THE PATH OF DISCIPLESHIP/PART 2

 

QUALIFICATIONS FOR DISCIPLESHIP.

CONTROL OF MIND. MEDITATION. BUILDING OF CHARACTER.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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?

 

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.

 

In order that you may fight against this modern tendency of scattering thought you should make it a daily habit to think consecutively and to concentrate your attention for some time on one subject; make it a serious practice in the training of your mind to read every day some part of a book that deals with the graver matters of life, with the eternal rather than with the transitory; fix the mind upon it while you are reading. Do not allow it to wander, do not allow it to scatter. If it travels off bring it back, and place it again on the same idea, and in that way you will strengthen the mind, you will begin to curb it, you will by constant practice learn to control it, and make it go along the path that you desire it should follow. Even in things of the world this quality is of great advantage. It is not only that in doing this you are preparing yourself for the greater life which is open to you, but even in the common things of life the man of concentrated thought is the more successful man; the man who is able to think con­secutively, clearly and definitely, he is the man who even in the lower world will be able to make his way. So you will find this constant practice in training the mind useful in this unimportant world as well as in greater things. And then you will gradually learn the control which is one of the conditions of disciple­ship.

 

As you thus train the mind you will perhaps take another step - meditation. Meditation is the de­liberate and formal training of the mind in concen­tration and in fixity of thought. You are to do it every day, because if you do it every day you are helped by what is called the automatism of the body and mind. That which you do daily becomes a habit; that which is done daily is done without an effort after a time; that which is hard to begin with becomes easy by practice. Now meditation may be taken partly as devotional and partly as intellectual, and the wise man who is training himself for disciple­ship will meditate in both ways. He will concentrate his mind, fix his thought, on the divine ideal, on the Teacher whom, unknown at present, he still ulti­mately hopes to find; and keeping before him this perfect ideal, he will fix his lower mind on that ideal in the hour of meditation, and will aspire upwards towards it with fixed and unswerving thought. As the mind grows, this will become easier and easier; as he keeps this ideal before the mind in meditation he will begin to reflect it, to grow a little like it. That is one of the creative powers of the mind - the man becomes that upon which he reflects; and if he reflects daily on the perfect ideal of humanity he will begin to grow towards that perfect ideal himself. Then he will gradually find that as he fixes the mind  steadily on this ideal, as he aspires upwards towards it, and longs to come into contact with it, he will  find during this time of meditation that the lower  mind will become peaceful, that the lower mind will sink into quietude, that the outside world will fade away from consciousness, and that the deeper con­sciousness will shine as it were from within - the  higher consciousness, that of the individual himself, realizing and knowing what he is. For as the lower mind is thus quieted, as its restlessness is con­quered, it becomes like a still lake of water which is unruffled by any wind, unmoved by any currents. That lake is like a mirror; on that mirror-like surface, unruffled, tranquil, the sun which is in heaven shines down, reflecting itself in the quiet water; so also the higher consciousness reflects itself in the mirror of the tranquillized lower mind. And then the man knows, no longer by authority but of his own knowledge, that he is more than the mind which he has realized as intellect, that his consciousness is greater than the passing consciousness of the mind; then it becomes possible for him to begin to identify himself with the higher, and if only for a moment to catch a glimpse of the majesty of the Self. For re­member how in the great Scriptures you are always taught that you yourself are the higher and not the lower. What means the saying that we read in the Chhandogyopanishad and elsewhere, the procla­mation: “Thou art Brahman”, “Thou art That”? so the Buddhists repeat also: “Thou art Buddha”. That will never be a fact of consciousness to you, however much you may intellectually realize it, until by meditation you have made the lower mind the mirror in which the higher may be reflected; then, in a further stage of meditation you yourself will con­sciously become the higher, and then you will know what every great Teacher has meant by that famous phrase, which has in it the assertion of the inherent divinity of man.

 

When this is done daily, is practiced by meditation followed day after day, month after month, year after year, it gradually permeates all the life and becomes constant instead of partial. First, confined to the time of meditation; then spreading over into the life led in the world. You may say: How can I be conscious of that when I am busy in the outer world? How can I keep consciousness of the higher when the lower is in full activity? Do you not know how, bowing before the altar you may use your body to offer flowers, whilst the mind is concentrated on the Deity Himself? The outer activity of the body is there, yet your thought is not on the flowers that you are offering but on the Object of the offering; the hands perform their duty and offer their flowers perfectly, although the mind is fixing its thoughts on the Divine itself. And so in the outer world of man, you may offer the flowers of duty in a life of constant activities, of daily work; you may offer these flowers with the body and with the mind, fulfilling to the utmost your duty in the outer world, but you your­selves will be fixed ever in meditation and in worship. Once learn to separate your higher consciousness from your lower, yourself from your mind, and your will gradually acquire the power of carrying on men­tal activities without losing the real “I” in them; the mind working perfectly at its appropriate duties while the Self remains at a loftier height. You will never leave the inner sanctuary, however much the outer life is busy in the world of men. In this way the man is preparing himself for discipleship.

 

There is another stage which we must just glance at, that which I call the intellectual side of medi­tation, concerned with the gradual and conscious building of character. Again I turn to the great treatise of Karma-Yoga, the teachings of Shri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. If you turn to the 16th discourse you may find the long list of qualities there given which a man must develop in himself so that he may be born with them in the future. They are called “the divine properties”, and Arjuna is told: “Thou art born with divine properties, O Pandava”. Now in order that you may be born with them in future births you must make them in the birth that is; if you are to bring them back with you into life you must gradually create them in lives as they come one after another, and the man of the world who wants to know how to build his character can do nothing better than take this list of qualities, the divine properties which are wanted in discipleship, and build them one by one in his daily life by a conjoint process of medita­tion and action. Purity for instance is one of them. How shall a man build himself into purity? By, in his morning meditation, taking purity as part of the subject on which he thinks, realizing what it means. No impurity of thought must ever touch him; no impurity of action must ever stain him, he must be pure in the threefold thread of action, word and thought. That is the threefold cord of duty, as I once reminded you, and is that which the Brahmanas threefold thread is intended to represent. In the morning he thinks of purity as a thing that is desirable, that he must accomplish; and when he goes out into the world he carries the memory of his meditation with him. He watches his actions; he allows no impure action to stain his body; he commits no impure action all through the day, for he steadily watches every action that no touch of impurity may soil it. He watches his words. He speaks no word that is impure; he makes no refer­ence in his talk to an unclean subject; he never permits his tongue to be soiled by making an unclean suggestion. Every word of his is pure, so that he would dare to speak it in the presence of his Master, whose eye sees every lightest stain of impurity which the ordinary mortal eye would miss. He will watch every word that it may be the purest that he can utter, and he will never foul himself or others by a single word or phrase coarse with impure suggestion. His thought will be pure. He will never allow an unclean thought to come into his mind, or if it comes into his mind it will at once be cast out; the moment the thought comes he will cast it out; and as he knows that it could not come into his mind unless there was in his mind something to attract it, he purifies his own mind, so that no unclean thought of any one else may be able to gain entrance. Thus he watches on this one point through the whole of his day. And then again he will take truth in his morning meditation; he will think of truth, its value in the world, its value in society, its value in his own character; and when he goes out into the world of men he will never commit an action that will give a false impression, he will never speak a word that conveys a false idea. Not only will he not lie, but he will not even be inaccurate, because that also is speaking a falsehood. To be inaccurate in recount­ing what you have seen is to speak untruth. All  exaggeration and painting up of a story, everything  that is not perfectly consistent with fact, so far as he knows it, everything which has any shade of untruth­fulness, may not be used by him who would become a disciple. And so in thought again he must be true. Every thought must be as true as he can make it, with no shadow of falsehood to pollute his mind. So with compassion. He will meditate on compassion in the morning and during the day he will seek to practice it; he will show all kindness to people around him; he will do all service to family and friends and neighbours. Wherever he sees want he will try to relieve it; wherever he sees sorrow he  will try to comfort it; wherever he sees misery he will strive to lighten it. He will live compassion as well as think it, and so make it part of his character. So with fortitude. He will think of the nobility of the strong man, the man whom no outer circum­stances can depress or elate, the man who is not joyful over success nor miserable over failure, who is not at the mercy of circumstances, sad today because things are troublesome and joyful tomorrow because things are easy. He will try to be himself, always balanced and strong; as he goes out into the world he will practice; if trouble comes he will think of the Eternal where no trouble is; if loss of money comes, he will think of the wealth of wisdom that cannot be taken away from him; if a friend be snatched by death, he will consider that no living soul can die and that the body that dies is only the garment which is thrown aside when it is out-worn, and another taken, and that his friend shall be found again. And so with all the other virtues of self­-restraint, of peaceableness, of fearlessness - all these things he will think of and practice. Not all at once. No man living in the world would be able to give sufficient time to meditate on each of these every day; but take them one by one, and build them into your character. Work on steadily: do not be afraid of giving time to it; do not be afraid of giving trouble to it. Everything that you build you are building for eternity, and you may well be patient in time when eternity spreads before you. Everything you gain, you gain for evermore. Meditation alone or practice alone is insufficient for the building of the character. Both must go together; both must form part of the daily life, and in this way a noble character is made.

 

A man who has thus trained himself, a man who has thus done the utmost that he can do, who has given his time and thought and trouble to make him­self fit to find the Teacher, even by him the Teacher shall verily be found; or rather, the Teacher shall find him and manifest Himself to his soul. For do you imagine in blindness and in ignorance that these Teachers desire to be hidden? Do you imagine, veiled in illusion, that They deliberately hide Them­selves from the eyes of men in order to leave humanity to stumble helpless, unwishful to aid it and to guide? I tell you that much as you may for a moment desire to find your Teacher, the Teacher is a thousand-fold more constant in His desire to find you, in order that He may help. Looking out over the world of men, They see so many helpers are wanted and so few are found. The masses perish in ignorance; teachers are wanted for them and they perish by myriads; there is none to help them. The great Teachers need disciples who are living in the lower world, and who, trained by the Teachers, shall go out into the world of men, and bring help to the suffering, bring knowledge to the darkened minds. They are always looking out into the world to find one soul that is willing and ready to be helped; always looking over the world in order that They may at once come to the souls that are ready to receive Them, and will not shut the doors of their hearts against Them. For our hearts are closed against Them and fast-locked, so that They cannot enter. They may not break down the doors and come in by force. If a man choose his own way and if he lock the doors, none other may turn the key; we are locked up by worldly desire; we are locked up by grasping after the things of the earth; we are locked up with the keys of sin and indifference and sloth; and the Teacher stands waiting till the door be opened in order that He may cross the threshold and illuminate the mind.

 

Do you say: How do They know among the myriads of men one soul that works for Them and makes itself fit for Their coming? The answer was once given in the form of a picture; that as a man standing on a mountain-top looking over the adja­cent valley sees a light in a single cottage because the light shines out against the surrounding darkness, so does the soul that has made itself ready show the light in the darkness of the surrounding world which catches the eye of the Watcher on the mountain side and draws his attention by its own light. You must light the soul, in order that the Teacher may see it. He stands watching, but you must give the signal in order that He may become your Teacher and guide you on the way. How great the need you will per­haps understand better at the end of the remaining work that lies before us, as I trace the work of the disciple and what may really be done by him: but let me leave you this morning with this thought in your minds: that the Teacher is watching, is wait­ing, is desiring to find you, desiring to teach you that you have the power to draw Him to you, that only you can let Him come. He may knock at the door of your heart, but you must cry out the word that bids Him enter; and if you would follow the path I have traced for you this morning, if step by step you would thus learn control of mind, medi­tation, building of character, there you would have spoken the threefold word which makes it possible for the Teacher to reveal Himself. When that word is breathed out in the silence of the soul then the Master appears before it, and the feet of the Guru are found.

 

 

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THE LIFE OF THE DISCIPLE