careless of others so that they themselves escape. That, as I say, may fairly easily be gained. It needs a recognition of the transitoriness of earthly things, of the worthlessness of the objects of ambition with which a worldly man naturally busies himself day by day. But after all that liberation is only for a time, for a manvantara perhaps; after that there is a return. So that while it sets the soul free from this world and leaves it liberated so far as this earth is concerned, in a future cycle such souls have to come back to take another step towards what is the really diviner destiny of man, the evolution of the human consciousness into the All-consciousness which is to be used for training, for helping, for guiding the worlds of the future.

              38.                                                I turn aside then from that to those wiser and more generous souls who while they would break the bonds of desire would fain break them not that they themselves may escape from the difficulties of earthly life, but in order that they may follow that higher and nobler Path which is called the Path of Disciple­ship, follow the Great Ones who have made the pathway possible for humanity; such seek to discover the Teachers who are willing to accept those who qualify themselves for discipleship with a view not of simply liberating themselves, not of simply gaining escape from trouble, but of becoming the helpers and teachers and saviours of humanity, giving back to the world at large that which the individual has received from the Teachers who have gone in front. That discipleship is hinted at in all the great Scrip­tures of the world. The Guru who may be found and who teaches men is one of the ideals of all the highest and most developed souls who in this outer world have sought to realize the divine. Take any Scripture that you will, and see how this thought is expressed there. Take Upanishad after Upanishad and see how the Guru is mentioned and how the attention of the would-be disciple is directed towards His seeking and His finding. It is that which I desire to put to you this morning; the qualifications for discipleship; that which has to be done before discipleship is possible; that which has to be accomplished before the search for the Guru has any chance of success; that which has to be done in the world, in the ordinary life of men, utilizing that life as a school, as a place for learning the preparatory lessons, as a place for qualifying the man to be fit to touch the Feet of the great Teachers who shall give him the true re-birth - the re-birth which is symbolized in all exoteric religions by one or another external ceremony, sacred less for itself than because of that which it symbolizes. You will find in Hinduism the word “Twice-born”, implying that the man is not only born of earthly father and mother, but has passed the true second birth which is given by the Guru to the soul. That is symbolized - alas! only symbolized, in too many cases now - by the initiation given by the family Guru or by the father to the son, when he becomes what in the outer world is called the twice-born man. But in the days of old - and in the present days as well - there was and is a real, a true Initiation which is the original of that external ceremony; there is a real, a true Initiation which is not simply initiation into an exoteric caste but into a really divine birth; which is given by a mighty GURU; which comes from the GREAT INITIATOR, the One Initiator of humanity. We read of these initiations in the past, we know them to exist in the present. All history bears testimony to their reality. There are temples in India beneath which are the places of the ancient initiations, places which now are unknown to the people, places which now are hidden from the eyes of men, but which none the less are there, which none the less are accessible to those who prove themselves worthy to attain them. And not in India alone are such places to be found. Ancient Egypt had also her crypts of initiation, and mighty pyramids in one or two cases stand over the ancient places, that now are hidden from the eyes of man. The later initiations that took place in Egypt, those of which you may read in the history of Greece and the history of Egypt itself, those of which you may have heard that one or another of the great philosophers was there initiated -those took place in the outer buildings known to the people, which covered the real Temples of Initiation. Into these entrance was not gained by outer knowledge, but under conditions that have existed from the furthest antiquity and that exist today as really as they existed then; for as all history bears testimony to the reality of the initiation, so does history bear testimony to the reality of the Initiate. There stand at the head of every great religion Men who were more than ordinary men, Men who gave the Scrip­tures to the people, Men who traced the outlines of the exoteric faiths, Men who Stand out in history head and shoulders above Their fellows by the spiritual wisdom that gave Them glory and the spiritual insight by means of which They saw, and who testified of what They saw; for there has been one note which we have often remarked with regard to all these great Teachers. They do not argue, They proclaim; They do not discuss, They declare; They do not reach Their conclusions by logical processes, They reach them by spiritual intuitions; They come forth and speak with authority that justifies itself in the very speaking, and men’s hearts recognize the truth of Their teaching, even when it rises higher than their intellect is able to follow. For there is in the heart of every man that spiritual principle to which every divine Teacher makes His appeal, and it answers to the truth of the spiritual declaration, even though the intellectual eyes may not be keen enough to discern the reality of that which the Spirit sees. Those great Gurus then who are found in history as the greatest Teachers, as well as Those whom we find standing out as the mightiest philosophers, Those are the Initiates, who have become more than man; such Initiates exist today as they have ever existed. Nay, how should death touch Them who have overcome life and death, and are the Masters of all lower nature? They have evolved out of humanity in the course of the millennia which lie behind, some out of our humanity and some out of humanities anterior to our own. Some of Them came from other worlds, from other planets, when our humanity was a child; others grew up when this humanity had trodden long enough the path of evolution to produce its own Initiates, Gurus of our own race to help onwards the humanity to which They Themselves belong. When that path is trodden and that goal is reached, for such a Man there is no more possibility that death should have power over Him, and that having been He shall not continue to be; the very fact that They are found in history is the guarantee for Their present existence; that would be enough to show that They exist, with­out the testimony which is growing year by year of those who have found Them, and who know Them, those who are taught by Them, who take lessons at Their Feet. For in our own time and in our own day, one after another finds the ancient path; in our own time and our own day one after another finds that ancient and narrow path, keen as the edge of a razor, that leads onward to the gate­way of discipleship and makes entrance on the Path of Discipleship a possibility for men; as one after another finds it, one witness after another in modern times is able to proclaim the truth of the ancient writings, and entering on that Path they may follow it stage by stage.

              39.                                                But for the moment we are concerned with find­ing what qualifications are demanded ere entrance to the Path may be gained. Now the first of these qualifications is one which must be met to a very considerable extent at least before discipleship in any sense is possible. One of these qualifications is what is called control of the mind, and my first task now is to explain to you very definitely what control of the mind means, what the mind is which is controlled, and who it is that controls it. For you must remem­ber that for the great mass of people the mind is the representative of the man. When he speaks of “himself”, he really means his mind. When he says “I”, he is identifying that “I” with the mind, the conscious intelligence that knows; and when he says “I think, I feel, I know”, you will not find, if you inquire closely into the meaning, that he goes beyond the limits of his consciousness in his waking hours. That is what he means by the “I”, for the most part. Certainly those who have studied carefully know that such an “I” is illusory; but while they know it as an intellectual proposition, they do not realize it as a practical matter in life. They may admit it as philosophers, they do not live it as men in the world. And in order that we may understand clearly what this control of mind is, and how we may control the mind, let us just for a moment pause at what we call self-control when we are dealing with the man of the world; and we shall see how very inadequate that is when it is compared with the self-control which is one of the qualifications for discipleship. When we say a man is self-controlled we mean that his mind is stronger than his passions; that if you take the lower nature, the passions and the emotions, and over against that you set the intellectual nature, the mind and the will and the reasoning power and the judgment, that these last are stronger than the first; that the man is able in a moment of tempta­tion, under an appeal to his passions, to say: “No, I will not yield to that; I will not permit myself to be carried away by passion, I will not allow myself to be run away with by means of the senses; these senses are simply the horses that draw my chariot; I am the driver, and I will not permit them to gallop along the road they desire”; and then we say that that man is self-controlled. That is the ordinary sense of the word, and mind you, that self-control is an admirable quality. It is a stage through which every man must pass. The uncontrolled and un­regulated man, who is subject entirely to the senses, he indeed has much to do ere even this quality of worldly self-control will be acquired; but very, very much more than that is wanted. When we talk about a strong-willed man and a weak-willed man, we mean for the most part that the man who has got a strong will is a man who under the ordinary cir­cumstances of temptation and difficulty will choose his path by reason and by judgment, and will guide himself by the memory of the past and by conclusions which are based thereon; then we say a man has a strong will; he is not a man who is at the mercy of circumstances; he is not a prey to every impulse, he is not like a ship carried by the currents of the river or driven about by the winds as they blow upon it. He is rather like a ship controlled by a seaman who understands his duty, who utilizes the currents and the winds to drive his ship in the direction in which he desires to go, who uses the rudder of the will to make the ship follow the path on which he himself has determined. And it is true that this difference of strong and of weak will is a mark of growing indi­viduality; as the man himself grows, as the indivi­duality increases, this power of direction from within is one of the clearest marks of the growth. I remem­ber H. P. Blavatsky saying in one of her articles when she was dealing with individuality, that you might recognize individuality in man and the absence of individuality in the lower animals by observing the way in which the man and the lower animals act under certain circumstances. If you take a number of wild animals and surround them with similar cir­cumstances, you will find them all act in the same general way. Their action is determined by the circumstances that surround them; each does not arrange his own action to modify the circumstances, balancing the one against the other in order to make the path which he selects; they act all alike. If you know the nature of the animal, and if you know the circumstances, you might judge of the action of the whole class by the actions of one or two. Now that distinctly shows the absence of individuality. But if you take men, a number of men, you cannot judge beforehand that they will all act in the same way; for according to the development of the individuals will be the variety of the action taken by them under the same circumstances. One individual is different from another, therefore he acts differently; he has a will of his own, therefore he chooses differently; the man who is weak-willed has less individuality, he is less developed, he is not as far advanced on the road of evolution.

              40.                                                Now supposing that this is realized, then a man may go a step further than the control of the lower nature by the higher, and he may begin to realize something of the creative power of thought. This will imply more than the thought of the ordinary man of the world; it will imply knowledge of some philosophy. If for instance he has studied the great writings of the Hindus he will there gain a definite intellectual apprehension of the creative power of thought, but the moment he has seen that he will further see that there is something behind what he calls his mind; for if there be a creative power of thought, if a man can generate thought through the mind, then there must be something that generates, and that is hidden behind the mind producing these thoughts. The very fact that there is such a crea­tive power of thought, that a man is able to influence and train his own mind and the mind of others by this creative power is enough to show that there is some­thing behind the mind, something which is as it were separable from it, and something that will use the mind as its instrument. And then there dawns on the student who is endeavouring to understand him­self, that he has to deal with a mind which is exceed­ingly difficult to deal with, and that thoughts come unbidden, and spring up as it were without choice of his own; when he begins to study the workings of the mind he finds thoughts come rushing into it without his asking them to come; he finds himself possessed of ideas which he would wish very different. All kinds of fancies come into his mind which he wants to expel; he finds himself helpless, he cannot get rid of them. He finds himself compelled to grind on at thoughts that dominate the mind and which are by no means at his bidding nor under his authority. And he begins to observe these thoughts; he begins to ask: whence come they? how do they work? how may they be controlled? and he gradually learns that many thoughts that come to his mind have their origin in the minds of other men, and that according to the line of his own thinking so will he attract from the outer world of thought the thoughts of others; in turn he influences the minds of others by the thoughts that are generated by himself, and he begins to un­derstand that this responsibility is much greater than he ever dreamed. He used to think that only when he spoke did he affect the minds of others, only when he acted did he by example influence the actions of others; but as he learns more and more he begins to understand that there is an invisible power which goes out from the thinking man and plays on the minds of other people. Modern science tells us something of this, and to the same effect; modern science in many of its experiments has learned that thought may be sent from brain to brain without the spoken word or without the written message, and that there is something in thought which is palpable, which is observable, which is like a vibration that sets other things vibrating, although no word be formulated, no articulate speech be uttered. Science has discovered that in silence thought may be sent from man to man, that without any outer communi­cation - or as Professor Lodge said, without material means of communication, using the word “material” in its physical sense - it is possible for mind to affect mind.

              41.                                                If that be so, we are all affecting each other by thought without either word or action; for the thought that we have generated goes out into the world to affect the minds of other men; the thoughts that they think come to us to affect in turn our think­ing, and we begin to realize that for the most part thinking is a very small part of the life of most people, and that the mere receiving of other people’s thoughts is what we are apt to call thinking. In fact men’s minds are very much like houses, rest-houses, through which travellers pass and in which they stay for a night; most men’s minds are not very much more than that. The thought comes in and goes out. The man contributes very little towards the thought he receives. He receives it, harbours it, and it passes away. But what we ought to be doing is to be thinking deliberately, and thinking with a purpose behind the thought to accomplish that which we determine.

              42.                                                Why should this control of mind, this control of thought, this stopping of thought, this refusing of harbourage to the thoughts of others, be so valuable? Why should this be a condition of discipleship? Because when a man becomes a disciple his thoughts gain added power; because when a man becomes a disciple his individuality is growing, is increasing, is becoming mightier; and every thought that he thinks has increased vitality and increased energy and in­fluence on the outer world of man. By a thought a man can kill; by a thought a man can heal a dis­ease; by a thought a man can influence a crowd; by a thought a man can create a visible illusion which shall deceive other men and lead them astray. As thought has such mighty power as the individual grows and increases, and as discipleship means the rapid growth and the increase of individuality, so that a man accomplishes in a few lives what other­wise would take millennia of years to accomplish, it is necessary, before these added powers come within his reach, that he should learn to control his thoughts, that he should learn to check all that is evil in them, that he should learn to harbour nothing save that which is pure and beneficent and useful. Control then of the mind by the Self is made a condition of discipleship, because ere a man has the added power of thought that comes from the teaching of the Guru, he must have obtained control over the instrument by which the thoughts are produced, so that it may make what he determines that it shall make, and produce nothing without his full consent.

              43.                                                I know that on this point people will feel difficulty. They will say: what is this individual that is always growing? What is this individual who develops will and power of control over the mind, who, you say, is not the mind but is greater than the mind? May I take a picture from the outer world so as to help you to image in your thinking the way in which the individual comes to be and the way in which he grows? Suppose that you went into an atmosphere supercharged with watery vapour, but the atmosphere was so hot that the water remained in suspension, invisible, so that the place seemed to you to be empty; nothing is there, you would say, it is empty air. You know quite well that if a chemist took some of that air thus charged with vapour, enclosed it, and gradually cooled it down, you would see appear out of the emptiness a faint mist or cloudi­ness, and that faint mist would gradually grow a little denser and a little denser, until, as more and more the atmosphere was chilled, there would be formed a drop of water where before nothing was seen. Now that may serve as one of the clumsy physical images that one may take to illustrate the formation of the individual. Out of that Invisible which is the One from which all proceeds, appears as it were a faint cloud becoming visible, a faint mist condensing, which separates itself from the invisible vapour around it, and gradually condenses more and more till it becomes the individual drop, that we recognize as a unit; out of that which is All comes the separated and distinct; one indeed in its nature with the All, the same in its essence but separated by its conditions, and so individualized out of the whole. And the individual soul of man is such an individualization from the One Self, and it grows and grows by experience. It grows and increases and develops as it is re-born life after life and time after time, hundreds of times into the world. And what we call the mind is just a little out-putting of this individual into the world of matter. As the amoeba when it wants food thrusts out a portion of itself and takes in a little particle of nutritive matter and draws the protruded part containing the food back into its own substance, thus nourishing itself with the food that it takes in, so does the individual put out into the world - the physical world - a little protrusion from itself, to gather experience as food for the individual, and draw it in again in what we call death, absorbing this gained experience to nour­ish its growth. And the mind is this out-putting into the physical world, it is part of the individual, of the soul; the consciousness that is you is greater than your mind, the consciousness that is you is greater than that which you recognize as the intellect. All your past, all the experience that you have gained, is garnered in consciousness. All the knowledge that you have acquired is treasured in the consciousness that is really you. You put out at your birth a little part of yourself to gather new experience and to increase this; consciousness still more; this the soul takes for its own growth, and in each life out of its wider consciousness it tries to influence that out-put portion of itself; what we call the voice of conscience is nothing but this greater Self speaking to the lower self, and trying to guide the lower self in its ignorance by the wisdom which the Higher Self has acquired life after life.

              44.                                                But we know there is a difficulty about this lower self of ours, the mind. Do you remember what Arjuna said to Shri Krishna when he was dealing with this control of the lower Manas that we are studying? You remember how he said to his divine Teacher that Manas was so restless; “Manas is verily restless”, he said, “O Krishna; it is impetu­ous, strong, and difficult to bend; I deem it as hard to curb as the wind”. And that is true; every one knows it to be true who tries to curb the mind. Every one who tries to control Manas knows how restless, impetuous, and strong it is, and how hard to curb. But do you remember how the Blessed Lord gave answer to Arjuna when he said it was hard as the wind to curb? His answer was: “Without doubt Manas is hard to curb and restless, O mighty ­armed; but it may be curbed by constant practice and by indifference”. There is no other way. Con­stant practice: no one can do it for you; no Teacher can accomplish it for you. You yourselves must do it, and until you begin to take it in hand no finding of the Guru is possible for you. It is useless to cry out and desire to find, if you will not take the steps that are laid down in the published words of all the great Teachers in order to guide you to Their Feet. Here is a mighty Teacher, an Avatara, who lays down what must be done and who says it may be done. And when an Avatara says it may be done, He means that it can be done by the man who wills it; for He knows the powers of those whom He can see, and whom He as the Supreme has brought into the world; and when He gives His divine word that the conquest is possible, shall we dare to say that we cannot do it, and so as it were give the lie to the God that speaks?

              45.                                                How then shall it be done? “By constant prac­tice”, says the Lord; that is to say in your daily life as you have it, in the busy life of men, you are to begin to train this restless mind of yours and make it subject to your will. Try for a moment to think steadily. You will find your thoughts fly away. What shall you do? bring them back again to the point on which you desire to fix them. Choose a subject and then think definitely and consecutively upon it. Remember you have an immense advan­tage in this training of the mind; you have the ancient Hindu traditions, you have the physical heredity which has been moulded under these conditions, and the training in your youth which ought to have accustomed you to this regulation of the mind. It is far harder for a western-born person to conquer the restlessness of the mind than it ought to be for you, because there the control of mind has not been taught, there the training of the mind is not part of the religious education in the same way, and men are in­clined to fly from one subject to another. The habit - to take a trivial case - of constant newspaper read­ing, three or four papers, perhaps, a day, is one of the things that makes very difficult the control of the mind. You fly from one subject to another; here a number of telegrams that whirl the mind off to England, to France, to Spain, to Kamskatcha, to New Zealand, to America; when you have read that column or half-column you find another kind of news. Accounts of the doings of well-known people. Re­ports of plays in the theatres, of cases in the law ­courts. Here a race of ships or of men; there de­scriptions of sports or athletics, and so on. You all know the varied contents of the newspaper. Men do not understand the harm they do themselves by wast­ing the energies of the mind as they habitually waste them on these trivial and unimportant matters. You will find men in England, I know, who will read half a dozen papers every day; that means more than that they are for the time scattering the powers of the mind; for if you scatter them day after day you get into the habit of scattering, and you cannot then readily concentrate your thoughts on one idea. In addition to that there is the waste of time which might be given to higher matters. I do not mean to say that as men in the world you should not know what is going on in the world around you; but it is quite enough to take up a single paper which deals with the more important matters of the outer world, and read quietly through for a few minutes; if you know how to read, that is enough so far as these outside things go.

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