With the opening of the New Year,

All the closed portals of limitations

Will be thrown open

And I shall move through them

To vaster fields,

Where my worth-while dreams of life

Will be fulfilled.

I shall seek my prosperity

In making others prosperous.

I shall increase my true happiness

And show others

How to make themselves happier.

I shall make myself healthier every day

By eating more raw food and ground nuts

And less of the wrong kind of food.

I shall ask others to follow my example

In gaining good health.

I shall make it a point

To include in my efforts to be better,

The well-being of others.

Oh. God, bless me, that I may more easily

Form the habit of becoming good

Instead of gravitating toward evil.

Father, help me, that I may naturally,

Spontaneously, and easily form the habit

Of proper eating and not become the victim

Of greed, and thus suffer against my will.

Heavenly Spirit, bless me

That I may easily find happiness

Instead of

Becoming worried

At every test and difficulty.

Teach me to be tenaciously

And cautiously courageous, (not rash)

Instead of always being afraid.

All spiritually successful people,

Chief among whom are

Jesus, Krishna, Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Swami Sri Yukteswarji,

Swami Shankara, and others,

Are the manifestations

Of our One Father, God.

Because I know

That I and my Father are One,

I am happy to know also

That my spiritual ambition

To realize that Oneness

Has already been attained

Through the above saints.

It is my Spirit which weeps through all eyes

Tears of sorrow and joy.

It is my radiation of sympathy

Which will heal stricken souls.

Nothing shall blight my smiles.

Grim Death, Disease, or Failure

Will only make me smile at disasters.

I know that they cannot really touch me,

For I have the unconquerable, unchangeable,

Ever-new Bliss of Silence.

My smile ...

I shall behold on the lips of dawn,

On the lips

Of every joyous expression of God.

I shall behold Wisdom in ignorance,

Joy in sorrow, Health in weakness,

For I know

That God’s perfection is the only reality.

Today I shall help someone

To gain health and happiness.

Today I shall help someone

To be mentally strong

And to find a satisfying work.

Today I shall help someone

To establish the temple of devotion

Within his own soul in order that God

May dwell there forever

As kindness and understanding.

Today I shall establish

The temple of wisdom

In one heart

In order that God

May manifest there

As wisdom to help others.

Today I shall establish the power of God

In the temple of each activity.

Today I shall establish the joy of meditation

In the temple of each thought that I have.

Today I shall find God’s vitality in the Sun.

I shall bathe my body

Directly in sunlight every day

And appreciate the life-giving

Disease-destroying gift

Of the ultra-violet rays from God.

I shall recognize all disease as the result

Of my transgression against health laws,

And I shall try to undo the evil

By right eating,

Less eating, by fasting, by more exercise,

And by right thinking.

I am moving in the airship

Of His Omnipresent Immortality.

That is why I am fearless, healthy, and joyful.

In the mirror of silence

I shall behold Thy Face of Peace each day.

Every day I shall establish Thy Peace

In some heart.

Each day

I shall meditate deeper than yesterday.

Each tomorrow

I shall meditate deeper than today.

I shall meditate during most leisure hours.

Instead of being absent-minded,

I shall think of Thee.

In the temple of my love

I shall worship thy love.

In the temple of my wisdom,

I shall worship Thy wisdom.

In the temple of silence

I found Thy Altar of Peace.

On the Altar of Peace

I found Thy ever-new Joy.

With the love of all saints,

I will love Thee.

Finding Thee first,

I will find everything in Thee.

WE STAYED all night on the beach. It was not cold but, for the joy of it, we built a driftwood fire and then wrapped our blankets around us and lay down to rest.

The waves began whispering to me, the soft winds caressed me, and the stars smiled their glory upon me, but I would not be tempted, and I said to my mind: "Oh, Mind, all day you have played with me, laughed at me, tricked me, stung me, scarred me, and scorned me, and now you must give me a rest. I shall chain you outside of the Temple of Silence and enter, alone, to commune with the Spirit of Life."

So, with unshod feet and uncovered head, I passed into the Temple and knelt at the pearly altar. I saw no face, but I heard a voice that was the essence of music, and the voice said:

"Beloved, I knew you would come to me! Though your friends should forget you, though your body should die, though the sea should disappear, though the earth should dissolve, and the stars melt in the blue, yet I, who speak all things into Being, would remain in my primitive splendor, and you, who have been with me always, would be with me still."

And my heart sang, and I closed my eyes and slept.

DECIDE now not to live in the pit of despair, broken resolutions, unfulfilled hopes, and impractical dreams, as you probably have done the past year. Remember, whatever your position, it is you who put yourself there. Whatever you made yourself in the distant past, or in the near past, that is what you are now. It is you, who, by the secret, invisible traces of your own past actions, have been controlling the power of your present actions initiated by free choice.

The kind, omnipresent God never punished or rewarded you, for He had already given you the power to punish or reward yourself by the use or misuse of your own reason and will. It is you who transgressed the laws of health, prosperity, or wisdom and punished yourself accordingly with ill-health, poverty, or ignorance.

It is you, who, through the law of cause and effect which governs your actions, ordered yourself to be punished or rewarded. In the past years you have probably suffered enough and it is time now for you to parole yourself from the prison of your own past undesirable habits. Since you are the judge, no jail of suffering, poverty, or ignorance can hold you if you want to liberate yourself. All you have to do is to speak the words: "Be Thou free," in order to make the jailer of your wrong convictions obey your command and set you free.

Remember, your freedom of action must be insured. Most people live all through life simply making good resolutions but never accomplishing anything. They are actually sliding down while they dream that they are climbing up. Most people sink in the quicksand of failure the more they struggle for success, and they fall into the pit of despair before they realize what is happening to them. Wake up and learn by the example of others if you have somehow escaped drowning in despondency and are still alive in this New Year, and try to prevent the repetition of your troubles.

Remember that the repetition of a few weak actions produces habits of weakness. Most people allow their self-created habits of weakness or failure to enslave them. Remember that you can save yourself if you have made up your mind to live differently, but remember also that your resolution to fight bad habits must be persistent until success is reached.

Another cause of failure is that you do not weigh your bad habits against the power of your free will required to combat them. Find out through daily introspection whether you are a free man, whether you eat, walk, move, work, and meditate according to the dictates of your will power and wisdom, or whether you are the tool of your bad habits which make you do miserable things in spite of the protestations of your reason and will.

To yield to bad habits is to make them stronger and to make your will power weaker and weaker. Fight your bad habits of anger, fault-finding, jealousy, fear, inertia, over-eating, or whatever your particular weakness is, by not yielding to temptation against your will. When you determine to do something, go through with it if it kills you. This will give your wisdom-guided will more power over your bad habits. Last year’s material failure, spiritual indifference, mental and moral weaknesses, and half-hearted meditations must be put into the discard by using your will to be prosperous, to be spiritual, by exercising self-control and by meditating deeply until you actually contact God.

Remember that the greater your will power, the less will be the enslaving influence of your bad habits. Make up your mind that you are not going to be bound by your past bad habits but that you are going to guide your actions by wisdom-guided free choice. You are going to be a free born citizen in God’s Kingdom of Cosmic Wisdom by conquering all your undesirable habits. To be able to live according to the dictates of your wisdom will give you much more happiness than if you continue to allow yourself to remain bound and limited as in the past. In this New Year, stop the slave-driving of your bad habits and your dreams of wisdom will come true if you become free to act guided only by wisdom.

Most people spend all their lives desiring to do something perfectly, such as playing the piano or painting, but are too lazy and careless to put forth the effort required to reach perfection in the given activity. They go on for years performing inefficiently and excusing themselves by saying: "I had no time to practice or to find a good teacher, and anyway, I am not a genius." Extraordinary talent is not as necessary as unswerving purpose and unfailing application and effort. If an individual of average intelligence practices on the piano regularly for five hours a day under an expert teacher he can become a proficient performer. In the same way most people fail in attaining their material, mental, and spiritual desires because of the lack of definite purpose and sustained effort.

During the coming year, do not go on living in an abject poverty-consciousness if you have been going through the depression in that state of mind as millions of others have allowed themselves to do. Do not continue to carry your burden of old mental and moral weaknesses acquired in the past years, but burn them in the fire of resolution and become free in this New Year. If you have been sick and have been treating yourself indifferently by limited man-made methods, shake up your mind now and heal yourself with the unlimited healing power of God.

Above all, remember that the right method of meditation is the only way to all-round freedom and success. It would be a tiresome long hike by foot from New York to Los Angeles and would take months to accomplish, but by fast airplane it would take only a few hours. Aren’t you tired of prayer-hiking to God through the unexplored, tortuous theological jungle? Why not take the airplane of high meditation and follow the shortest Yoga path to God?

Many people pray ineffectively all their lives with chicken dinners, auto rides, movies, or money-making schemes in the background of their minds, and consequently they do not reach God. They say: "Oh, well, I try to enter the silence but as soon as I sit for ten minutes to concentrate all my thoughts seem to crowd in and keep my attention from marching Godward."

This is due to the same above-mentioned reason why some people do all things imperfectly because of carelessness, inertia, and lack of sustained purpose. Get a good teacher (a Guru), decide on the best and quickest method of meditation as taught by the great saints and master minds of India, and then meditate deeper and deeper every day, praying to God with a burning heart: "Reveal Thyself." Continue to do this day after day, month after month, and year after year in good faith and you will find that you have at last realized God Consciousness.

In this coming year you must consciously contact God, and finding Him first, you will have attained dominion over yourself and over all your limiting conditions.

ONE quality of that which we call "Life" is constant motion, an eternal change, an apparent conflict of mysterious forces, the cause of which no one knows. In Nature, as Nature is generally understood, there is no rest, no pause, no cessation of energy, not even in sleep, not even in the dissolution of forms.

From the unit of energy in radium to the farthest stars, every particle of the phenomena known as matter is forever darting, whirling, flashing, roaring along, round and round in the space it occupies and round and round other particles, at staggering and often incalculable rates of speed.

From the mole that burrows, noiselessly, in the earth, to the eagle that screams in the clouds; from the worms that feed on decomposing vegetable and animal matter to the countless germs that race through the blood of sentient creatures; from the sprouting grass blade to the sap of the tree—everywhere and always there is action, heart-beat, impulse uncompromising, not to be denied.

Yet in all this fever and tumult, in this apparent storm of life, there is not a single movement or change that does not work in exact harmony with every other change and movement, not a flaw in the system, not a particle of matter wasted, not a unit of energy that ever fails to act to some definite end.

Observing this perfect order, though without knowing the ultimate purpose of Life, the intelligent man realizes that there is something, or Someone, who does the ordering, and this realization, this partial knowledge of Absolute Wisdom and Power, would seem to be conclusive proof that man is closely related to his Maker, that he is endowed with a portion of that spiritual essence from which he sprung.

Now, in spite of the forces of Nature, forever playing with and against one another, there IS such a condition as rest, and it is to be found in the Soul of man, the Soul that, seemingly, is the most restless entity of all. However, it is the mind that is restless; the Soul is forever at peace, and even the mind may be made to be still, at the command of the Soul.

Man alone, of all things and beings, has struck the keynote of rest. Man alone is conscious of peace. Man alone is capable of pausing, of remaining quiet, if only for a brief time.

How nicely, how perfectly, how gently, how mercifully adjusted is the Great Plan! The thing that helps a beast to bear pain is the limitation of its consciousness, while that which enables man to endure pain and sorrow is the possession of an expanded consciousness.

Man is not a mourning bird of the desert, to cry and cry with never an answer given. The prayer of man and the answer to his petition come from the Soul, of which he feels himself a part. The body is not conscious of the Soul. It is the Soul that is conscious of the body, and, despite the anabolism and the catabolism that go on, unceasingly, within the mortal frame; in spite of disease, poverty, and even of the thing called sin, the Soul of man may sit serene, in dignified silence, disturbed no more by the house it inhabits than by the millions of other homes of millions of other Souls.

The Soul may sit alone, shielded by its own white glory, untouchable, unapproachable by anything gross, knowing the personality to be but the shadow of Itself. The Soul may sit alone, doing its most sublime work while it is most silent, aware of its own power, and impatient never, because of its own self-trust.

Those teachers among us today, whatever their race or religion, who advise us to take a little time each day in which to be still, are echoing the admonition of Masters who lived many centuries ago, and because it is possible for man to be quiet and to "possess his Soul in patience," therefore he dreams of rest eternal, believing that sometime he will arrive at a haven unswept by storms.

For some reason, which faith declares to be good, man seems to have been separated from his Preserver and eternal Lover, and all the life and struggle of the Soul seems to be for the purpose of finding the way back into that great "silent Heart, whose birthless beatings throb so softly in their place, that God hardly hears Himself in all the continents of space."

Man did not create physical temptation, or death-dealing bacteria, or earthquakes, or cataclysms, or floods. Satan created them as counteracting imperfect patterns, to destroy the perfect patterns of God, of creation by will, and of helpful bacteria of a solid, peaceful earth, free from earthquakes, cataclysms, and floods. God wanted man, after a perfect existence on earth, to go back to His immortal home of peace.

Satan was the result of the desire of God to divide His Sea of Oneness into waves of finite creation, by the storm of vibration, which resulted in the waves of manifestation, and in the law of relativity. This power, coming from God, became independent and endowed with free choice. Later, Satan, who embodies this power, beheld finite things, after a perfect existence, dissolving back into God, and feared the loss of his existence at the end of the creation of finite manifestation, so he rebelled against God and started to misuse his free choice by using God’s Cosmic Energy to create patterns of imperfection.

Satan was at first an Archangel of God and used Cosmic Energy to create perfect finite things, with astral lights turned inward on God. Later, Satan became lightning falling from heaven, because he caused Cosmic Energy to be turned away from God, and kept it busy creating on the earth plane, revealing finite lights like the sun and the moon, and the lightning which shows only finite things. Satan keeps man sense-bound, and does not allow him to reverse the searchlights of his senses Godward and behold His glory and His wonders in the Astral Cosmos, where all things are indescribably beautiful.

The battery of man’s wisdom, intelligence, life, and body shall not live (be sustained) by bread, (outer material, solids, liquids, and so forth) alone, but by every word (unit of intelligent living vibration), that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. The Cosmic Energy, or Life Energy, as it proceedeth out of the medulla, through which mouth, or opening, God breathes His breath of life (Cosmic Energy) into the soul, mind, and body battery of man.

The batteries of man’s wisdom, intelligence, life, and body, in all futurity, will not be kept alive by the outer agency of solids, liquids, gases, or by physical good only, but by the inner source of wisdom, power, and Life Energy, which recharge the soul, mind, and body batteries of man. It is foolish to think that bread alone sustains man. Man lives by wisdom, power, and energy, all of which come from God, through the finite opening of the medulla.

The above is one of the greatest truths which Jesus ever revealed, namely, that future generations would learn to live by Wisdom and Cosmic energy and not by food only. the ordinary animal man thinks that his entire life depends upon steak, oxygen, water, and sunshine. He forgets that the body is like a battery, which cannot work with distilled water only when its electricity runs out. The dead battery can live only when it is sent to a battery shop and recharged with electric current. Likewise, oxygen, inflated into the lungs of a dead man, and food stuffed into his stomach, and his body exposed to sunshine, will not bring back life.

It is the Life Force, coming down from the medulla, and distributed throughout the cells, which changes food into energy. This energy, derived from food, reinforces the energy existing in the body. In this way the inner life energy is self-contained, and alone can support the body. Still, through generations of bad habits, it feels its complete dependence upon food, and refuses to function without it. Just as extreme opium addicts die without opium, so, to the food addict, the Life Force refuses to stay in the body without food. The Life Force, constantly depending upon physical food, forgets its original continuous supply of Cosmic Energy.

The time comes in the life of every individual when, no matter what food he eats, or how many breathing exercises or sun baths he takes, he says: "No matter what I do, my health is failing." This shows that outside agencies, which support the body, are only indirect causes of energy,and are dependent upon the Life Force, which is the direct source of life.

In suspended animation, Sadhu Haridas was buried several feet below the earth for forty days, and lived without food, oxygen, or sunshine. When he was brought out, he was pronounced dead, and yet, to the amazement of his attendant English and French physicians, he came back to life.

Of course, the Yogis know how to withdraw their consciousness into the spine and connect it with Cosmic Consciousness, and thus keep all the subconscious thoughts recharged and active in the dream state of the soul. Without this internal activity of consciousness, the body cells would decay. In suspended animation, the Cosmic Consciousness works through the subconscious mind and shows the body cells their complete dependence upon the Divine Cosmic Consciousness. Just as ships can be controlled by a distant radio, so the Cosmic Consciousness of God keeps all thoughts and cells alive in the body by continually sending energy to them.

During the suspended state of the body, unless the cell and thought radios are tuned in with Cosmic Consciousness, or with the superconsciously-charged subconscious, the cells and bodily functions will be destroyed because of the lack of a controlling intelligence. Human conscious intelligence, charged with God Consciousness, is the supreme sustainer of the body. Without that, no human body can live; so, in the suspended states of the body, the super-consciously - charged subconsciousness withdraws the Life Force from the organs and unites it with Cosmic Energy, to electrify all the body cells and convert them into dry batteries. When the cells are electrified with this super-current, they cease to grow or to decay. This is what is meant by "suspended animation." The Life Force and human consciousness cease their outward activity with the material world, and temporarily suspend their slavery to oxygen, food, and sunshine, and learn to depend wholly upon the true body supports, Cosmic Consciousness and Cosmic Energy. The Yogis suspend the activity of change in the muscles, blood, nerve force, and all tissues, and support the body by the changeless power of Cosmic Consciousness and Cosmic Energy.

The body, being a cluster of atomic, cellular, circulatory, muscular, astral, electrical motions, depends usually upon such motion for its existence, but when the animation is suspended in the right way, the body is charged by the Cosmic Source. If you gently touch the spring of a fine watch, it will stop, and when you shake the watch, it will run again. In the same way, when the heart is stopped, by stilling the activity of thoughts, the animation of the body is suspended.

While buried, the cold earth acts like a refrigerator, preserving the body from the work of heat. Besides, the inner Life Force creates a sort of coolness in all the cells, which serves to preserve them by direct current from Cosmic Consciousness and Cosmic Energy. In this state, the cells temporarily forget their bad habit as food addicts, and they live by the Word, or the vibration of cosmic Consciousness and Energy.

To return to activity, the Yogi takes his will and consciousness into the spine and brain. Then he puts in the switch of the will, and the thoughts begin to stir. With the connecting of the switches of the thoughts, the life force begins to bring animation into the body again.

Besides the above, it is a known fact that each gram of flesh in the human body has enough energy in the electro-protonic center to run the electrical supply of the city of Chicago for two days. The Life Force in the ordinary human body usually derives power from the chemical energy in food. It does not know how to live on the electro-energy stored in the protonic center in food atoms. In the state of suspended animation, some Yogis, instead of drawing on Cosmic Energy by disintegrating atoms through the power of will, release the electro-protonic heat to keep the body cells electrified like billions of dry batteries.

Good electricity is extremely necessary in maintaining a battery. In the same way, the body battery needs to be inwardly charged with good thoughts, wisdom, and Cosmic Energy. Dietetics is not delusion. Distilled water (and not any kind of water) is necessary for the life of the battery; so, also, good food, pure oxygen, through proper breathing, sunshine, and less carbon-forming foods, are necessary for the proper upkeep of this body battery. The body is a battery within batteries.

The body battery is charged outwardly by good food, chemicals, and so forth, and inwardly by pure mind, pure soul, Cosmic Consciousness, and Life Energy. The body battery is contained in the mind and soul batteries.

The mind battery is charged by Life Energy, bodily chemicals from the outside, and inwardly it is charged by super-consciousness of the soul. A weak, dilapidated body weakens the mind, but a healthy body does not always mean a remarkable mind, unless it is charged with superconsciousness of the soul. Likewise, the soul battery is charged with a good mind, good Life energy, and good chemical energy of the body from the outside, and inwardly the soul is charged by Cosmic Consciousness through the channel of the superconscious.

In other words, remember that the more you daily meditate deeply, and feel your joy increasing, the more your soul battery will be recharged with daily wisdom poured out from God. The more one meditates, keeps in the company of Saints and intelligent, mentally-powerful people, reads good books, introspects, does creative work in art, science, literature, and business, the more one feels mentally powerful.

Then last of all, it must be remembered that, since the soul has descended into matter from Spirit, and made the imperfect body its playground, all the perfection of Spirit and soul and mind must be centered in the body in order to enable the flesh-entangled soul to remember its vastness in Spirit.

A diseased body discourages the soul, due to the latter identifying itself with the former. A strong soul, which finds its joy in meditation, on the other hand, can influence a disease-stricken body to manifest healing and perfection.

The soul’s battle for immortality, diseaselessness, and everlasting happiness, must be won and established in the body, at least from the mental standpoint, before the soul can disentangle its attachment from the mortal, imperfect condition of the body. A spiritual man, unless highly advanced, eating food injudiciously, would find the body standing in the way of spiritual realization. Also, a food fanatic will find the thought of the body hindering spiritual realization.

Eat the right food and then forget that you live by food. Think that you are always living by Cosmic Energy and Cosmic Consciousness, which changes the food into energy. You must realize that food alone cannot support the body, whereas, in the state of suspended animation, the body can be sustained by the consciousness and subconsciousness in the brain and spine. No one can live without the inner intelligence of subconsciousness drawing energy from the protonic center of cells, or Cosmic Energy. When consciousness departs from the spine and brain in the suspended, or dead body, death is instantaneous, and decay starts.

Saint Theresa Neumann is sent by God to demonstrate that the future food of man will come through oxygen, sunshine, and etheric energy. To use oxygen and sunshine only, along with Cosmic Energy on one hand, is wonderful, for the decay of the bodily tissues is rebuilt by food from oxygen, sunshine, and Cosmic Energy. On the other hand, Theresa Neumann apparently has to depend a little upon mortal breath and sunshine. Yogis of India, in the suspended state, live only by Cosmic Energy, and do not depend upon oxygen and sunshine.

The suspended state is not the highest state, however. When a Yogi can at will remain conscious and active without breath and sunshine, and can live, then he is known to make the body live by God, and by the Word of God (Cosmic Energy) alone. Yogis who can do this are much higher than those who remain in the suspended state only. Saint Theresa Neumann’s state is a higher state than the Yogi’s, (who remain subconsciously alive only in suspended animation,) in that she consciously lives without eating and is active and breathing. There is an even higher state than this.

Some Yogis live consciously only through God and Cosmic Consciousness (Word of God). Jesus could do this. He ate only to be human. By the manifestation of Cosmic Consciousness during His forty days of fasting, He attained this. Therefore, He said: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Yogis, after attaining the above state, may not eat at all, or they may eat to remain human, and thus help out this drama of life.

The spiritual aspirant, however, must eat rightly. He should eat less carbonized food, and very little in the morning and evening, the times of meditation. Most kinds of meat and heavy food keep the Life Force busy working in the vital organs, burning carbon, and therefore it is difficult to disengage the active Life Force from the senses and vital organs, and to reverse the current and attention toward God, without retarding digestion and receiving opposition from the vital organs.

Meditation, after heavy meals, in the early stages, sets up a tug of war between the body consciousness and superconsciousness. That is why fruits, containing less carbon, are better than most heavy meats, like pork and beef, since fruits, having less carbon to burn, do not use much Life Force, and do not tax the nervous system, vital organs, kidneys, and so on. The heavy meat eater will find the mind pulled down to the region of the senses during meditation. In the morning eat fruits, at noon eat a good meal, (whatever you want) at night fruits, milk, and cooked vegetables.

Fast once a week on orange juice and meditate. Fast three days consecutively on orange juice every month, or every forty-five days, and meditate long and deeply (two or three hours). This will not only give rest to the body, and eliminate poisons, but it will teach you how to live more by Cosmic Consciousness, and less by food. Concentrate during fasting. Don’t mentally miss food, or dwell on food. Rather feel that you are being charged by Cosmic Consciousness and Cosmic energy, and are learning that your life depends entirely upon it, and that you are getting out of the habit of depending too much upon food.

Thy name in vain!

Let me not take Thy Name in vain.

When I shall speak it,

Let my call be deep within.

Let all my heart’s devotion

Gladly rise again to greet Thee.

Let no crass indifference be my sin.

When in Thy temple,

Meekly did I bow my head,

A habit grown

From when I first was taught to pray.

A pious posture, gracious gesture,

Something said,

While in my mind

My restless thoughts led me astray.

And so, O, God,

I took Thy Name in vain—in vain.

My cry to Thee came from my lips

But not my heart,

And if it seems Thou wert unheeding,

Who’s to blame?

My prayer was not a call,

But just a work of art.

I know now

That the words my body said were wrong.

Man-made they clung to earth,

Tuned for a mortal ear.

To speak with Thee

My soul alone dost know Thy tongue.

My soul alone can utter

That which Thou canst hear.

Thy Name in vain!

Let me not take Thy Name in vain.

When I shall speak it,

Let my call be deep within.

Let all my heart’s devotion

Gladly rise again to greet Thee.

Let no crass indifference be my sin.

The first Bhoota is Byoma or Akash, subtle and ethereal fluid that pervades the universe, the peculiar vehicle of light and sound. Its vibration is geometrically represented by a circle enclosing many dots, signifying the atomic movement within limitless space. Akash is subtly connected with the Tanmatra of sound. It is derived from the roots ang, to pervade, and kash, to shine.

The second Bhoota is Wayu. It means "That which flows," from the roots wa, to pervade, and yuk, to augment. It is Wayu that makes aire and all gaseous substances able to manifest. In a subtle sense, it means touch. Its work is expansion, contraction, and pressure. The circular vibration belongs to Wayu. Its form may be seen when a whirlwind causes dust to gyrate in a circular course.

The third Bhoota is Tej, or energy. It comes form the root jejus, light. It causes magnetism, heat, and light. Its work is to expand., In a subtle sense, it is color and form. It causes fire to burn. The triangular rhythm is representative of Tej. and may be observed in the flame of fire, which darts upward in a conical form.

The fourth Bhoota is Apa, or fluidity. It comes from the roots ap, to nourish, and a, partial. Its work is to contract. In a subtle sense, it is taste. It is responsible for all liquids, such as water. Its vibration is semi-circular. The undulating flow of the ocean waves illustrates this rhythm.

The fifth Bhoota is Kshiti or Prithiwi, which gives solidarity. Prithiwi comes from the roots pri, to nourish, th, to stand fixed, and wi, covering. Its work is to harden and make compact. In a subtle sense, it is odor, and in its grossest form, it is earth. It possesses an angular vibration, which causes the composition of matter to be divided into angular particles.

These five Bhoota together make up the gross material body, Sthul Sharir, of Purush, Spirit.

These twenty-four Tatwa, the creative principles of Nature, are described more in detail in a small work, "Cosmic Creation," which was published with the present writer as co-author, in 1922.

These twenty-four Tatwa comprise the whole body of Maya, the illusions of which, separately and collectively, must be known and overcome by man as he progresses through the cycle of the Four-World Ages, and then passes, if his larger individual destiny allows, to the fifth spiritual sphere beyond all mundane conception and cyclic limitation.

In the following Biblical passages, the four powers of Maya are likened to four beasts; the twenty-four Tatwa or principles of creation, to Elders; the perfected man reborn from the grave of his lower self, to the slain and resurrected Lamb; the seven Spirits of God, to the seven spheres of the universe through which man must pass on his way from selfhood to Godhood; and the mysteries of Nature under Maya, to the Book:

"And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb."—Rev. 5:6-8.

Rules are given in the masterly little book before referred to—"The Holy Science," by Swami Sri Yukteswarji—for the benefit of the aspirant toward a realization of his own divinity. Such regulations and methods of spiritual achievement as we find in the Bhagavad Gita and other sacred books of India come down to us from an immense antiquity, bearing witness to the Divine knowledge of the ancient sages who could thus guide the chela, disciple, from the darkness of Maya to the light of Spirit through systematic training of body, mind, and soul.

Purification of the material body is enjoined by knowledge of the world of Nature; purification of the electric body by Tapas; religious austerity by moderation or patience both in joy and sorrow, whereby a permanent equilibrium is attained; purification of the magnetic body (Chittwa) by the regulation of the breath as taught by the Guru, whereby one merges himself in the stream of Pranava or Sabda, Aum, the creative vibration.

Knowledge of these various steps toward Self-Realization come to man in the natural course of the different Yugas, and the state of mankind in general at any one time determines the Yuga he is living in, or vice versa. However, the Yugas also have their characteristic influence on the individual life-cycle of each man, as on each solar day or night, as explained in the last article of this series. Thus, the infancy of man, physically helpless, and mentally undeveloped, corresponds to Kali Yuga, when man is the dependent of Nature. The unfolding powers of reason and the eager idealism of youth is the Dwapara Yuga of the life-cycle of an individual, while the ripe powers of maturity are expressed in his Treta Yuga period. Wisdom and compassion, the hard-won gifts of ideal old age, correspond to Satya or the Golden Age of man, about which the poet so beautifully sang:

"Grow old along with me,

The best is yet to be

The last of life,

For which the first was made."

Similarly, the man who has attained freedom, the Jiban Mukta Samnyasi, conqueror of the four Illusions of Maya, is in the Satya Yuga of his own individual cycle, though he may be living in the Kali, Dwapara, or Treta Yuga of the world, and by contrast, appears to be a World Savior by his luminous example. Thus, Jesus, who became a Christ, lived in the Kali Yuga of a world-cycle, but had transcended the fourth sphere, Maha Loka, corresponding to Satya Yuga, and had entered the fifth sphere, Jana Loka, that of the Sons of God.

Sanjaya Ubacha said:

"Dristwa tu Pandavaneekam Budham Durojodhana Acharyam upusangmya, Raja Bachanamabrabeet, stada."

Sanjaya said:

"Dristawa Tada tu—After then, having seen

Pandabaneekam—The armies of the Pandavas

Budhan—In battle array

Raja Durjodhan—Emperor Durjodhana

Achacharyam (Dronam)—the preceptor Drona

Upsangame ja—repaired to

Bachanam—speech

Abrabeet—delivered

Sanjaya said:

"Then Emperor Durjodhana, after having seen the armies of the Pandavas in battle array, repaired to his preceptor Drona, and spoke as implied in the following."

Sanjaya, Introspection said (revealed)

Tada tu (after then)

Drista tu (having seen)

Pandabaneekam (the armies of discriminative qualities)

Budham (ready for psychological war)

Raja Durjodhana (Duh-Judh-An-Yasha)

(who is difficult to fight, or King Material Desire) (greatest of all mental tendencies)

Acharya Dronam (Dronam-Samskar—

past tendencies, the guide and stimulator of all tendencies, good and evil) (Historically Drona was teacher of both the Pandavas and Kurus)

Upasangmya (consulting)

Bachanam (thoughts)

Abrabeet (loudly thought within itself)

Introspection further revealed: After having seen the armies of discriminative qualities in array for psychological battle (ready to fight the sense tendencies) King Material Desire went to consult his preceptor, (Habit) and deeply thought the following:

The first stanzas describe the preparation for a psychological battle between the forces of discrimination and the blind mental tendencies as revealed by introspection. The second stanza goes on to depict how, in the ordinary individual, where the sense bolsheviks rule, introspection and discrimination, being prisoners of the sense armies, are forced to be silent, but as soon as the spiritual aspirant introspects and tries to rouse and train his soldiers of discrimination by meditation, immediately Material Desire, King of all sense tendencies, afraid of losing the kingdom of the soul and body, tries to reinforce himself by consulting his preceptor, past sense Habit.

Material Desire reigns supreme in the person who does not meditate. Material Desire is the king of all sense tendencies, because it is desire which lures discrimination to follow the sense pleasure of idleness, bodily comfort, and so forth, instead of following soul happiness, which consists in all-round peace of mind. As soon as meditation awakens discriminative qualities, King Material Desire becomes extremely afraid of losing his hold in the kingdom of life and tries to reinforce himself by recalling the pleasures of past evil habits.

King Material Desire by himself is easily overcome by an act of judgment, but Material Desire, that has been ripened into habit, is hard to eject by discrimination, so King Material Desire tries to overcome discriminative tendencies by luring them with the memory of past evil habits, and the joy which they yielded. It is easy to conquer a material desire, but hard to conquer material habits. That is why we find that the spiritual aspirant, who tries to meditate, will be bothered, not only with new desires to go for distraction to shows or plays, or eat, or while away time in idle talk, or sleep, or laziness, or to travel, or to go after money, and so on, but he will also be invaded by strong habits of the body, such as restlessness, idle talking, sleep, amusements, bodily enjoyments, and pernicious habits of spiritual indifference. The spiritual aspirant should be aware of this.

According to the historical story, Drona was the preceptor who had taught archery to the wicked Kurus, and to the good Pandus, but during the battle between the two parties he sided with the Kurus. Drona represents Intelligence, influenced by past good or bad actions. The good discriminative tendencies, or Pandus, and the wicked mental tendencies, or Kurus, both learned the art of wielding the piercing power of good or evil during a psychological battle, but as a bird cannot focus the vision of both its eyes on the same object at the same time, but has to see with one eye at a time, so Intelligence, born of habits, (Drona) unless purified by wisdom, usually follows Durjodhana, or King Material Desire. That is why this bad-habit-influenced Intelligence sided with the wicked mental tendencies, and helped them to use their arrows of piercing evil power against the psychologically prepared discriminative powers.

Beware, devotee! As soon as you try to meditate and rouse the powers of self-control and discrimination, you will find King Material Desire, and the wicked mental tendencies, trying to rouse the memory of your bad habits of possible sense pleasure, or spiritual indifference (Drona) and to give battle to the forces of discrimination. In other words, as soon as the devotee tries to find happiness in meditation, he finds himself tempted by memories of sense pleasures, and is often led to restlessness.

According to deep spiritual introspective intuition, the devotee who tries to meditate, finds that King Material Desire calls the material habits to behold the mighty armies of spiritual perceptions (Pandus) of calmness, vitality, self-control, and so forth, arrayed in the spinal plexuses and brain, ready to give battle to the tendencies of greed and sex-temptation, located on the outer surface of the body. The ordinary individual’s consciousness is usually located on the outer surface of the body. He is identified with the palate, with feelings of physical comfort and idleness, with nice, sweet words, falling intoxicatingly on the ear drums, with the enticements of beautiful objects, and with the lures of physical fragrance.

By indulging in the sense pleasures constantly, the ordinary individual becomes sense-ensnared. He finds himself enjoying on the surface of the flesh. This sense pleasure yields fleeting happiness, and shuts out the more subtle, more pure, and more lasting enjoyments of the silent taste of blessedness, and of the innumerable blissful perceptions which can be felt when, by deep meditation, the consciousness of the person meditating is turned from the bodily surface enjoyment to the inner perception.

When you are greedily eating, your soul’s happiness is drowned in the muddy well of insatiable greed on the soil of the palate. When you are listening to flattering words, your soul’s wisdom is sunk beneath the waters of falsehood. When you are addicted to sex-temptation, your soul’s happiness of touching God in every speck of space, with endless exhilarating thrills of happiness, is substituted for the passing, misleading, peace-destroying, physical emotions.

It is not a sin to eat with self-control, or to live an upright, honest family life, but the spiritual aspirant should be ever watchful not to get into the small ruts of material habits and sense pleasures, and entirely forget the vast, unending happiness of spiritual perceptions, felt in the Silence, and in the perceptions of the inner Centers. Mental balance, and ever-increasing happiness, are lost when sense pleasures crowd out the soul happiness felt in Silence, but it is wonderful to enjoy the pure pleasures of the senses with the joy of God, felt in meditation. They are fools who drown their souls’ happiness in the cesspools of impure, enslaving pleasures of the senses. Remember, all the sense pleasures which you indulge in, in spite of the warnings of your reason and conscience, are peace-destroying. All pure enjoyments of the senses, indulged in with self-control, produce Divine happiness.

The ordinary man wakes, bathes his body, enjoys the after-bath sensation, eats a hot breakfast, hurries to work, begins to get weary, and becomes refreshed by lunch, then works again, and goes home tired, worried, and cranky. He eats a heavy dinner, with the radio banging away, and perhaps a nagging wife working on his nerves. He goes to the movies, or dances until late, comes home very tired, sleeps heavily, then repeats the above monotonous routine all over again, three hundred and sixty-five days in every year.

By this method, man becomes a machine, which, fuelled with breakfast, goes to the office and performs automatic work, without joy or inspiration. Then the human automation is refuelled with lunch and produces more work, slowly and unwillingly. Finally, dinner is shoveled into the human machine, which then goes to the movies, walks back home again, and then shuts down partially in sleep, only to start all over again the next day with the same routine.

The Bhagavad Gita tells you to avoid this method of mere existence. It shows you how, by practicing the contact to the ever-new joy of silence, you can keep this godly state with you all the time during the mechanical performances of life. Worry, discontent, boredom, and unhappiness are the harvest of a mechanical life, whereas, the Infinite spiritual perceptions, gained in meditation, unceasingly whisper joy and a thousand thrilling inspirations of wisdom into the ears of Silence. The ordinary person knows nothing of the wine of joy buried in meditation, and unknowingly walks and wallows into the mire of the unsatisfying pleasures of the senses.

The restless man is often tempted by his past habits (Drona) of spiritual indifference, and outer sense pleasures, and tries to battle the deeper, unending joys and wisdom-whispers of inner perception, felt by concentrating in the spiritual eye between the two eyebrows. As soon as the devotee tries to meditate, he finds King Material Desire awakening the memory of sense-habits in order to stop the meditating devotee from flying to the home of eternal peace from the home of temporal, deceiving pleasures of the senses.

Description of the occult soldiers in the third stanza will be described in the next issue.

THERE is an Egyptian Legend about a fabulously rich mine from which, centuries ago, men brought vast wealth. Gold and gems of rare beauty they carried down the trails to their cities, then the people became involved in strife and wars, and devoted themselves to the production and use of instruments of antagonism and destruction. Following that, they revelled in orgies of unrestrained lust and rampant selfishness. The gems were forgotten. Finally, even the trail was lost, and to this day it cannot be found.

We are off the trail toward the heights, where the finest gems of life are hidden. Somewhere in the roaring strife and nerve-breaking rush we left the trail, and after our orgies of extravagance we now stumble about among the rocks and wade in the swamps.

Engrossed in the coarser and lower efforts of life, and led astray by the prevalent struggle and strain, we forget that there is a trail, at the end of which are hidden the rarest gems, and wealth untold.

No other loss can compare with the tragedy of forgetting the trail to the heights. No crash of values, nor surrendering of building, nor severing of limb, represents the detriment that is hidden in the loss of the higher trail.

Alas! That man has lost a leg,

Yet with a radiant face

He walks complacent on his peg,

With compensating grace.

But there goes one across the way

Who needs compassion much;

He lost his faith in life, one day—

For him there is no crutch.

At all costs, let one bring back one’s faith in life and in oneself. There is no other trail to the heights.

Bee Rock lifts its stony head a few hundred feet above the picnic grounds in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. Various groups of picnickers start out to make the not-too-difficult ascent. From any place in the little valley below, one may make it to the top, but some ways are through thorny brush, and some through loose stones. On some trails climbers find themselves at the end of narrow paths on sheer walls of rock, but over many trails they make it in varying degrees of difficulty.

There is a trail, the beginning of which is not often recognized, leading by pleasant and easy grade through arched bowers to the very top. The most difficult thing about the easy trail is finding and recognizing it. Once on the right way, the climb is easy.

Many hikers will proclaim that they prefer the difficult trails. They would rather tire their muscles with strenuous climbing, and tear their hands and feet on briars and stones. If all persons were of such sporting blood with reference to the climb of life, there would be far less misery and fewer failures. The hard way does possess a zest and a tang unknown to the smooth and slowly-ascending trail.

From any point, many trails lead to the heights of life. Some trails are hard, and for those who rejoice in straining of soul and sinew, there is no losing the way. Any way is up as long as one climbs, but there is also an easy way, easy because mind and heart were created for the heights, and the way of Nature is always easy. Exacting, but easy. Working with Nature, the universe is on one’s side. "Nature and wisdom always say the same, says Juvenal.

The strain in life is not in living naturally, but in beginning to live naturally. The truth uttered by Bacon applies to far more than material objects: "In Nature things move violently to their place, and calmly in their place." It is also true of thoughts and dreams, and the whole personality. Whenever there is violence, it is because something is out of its natural place or harmony. When there is calm strength, there is harmony with Nature. The stress and strain, and the pain and anguish, occur when something is trying to get to its place. When storms rage, let us see how quickly we can move to our places. Things move violently to their places, calmly in their places.

Supreme human experiences, which crown life with success and satisfaction, are possible to each of us. Whatever may be the details of ones’ hopes, and however great or small the limits set to one’s ambition, satisfaction for any truly intelligent person must contain at least two well-defined elements. One of these is the feeling on the part of the individual that he has found for himself the real and fundamental values of life; that is, he must believe that, while no one can have everything, yet he has achieved for himself the ultimate values, those things which count the most and last the longest.

The soundness of his philosophy will depend largely upon the kind of things he thinks are fundamental. A man who regards money as the summum bonum may rightly despair when his money disappears. One who regards beautiful thoughts as the essence of true human values will protect that domain against every foe.

There is another element, without which a human being cannot be entirely and permanently happy. He must feel that he is serving the purpose for which his life was made. Life will meet every man at some crossroads and ask this question so pointedly that its shaft will pierce with agony the heart which has not long ago answered for itself.

The heights include the consciousness that life has fitted to considerable degree into the plans of the Creator, obeyed most of the laws of its Being, and worked in with the whole plan of Creation. This is the inescapable urging that we find in the oft-expressed wish that we may "leave the world better than we find it," that we may justify our existence; that we may fit in with the whole scheme of things.

The experience of the heights includes these two deep satisfactions: Assurance that one has found for oneself most of the ultimate values, and confidence that one has served the purpose for which one was given life.

The trail to the heights leads on from where we are now, and we may, if we will, put our feet upon it and start the glorious ascent. A part of the ascent one makes with one’s race and one’s time. Parts of the common existence, we are to some degree affected by its attainment or failure, but there is for each person a height, the attainment of which depends upon himself. It will always be true, in every civilization that:

To every man there openeth

A way, and ways, and a way,

And the high soul climbs the high way,

And the low soul gropes the low;

And in between, on the misty flats,

The rest drift to and fro.

But to every man there openeth

A high way and a low,

And every man decideth

The way his soul shall go.

One of the fine lessons one can learn is that the ways do open to us just where we are. On the road to destruction there is no point from which there does not lead a trail to the heights.

If you want to be happy,

Begin where you are.

Don’t wait for some rapture

That’s future and far.

If dark seems the day,

Light a candle of cheer

Till its steady flame

Brighten each heart that comes near.

Our foot is on the trail when we recognize that our going depends upon ourselves. There is no one who cannot obtain a degree of happiness and be of service to the world. With whatever little equipment and in whatever chains of circumstances, the determination of life is from within. The kingdom of joy and love and peace is a realm of the soul. Out of the heart are the issues of life. Where the soul meets with God there is the center of the universe. There is greatness in the eternal within. The kingdom of God is within you, and it is there that the trail begins.

WHAT is a symbol? A symbol is the form of the formless, and represents that which cannot otherwise be represented. It is the image of the imageless, and the body of the unembodied. Hindu idolatry condenses an idea into concrete manifestation, which has essentially no form. It represents the idea made flesh before the mind of man, and aspires to bring into the sense-world the abstract idea which the sense cannot apprehend. The subjective wonderment of a devotee is transferred into an objective form, so that even the unseeing one can see the true import of the inner exaltation of the exalted. Hindu idolatry stands for the worship of an idea. Idols, as such, do not carry any significance, unless they symbolize ideas.

Once upon a time, before a marble idol of Siva, (the symbol of Eternal Change,) was seated a holy man, with legs crossed, meditating. A half-curious and half-astonished European gentleman asked him why he indulged in such a monstrous form of idol worship, which would deaden his intellect and atrophy his finer sensibilities. Equally astonished, the ascetic replied: "I am a monist, and worship One Being. I am worshiping one of His three aspects, which are the three C’s, namely, Creation, Conservation, and Change. So I am in reality worshipping God, not the image."

"Well, where is your God?" sharply questioned the European.

The recluse curtly answered: "Is not your God omnipresent? If He is, then you can find Him in the Infinite as well as in His various finite forms and manifestations, including the marble." Idol worshippers are idea worshippers. Hindu genius has always endeavored to converge all aspects of life ultimately to God. To a Hindu, the mission of life is its dedication to God, or it has no meaning. To redeem unbelieving and irrational persons from the shipwreck of atheism, the ancient masters devised idol worship, emphasizing certain aspects of the aspectless, so as to impress upon the imagination of the unimaginative one the existence of the Ever-Existent. Cruder minds can hardly conceive of the Inconceivable.

All religions, through the ages, have adopted personality worship. Personality worship has created more destructive fanaticism and irrational conservatism in the world than the sectional demoralizing influences that image worship has brought about in India. Personality worship breeds narrowness, whereas, image worship widens the narrow viewpoint by its sheer effect of impersonal appeal.

As a rule, the idol worshipping Hindus are more philosophical, and more spiritual than other races. Almost any Hindu, though he may lack all pedantic knowledge, has as clear a conception of the Supreme Being as his Western brother has of the stock market and baseball schedule.

Whence came this spiritual heritage? His broad conception of the Almighty, existing in Life and non-Life, Mind and Matter, has given him an understanding that never misinterprets the dumb language of the stone, or the vibrant voice of the human Spirit. This secret has helped him to spiritualize the whole national mind by suggesting different ideas about God to different minds, according to their understanding, reason, and temperament. Therefore, one is not surprised to find in India the incongruous fact, that even the most radical atheist is a non-atheist in the final analysis. Even the most unbelieving person believes in some kind of Spirit. This is indeed a great national asset, which, if properly utilized and directed, will benefit the whole world. Already the messages of Real Peace have come more from unhappy India than from any other country in the world.

This spiritual background has been built up through centuries of effort, sacrifices, and Self-Realization, to which the contribution of the image worship, or idea worship, is certainly considerable. Possibly, the time has come when this image worship should be discouraged, or abolished, on account of its attendant deficiencies, especially the stubbornness of its exploitive priest-craft, but then the manifold devotional expressions of human Spirit that it has given vent to will be lost in the reformation, and it will not be out of place to predict that in some form or other it will come back to India, although abolished, because, to a Hindu, spirituality is life itself, not a mere convention.

No person, however exalted, will ever satisfy a Hindu’s soul hunger, as personality is a limitation of the Impersonal, and the Impersonal is illimitable and diversified. In addition, the Hindu mind has been taught to see the diversity in unity, which no single personality can ever provide. Even the great personality of Krishna has been molded, remolded, and sometimes disfigured, to show in Him the diverse aspects of God and life and other culmination.

The Divine Personality must prove Himself to be not only the ideal child, ideal son, ideal husband, ideal father, ideal citizen, ideal man, and ideal Yogi, but also one who has direct knowledge of the here and there hereafter, and is capable of controlling all phases, natural, unnatural, psychical, or super-psychical.

Who but the Impersonal can fill such a big order? Only from their super-personalities do they make such extravagant demands. Because India has produced so many master Yogis, capable of exhibiting super-powers, they naturally look for those spiritual endowments in the men who claim to be the representative types of the Unrepresentable. The Hindu mind always moves toward the Impersonal. It is at home with the Impersonal aspect of God in the stone, more than in His personal expression in man, which is tainted by human limitations and human foibles. This is a strange psychological paradox, but paradoxical as it may seem, it is a solid fact of national psychology.

Though still you rear your golden head

Athwart the sun,

Your time is short. A menace roars,

Clay-footed one!

You falter weakly the old

Once-evil threat

And mumble useless formulas

To men who sweat,

Who fight, give, suffer, even die

Before their time

That your vast altar may drip deep,

In money-slime.

So far from us, you cannot hear

The whispering prod

That wakens drowsy souls, nor know

Men await the advent of a better God.

One cupful tomatoes, raw or canned;

One cupful diced potatoes;

Two cupfuls celery, with plenty of green part cut fine;

Two cupfuls green onions; one quart cold water;

Two teaspoonfuls sea salt or Parkelp;

One teaspoonful salt;

One-fourth teaspoonful pepper.

Put all in saucepan, heat to boiling, and then simmer for one hour. Add two hard-boiled eggs cut fine, one small can sliced mushrooms, one-fourth pint of cream and one thin slice of vegetable bologna if available, cut fine.

Serves eight persons.

HAPPINESS depends to some extent upon external conditions, but chiefly upon conditions of the inner mind. In order to be happy, one must have good health, an efficient mind, a prosperous life, the right work and, above all, an all-round all accomplishing wisdom. A man cannot be happy just by holding the inner calm, while completely ignoring the struggle for existence and the effort for success. Even Jesus had to eat and clothe Himself.

Then again, without internal happiness, one may find oneself a prisoner of worries in a rich castle. Happiness is not dependent upon success and wealth alone, but real happiness depends upon struggling against the failure, difficulties, and problems of life with an acquired attitude of unshakable internal happiness. To be unhappy in trying to find the hard-to-acquire happiness defeats its own end. Happiness comes by being internally happy first, at all times, while struggling your utmost to uproot the causes of unhappiness.

The habit of preserving an internal happy attitude of mind should have been started when you were very young, but never mind, it is not too late to begin now. From today on, make up your mind that when you meet your trying relatives, when you come in contact with your overbearing office boss, and when you contact your enemies and the trials of life, that you will try to retain your internal calmness and happiness under all circumstances.

If you persevere in carrying out this resolution in your daily actions, and do not forget after a few days of trial, you will find that internal serenity and happiness depend upon a right mental habit and upon resolving to be happy in spite of everything, but remember, when you learn to be happy at all times do not allow this independent mental attitude of inner happiness to make you lazy, and do not ignore the material causes which stand in the way of your happiness. Strive to remove them and go through all the activities of life with this calm happy attitude of mind.

ALL through these two thousand years it has been a problem for people to define their relationship with Jesus Christ and to describe His nature.

In my opinion, the most beautiful as well as the most rational characteristic that can be attributed to Christ is His universal and everlasting friendship.

The human mind cannot think in abstract terms, but always thinks in concrete terms. When we start pondering over a subject, a succession of pictures of the thought process travels through our mind. In these pictures there will be faces and figures and scenes and events which we have heard, or which we have experienced in our life. Suppose we try to imagine four. We automatically conceive of four horses, or four houses, or four dollars, or four pieces of paper, or four of something which draws a picture of four objects in our mind; otherwise, just four as an abstract term has no meaning to us at all. It is only when one’s mind is thoroughly and properly trained that it can conceive of things in their abstract form.

In the same way, it is rather hard for the ordinary human mind to grasp the abstract idea of God. The human mind is finite or limited, whereas, God in Infinite, or unlimited. The finite mind cannot grasp the Infinite God until it has been trained to conceive of Infinite ideas. Until that stage is reached, the human mind seeks the assistance of some kind of symbol, a concrete manifestation of the abstract Diety, a visible image, or some picture of the invisible.

There are some people who are horrified at the very thought of human beings worshipping idols to satisfy their inner craving to realize God, but these untrained people have no other alternative, and in their child-like simplicity they conceive the Spirit of God in these idols. These people are to be condemned if they never try to raise themselves form this child-like state, but if they adopt this method as a stepping stone to the higher realization of God, to see Him in all His Infinite Glory, then they are to be congratulated.

We must consider ourselves Pilgrims traveling from land to land in search of our ideal or goal, (Holy City) the temple of God. We stop in different places to spend our nights, to rest and sleep and then to continue our journey again on the morrow. Instead of searching and continually moving toward our goal we while away our time in the acquiring of material objects and sense pleasures in the rest houses, and never reach the shrine of our search.

This world is our journey land and is full of rest houses. If we forget our quest of the spiritual pilgrimage and absorb ourselves in the material forms and lose ourselves in the land of sense-bound perceptions, then we shall never leave our rest houses and gain our spiritual insight. When this conflict rears within our heart, we must exert our will power to the extreme and snatch ourselves from this labyrinth, free ourselves from momentary joys and pleasures, and search for the land of eternal glory with all our might.

I do not mean that we should not have any ambition, or that we should not seek success in life or try to accomplish something in this world, but just live a lonely, desolate life and be of no use to anyone. I mean that we should not dwell in a false world, where we only try to aggrandize our own power by hook or crook, seek our own glory, try to satisfy our own vanity, and dream of our own big "I".

In our journey here we must be of use to our fellow Pilgrims. Service should be our motto; brotherly love should be our watchword. Love and devotion to all should be written in bold characters on our forehead.

To accomplish this, we must lead a double life. We shall have to be practical because we shall have to live and associate with people, and at the same time, the other part of our life should be the life of a mystic. Thus we shall never be caught in the well of earthly things, but the ineffable radiance of a majestic presence will always be before us, and we will always be reminded of the Divine purpose of life.

This ideal we find in the life of Jesus the Christ. He lived in this world which is full of people of all kinds, a world full of temptation, avarice, greed, selfishness, hatred, happiness and unhappiness, laughter, tears, and human weakness and strength.

Christ, the perfect man, through His zeal for reform, and through His teaching, brought a new consciousness into the minds of the people. He, through His love toward all, even those who injured him, taught people to love all. He, by His mercy and forgiveness, made Himself endeared to all. He brought a new ray of hope to the hopeless, and sided with the down-trodden who were oppressed by the powerful despots. He became a friend of the people by healing the sick and feeding the hungry, and so brought heaven on earth.

In Christ we find a friend, the warmth of whose sympathy we feel, whose brotherly love glows in our hearts, and whose consoling hand is ever ready to wipe our tears away, to help us in our distress and difficulties, and lead us out of our danger, and counsel us in our perplexities. He is our everlasting Friend.

In our earthly pilgrimage, when we are weary, tired, and lonesome, we can call on Christ, our everlasting Friend. He will never desert us. He will take us by the hand, and lead us to the door of our journey’s end with His all-sufficient guidance and eternal friendship. We shall be able to bear our burdens with a smiling face, never complaining, never giving way to fright or bitterness, but praying and meditating as often as the opportunity comes.

Thus, following in the footsteps of our everlasting Friend, Christ, we shall be able to live a Christ-like life and we shall all be able to be mystics by liberating ourselves from the thraldom of bodily limitations, thus aiding the development of the faculties and senses of the Soul, purifying our mind and being of service to humanity to such a degree of efficiency that the doors of Nirvana will be opened. Divine realization will overflow us and we shall be able to know God, to apprehend God, to be conscious of the Divine directly without the aid of any idolatrous images or concrete manifestations.

Our everlasting Friend, Christ, will thus help us to attain the "Direct Vision" of the Heavenly Father, and our hearts will overflow with the joy of His indwelling presence, peace, serenity, and calmness, and eternal happiness will be ours.

A actions speak louder than words.

B e not easily moved to anger.

C ling steadfastly to that which is good.

D espise not small favors.

E ver associate with the worthy.

F or the blind there is no physician.

G ood deeds are better than creeds.

H e gives little who gives with a frown.

I gnorance and conceit go hand in hand.

J udge a man by his deeds, not by his words.

K eep shut the doors of thy mouth.

L earn first and philosophize afterwards.

M an sees all the faults but his own.

N o position can dignify the man.

O ne loose cord loosens many.

P arental love should be impartial.

Q uarreling is a weapon of the weak.

R est after thy work is done.

S peech is the messenger of the heart.

T oo many captains sink the ship.

U nderstanding is the greatest possession.

V ice is a partner to the liar.

W hen the ox is down, many are the butchers.

X enopaldae was a wise old serpent.

Y outh is a crown of roses.

Z est for living is a worthy achievement.

THERE is an old English maxim: "The test of man is not when he puts on his armor, but when he takes it off." The same might be applied to religionists. The test is not when we pick up our Bibles, but when we put them down.

True spirituality must reflect itself in active expression, outside the place of worship as well as within. We are not truly spiritual if we live contrary to our spiritual teachings six days in the week and on the seventh day affect virtues we do not possess.

Religion has too long been a matter of compulsion rather than education, and until we understand its meaning within ourselves individually, it cannot help but be a superficial gesture—an empty word. Self-Realization makes us recognize that subtle evasion in placing the hope of humanity’s salvation upon the reappearance of a Savior, while the conviction is born that within ourselves is the Christ Consciousness to be awakened in order that He may again express Himself, not in a single form, but through all of us. When we realize this truth deep within, His Consciousness becomes a part of us and we cannot help but give it outward expression.

Ignorance has been the cause of all our suffering. Our ignorance, in not having the actual experience of knowing and feeling that the great God to whom numberless paeans of praise have been offered since Time began, is manifesting Himself within each atom of flesh, each atom of matter, has been the cause of our sufferings. If we could feel God within us and see Him within each other, all destructive and negative desires would vanish. We have, by our own ignorance, actions, and through the misuse of His powers, limited Him from expressing His Divine Love. If we could only "know" each other, if we could only forget externalities and the ego, and meet the soul how little hate and jealousy would exist.

If we could only see the panorama of life from His viewpoint, forgetting the self and seeing the blind struggle of humanity against the limitations of matter. We are here, born, and living in different circumstances, but all struggling toward the one goal—happiness. Ask the rich man, the poor man, the harlot, the thief, and you will find the same answer—happiness as their goal, but through ignorance they have set matter above God as the sources through which this happiness is to be attained.

Impinged with the consciousness of matter, the rich man places gold as the source of his happiness; the poor man, bodily comfort; the harlot, sense pleasures; the thief, another’s property, and their lives are wasted gorging their material desires in a vain effort to still the restless soul within, whose mute voice clings like a sad vapor around their dissatisfaction. They do not stop a moment, in their mad quest, to see the great emptiness lying before them when the quick hand of death strips them to the illusion of matter—when they drop their earthly homes and their souls stand bare.

Why do we wait for the change called death to teach us the value of things, when with the clear eye of reason we can understand that things visible and invisible, matter, liquids, and gases, all are composed of the same tiny vibrant particles and energy, wonderfully and fearfully following their Maker’s pattern—that the only difference between the breath and the body, things seen and things invisible, lies in the rate of vibration, and that if man himself, by his own ingenuity and reason, is able to destroy the very things wherein he misplaces his happiness, why do we still hold these things above God as the source of our happiness.

A man under chloroform has lost, during the brief instant, his consciousness of the materiality of existence. He is and exists independent of material sense perceptions, and when the effects of the anaesthetic wears away again he assumes the limitations of material existence. While he is under the influence of the anaesthetic, gold cannot bring him happiness, bodily comfort cannot bring him happiness, sense pleasures cannot bring him happiness, the satisfying of his greed cannot bring him happiness, because he is independent of these. his existence, during that brief moment, is an existence independent of matter.

Wisdom points with the finger of experience to show us how to attain lasting happiness, but blinded by greed we attribute our unhappiness not to he quality of our desires, but to the quantity of their fulfillment. Not finding happiness in his first fortune, the rich man blindly seeks it in a still greater fortune, and so with the others.

Blind to our souls, blind to the soul of others, blind with the delusion that matter is the only reality, we stumble and struggle through an aimless existence while our sufferings flourish and multiply on the nourishment we feed them.

This is the beginning of New Year. Let us make it the beginning of a new life—a life that will have as its foundation the realization that within us and our fellowmen is the Christ Consciousness and with that realization will come the compulsion to act as He would act—for our good and for the good of all.

Our beloved teacher and Guru, Swami Yogananda, has given us an inspiring prayer to hold in our hearts which, if repeated with pure lips of devotion and with the joyous accompaniment of our reason, will surely awaken our sleeping souls:

"I will reason, I will will, I will act—but guide Thou my reason, will, and activity to the right thing that I should do."

WISDOM’S fire is burning. I am feeding the flame. No use sorrowing more. All perishable pleasures, all temporary aspirations, I am using as faggots to feed the Eternal fire of knowledge. The old cherished logs of desire, which I had saved to fashion furniture of pleasures, I also cast into the hungry flames.

Ah, my ancient ambitions are crackling joyously to the touch of God’s flame. Ah, my ancient home of passions, of possessions, of incarnations, of many Kingdoms of my fancy, of many air castles of my dreams—all have touched this fire of my own kindling.

I am beholding this blaze, not with sadness, but with joy, for that fire has not only burned my home of matters, but all the sorrow-haunted buildings of my fancy. I am glad beyond the wealth of kings. I am King of myself. Not a fancy-enslaved king of possessions. I have nothing, yet I am a King of my own imperishable Kingdom of Peace. I am no longer a slave serving my fears of possible losses. I have nothing to lose. I am enthroned in perennial satisfaction. I am a real King.