The Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians contains this oft-quoted statement:

Be not deceived: God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

In Autobiography of a Yogi Paramhansa tells a story from the life of the Benares saint Trailanga Swami:

A skeptic once determined to expose Trailanga as a charlatan. A large bucket of calcium-lime mixture, used in whitewashing walls, was placed before the swami.

“Master,” the materialist said, in mock reverence, “I have brought you some clabbered milk. Please drink it.

”Trailanga unhesitatingly drained, to the last drop, the containerful of burning lime. In a few minutes the evildoer fell to the ground in agony.

“Help, swami, help!” he cried. “I am on fire! Forgive my wicked test!”

The great yogi broke his habitual silence. “Scoffer,” he said, “you did not realize when you offered me poison that my life is one with your own. Except for my knowledge that God is present in my stomach, as in every atom of creation, the lime would have killed me. Now that you know the divine meaning of boomerang, never again play tricks on anyone.”

The well-purged sinner, healed by Trailanga's words, slunk feebly away.

Yogananda goes on to say:

The reversal of pain was not due to any volition of the master, but came about through unerring application of the law of justice which upholds creation's farthest swinging orb. Men of God-realization like Trailanga allow the divine law to operate instantaneously; they have banished forever all thwarting crosscurrents of ego.

Not by reason alone, but by Self-realization, are the ins and outs of destiny fully understood. Their web, though tied forever to the post of ego-motivation, is too intricate to be perceived as a single thread. Only great masters can see it with clarity. It is visible to them in all its workings—not from within the tangle, but from above, in superconsciousness.

As Sri Krishna said in the fourth Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita:

He who beholds inaction in action, and action in inaction, is wise among men; he is one with the Spirit; he has attained the true goal of action (perfect freedom).

Jesus Christ teaches as the ideal prayer one that addresses very human demands to God:

Give us this day our daily bread . . . Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, and, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Jesus himself says, just before suggesting this prayer, Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. Why, then, his recommendation that we pray for anything? The answer is that we should offer ourselves up in acceptance of His abundance. Don't pester God, as though pulling constantly on His sleeve to get His attention. Approach Him with the confidence of a child in its parent. And in that spirit, then, ask Him lovingly, but with complete trust, as though demanding your birthright, and without the slightest doubt in your mind that He wants only your best. For you don't have to persuade Him, the way a beggar or a stranger might. You are His own child.

God knows everything already. He knows what is in your heart. It is you who need to clarify your feelings, that you attune yourself to Him in turn more clearly. For only by such clarity will you be able to receive perfectly what He gives you.

For the same reason, we need to offer ourselves to Him not because He needs anything from us (except, as Yogananda said, our love, to complete His love for us), but because by self-giving we expand our awareness from its confinement in the little ego, outward to infinity.

Those who partake of the nectar remaining after a sacrifice, says the Bhagavad Gita in the fourth Chapter, attain to the Infinite Spirit. That person, however, who makes no sacrifices never truly succeeds in enjoying even the blessings of this material world; how, then, could he attain happiness in subtler realms?

Jesus Christ and Sri Krishna, both, advised praying to God as personal. Yet both emphasized also that God is above form, and that He must be sought, ultimately, in Infinity. As Jesus put it, "God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."

Yet he spoke of God constantly as our Heavenly Father. In what is known as the Lord's Prayer, he proposed a very human prayer to the Heavenly Father, asking fulfillment for all our spiritual needs.

The Bhagavad Gita explains that man, living as he does in a human body, finds it difficult to worship Infinity as though the ego and body didn't even exist. Far better for human beings, Krishna says, to work with reality as we know it than to affirm a reality of which the human mind is incapable of forming any clear notion. Encouraging the devotee in this direction, he says, “O Arjuna, be thou a yogi!”—that is to say, be one who works with, not in rejection of, the energies of the body and the natural tendencies of the mind.

In the twelfth Chapter of the Gita, Arjuna asks:

Those who, ever steadfast, worship Thee as devotees [that is to say, in an "I" and "Thou" relationship], and those who contemplate Thee as the immortal, unmanifested Spirit--which group is the better versed in yoga?

The blessed Lord replied: "Those who, fixing their minds on Me, adore Me, ever united to Me through supreme devotion, are in My eyes the perfect knowers of yoga. . . .

"Those whose strict aim is union with the Unmanifested choose a more difficult way; arduous for embodied beings is the path of dedication to the Absolute" --the followers, that is to say, of the path of Gyana Yoga.

Jesus Christ said in the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 10:

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
He that findeth [that is to say, that clingeth to] his life shall lose it: and he that loseth [in other words, that giveth up] his life for my sake shall find it.

God tests the firmness of our faith. The "sword" described here is the sword of discrimination. The struggle Jesus describes is not a war against unknown enemies, but the struggle with our own attachment to all that is nearest and dearest to us, humanly speaking. Ultimately, it is a war against the ego itself, and against anything with which we surround ourselves to bolster the ego's fragile sense of security.

When Yogananda, as a boy, fled to the Himalayas to embrace a life of solitary meditation, he was apprehended by his older brother Ananta, and brought home again. At a certain point, before he would accept defeat, he whispered to his friend Amar, his companion on the flight, "Let us slip away when opportunity offers. We can go on foot to Rishikesh."

But Amar, whose brother had accompanied Ananta, had turned pessimist, disclaiming any intention of continuing their adventure. Yogananda's memorable comment on Amar's refusal was, “He was enjoying the familial warmth."

The spiritual warrior rejects that "familial warmth." Rather, he claims the whole universe as his home.

As the Bhagavad Gita puts it in the fourteenth Chapter:

Unaffected by outward joys and sorrows, or by praise and blame; secure in his divine nature; regarding with equal gaze a clod of mud, a stone, and a bar of gold; impartial toward all experiences, whether pleasant or unpleasant; firm-minded; untouched by either praise or blame; treating everyone alike whether friend or foe; free from the delusion that, in anything he does, he is the doer: Such an one has transcended Nature's triune qualities.

A case might be made for surrender as a path to victory in worldly conflict -- the way of passive resistance, for example, in preference to armed resistance. But our point here concerns a higher kind of surrender: the surrender of our deluded, egoic will to the wise and almighty will of God.
Human will is, as Paramhansa Yogananda used to say, guided by whims and limited understanding. The divine will is in harmony with every level of reality. Though the divine will sometimes appears to us, at first, to be wrong, it proves always, eventually, to be for our highest good.
Human will is inconsistent; it leads us one day to success, another, to disaster. The divine will, when we surrender to it completely (though it is not always easy to do so!) always brings us deep inner peace and joy in the end.

Jesus Christ demonstrated this perfect surrender to God's will in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before he was captured and imprisoned, preparatory to his crucifixion. He went apart from the others to pray, and asked them to pray also. But when he returned to them he found them asleep.

Out of his love for them he excused them, saying, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." He then urged them again, saying, "Watch and pray." Their weakness, in those circumstances, was particularly sad, and the disciples themselves must have regretted it bitterly, later on.

We all know the symptoms of human weakness, though we may excuse them in ourselves, saying, "Well, after all, I'm only human." But what are the signs of true strength? We find in all cases that these are the fruit of a life wholly surrendered to God. The Bhagavad Gita lists these signs in the thirteenth Chapter:

Humbleness, truthfulness, and harmlessness,
Patience and honor, reverence for the wise, Purity, constancy, control of self,
Contempt for sense-delights, self-sacrifice,
Perception of the certainty of ill
In birth, old age, and frail mortality,
Disease, the ego's suffering, and sin;
Detachment, lightly holding thoughts of home,
Children, and spouse -- those ties which bind;
An ever-tranquil heart, heedless of good
Or adverse fortune, with the will upraised
To worship Me alone, unceasingly;
Loving deep solitude, and shunning noise
Of foolish crowds; calm focus on the Self
Perceived within and in Infinity:
These qualities reveal true Wisdom, Prince.
All that is otherwise is ignorance!

This passage is from the Gospel of St. Luke, Chapter 9, Verses 49 and 50:

And John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us.

"And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.

Commentary

Jesus in this story reveals a broad-mindedness that one doesn't often encounter among his followers.

When Jesus counseled his disciples not to oppose those who were not in active conflict with his teachings, he was counseling an attitude of respect for other religious expressions.

Respect for other faiths and for other spiritual practices is a sign of spiritual maturity. Great masters invariably demonstrate appreciation for the religions of others. As a saint once said to Paramhansa Yogananda when Yogananda was a boy, "Isn't it true that the Lord's name sounds sweet from all lips, ignorant or wise?" It is the disciples of the masters, rather, who quarrel over differences in belief. And it is later generations of disciples who split theological hairs in their efforts to prove their own ways the best. Truth eludes them, for truth is one. It is the paths to it, only, that are varied.

Let no one tell you what your path to God ought to be. Many are the paths. Select your own according to the dictates of your own nature, no matter how out of step that puts you with other people.

Sri Krishna in the third Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, states:

Trying even unsuccessfully to fulfill one's own spiritual duty (dharma) is better than pursuing successfully the duties of others. Better death itself in the pursuance of one's own duties. The pursuance of another's duties is fraught with (spiritual) danger.

Truth is one, even though the paths to it are diverse. Each individual must find that path which most inspires him in his own search for God. And each must consciously adopt that line of action -- that dharma, in other words -- which is most likely to free him personally from his spiritual limitations.

Truth is one and eternal. Realize oneness with it in your deathless Self, within. The following commentary is based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda.

In the Gospel of St. Mark, Chapter 10, we read a passage that Yogananda often quoted:

And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them.

But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.

Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.

It has often been noted that a critical attitude tends to paralyze creativity. Good critics, for example, seldom produce works of creative genius, though their creations may be intellectually clever. The intellect separates; it analyzes, then puts things together again piece by piece. Intellect lacks intuition's flow, which descends smoothly, like a river, from the superconscious.

Paramhansa Yogananda described intuition as "the soul's power of knowing God." To receive the kingdom of God, Jesus was saying, one must do so with the openness and trust of a little child. Intellectuals may object to this statement, saying, "But there must also be discrimination. You wouldn't want a person to be so open-minded that his brain falls out!" The truth is, however, that the intellect can be fooled, even when it does its best to discriminate wisely. Only intuition is capable of penetrating to the heart of a matter and knowing truth from falsehood. It was the clear understanding of a child, not the elaborately persuaded intellects of his elders, that enabled the child in Hans Christian Andersen's story to cry out in surprise, "Why isn't the Emperor wearing any clothes?"

Therefore it was that Sri Krishna said, in the ninth Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita:

To you, who are free from the carping spirit, I shall now reveal wisdom sublime. Grasping it with your mind, and perceiving it by intuitive realization, you shall escape the evils of delusion.

Free will is a basic principle of life. God never coerces: He invites us to live in such a way that we find fulfillment in ourselves. If we refuse to live rightly, Paramhansa Yogananda taught, God simply says, "I will wait." We have eternity to live. In that eternity we live as we choose: in self-created darkness -- a darkness as intense, and as long lasting, as we choose -- or in the infinite light, the true Self, which is God.

Jesus Christ in the Beatitudes offered a beautiful example of God's way of inviting mankind to seek perfection -- not by commanding, but by offering His human children the incentive they need to choose the right of their own volition.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit," Jesus said, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. . . . Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. . . . Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God."

In each of the Beatitudes Jesus explains the blessing attendant upon observing it. The divine way, similarly, for each of us is not to do violence to our own natures. Spirituality must be attained naturally. It can never be attained by force.

The Bhagavad Gita says, in the third Chapter:

"Even the wise behave in accordance with Nature as it is manifested in them. Of what avail, then, is suppression?"

The Scripture then goes on, however, to explain that this doesn't mean we should surrender to the dictates of our lower nature. Rather, it emphasizes our need to aspire to the heights, but each of us in accordance with his own nature and not in imitation of anyone else's, offering ourselves up for purification by divine grace. Desire, whatever form it takes -- so the Bhagavad Gita explains -- should be resisted, even if only mentally.

"Attachment and repulsion to sense objects, both of these are universally rooted. No one should accept their influence. For, verily, they are man's enemies."

Thus, through holy Scripture, God has spoken to mankind.

Jesus Christ begins his Beatitudes with the words:

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

To be "poor in spirit" in such a way as to merit the kingdom of heaven doesn't mean to be poor-spirited. Rather, it means to see oneself as owning nothing, since all belongs to God. For all is a manifestation of His consciousness.

St. John of the Cross wrote, "If you would own everything, seek to own nothing." That which the ego relinquishes, offering it up to soul-consciousness, is reclaimed forever in cosmic consciousness. Nothing is ever lost. Paramhansa Yogananda tells the story in Autobiography of a Yogi of the levitating saint, Bhaduri Mahasaya.

"Master," said a disciple of this saint once, ardently. "You are wonderful! You have renounced riches and comforts to seek God and teach us wisdom!" It was well-known that Bhaduri Mahasaya had forsaken great family wealth in his early childhood, when single-mindedly he entered the yogic path.

"You are reversing the case!" The saint's face held mild rebuke. "I have left a few paltry rupees, a few petty pleasures, for a cosmic empire of endless bliss. How then have I denied myself anything? I know the joy of sharing the treasure. Is that a sacrifice? The shortsighted worldly folk are verily the real renunciates! They relinquish an unparalleled divine possession for a poor handful of earthly toys!"

The Bhagavad Gita in the third Chapter states:

All things are everywhere by Nature wrought
In interaction of the qualities.
The fool, cheated by self, thinks, "This I did"
And "That I wrought"; but -- ah, thou strong-armed prince!--
A better-lessoned mind, knowing the play
Of visible things within the world of sense,
And how the qualities must qualify,
Standeth aloof even from his acts.

JESUS CHRIST SAID, in Chapter 10 of the Gospel of St. John: All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.

Many Christians, not surprisingly, quote this saying in condemnation of other spiritual teachers—not only the old Testament prophets, but also Buddha, Krishna, and others who lived before Jesus, as well as (by inference) any who came after him. Yet Jesus himself said, in St. Matthew Chapter 5, Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

Nowhere do we find Jesus condemning, or even gently criticizing, other spiritual masters. His criticisms were reserved for worldly attitudes, and for those hypocritical Pharisees who had allowed religion to become, for them, a pretense.

Paramhansa Yogananda explained that the expression All that ever came before me referred to those spiritual teachers who place their egos and their self-importance ahead of the Christ Consciousness, in the sense of drawing people's devotion to themselves and not offering it where alone it truly belongs, to God.

Yogananda himself was very firm in this regard. For example, he never spoke of anyone as his disciple. Instead, he always insisted, They are God's disciples. God is the Guru, not I.

Ego is a way-station on the soul's journey toward enlightenment. The soul is first trapped in lower bodily forms. Slowly it evolves to the human level, at which point self-consciousness appears. Only in human form can self-consciousness transcend material form altogether, including the lower identity of ego-consciousness, and discover the true, divine Self within. Self-consciousness manifested as ego is an incentive to deliberate self-development. Later in this process of development, however, the ego becomes an obstruction. Inevitably, new spiritual aspirants do not emerge effortlessly from the vortex of ego-consciousness. Desire must be offered up resolutely and ever-more wholeheartedly on the altar of Infinity. It is a gradual process, and few even among those who seek to help others are free of ego. If, however, their motive in teaching is not to serve, but to be served, they deserve a severe reprimand, as Jesus gave them. For their direction of development is no longer upward, but downward. In the name of giving up desires they are creating new ones. As it says in the Bhagavad Gita in the third Chapter:

Desire obscures even the wisdom of the wise. Their relentless foe it is, a flame never quenched.
Intellect, mind, and senses: These combined are referred to as the seat of desire.
Desire, through them, deludes and eclipses the discrimination of the embodied soul.
O Arjuna, discipline your senses! And, having done so, work to destroy desire, annihilator of wisdom and of Self-realization.

Give God the credit for everything you do. See Him as the true Doer.

LAST WEEK WE considered Satan's temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, after his baptism by John. We discussed the question, Does Satan exist?

All of us experience temptation of one kind or another in our lives -- some of us, frequently; others, only occasionally. Whether temptation comes to us from our own subconscious, or from outside ourselves, is secondary to the fact that it does come, and that we must deal with it. More important, then, is the question, How to deal with it -- in fact, how to deal with tests of any kind?

Martin Luther flung an ink pot at the devil, who had appeared to test him. A dark stain on the wall of Luther's cell is pointed out to tourists in support of this story. Unfortunately, our trials are not often so summarily dismissed. As a fellow monk once said to Swami Kriyananda, speaking of Satan, If only I could get my hands on him!

Jesus during his temptations in the wilderness overcame them, and thereby set an example for all time, by clinging the more determinedly to God. As Paramhansa Yogananda used to say, Darkness cannot be driven out of a room with a stick. Once you turn on the light, however, the darkness will vanish as though it had never been. Jesus manifested this principle. The Bible tells us therefore that at last, The devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

In the Bhagavad Gita the point is clarified further by the added explanation that there are three qualities in human nature: sattvic, or spiritually elevating; rajasic, or ego-activating; and tamasic, or spiritually darkening. It is this triune aspect of human nature that the third Chapter refers to with the words:

As fire is hidden by smoke, as a mirror is dulled by rust, and as an embryo is enclosed in the womb, so is the indwelling Self enveloped by desire.

Yogananda explained that each of these examples describes one of the qualities, or gunas. Sattva guna, that which elevates our consciousness, can be freed of any identity with ego by a little puff of meditation and right affirmation. Rajo guna, which embroils the ego in restless activity, can be worked off with a little more, and a little longer, effort. Tamo guna, embracing as it does such mental states as laziness and stupidity, can only be outgrown in time, since it inhibits even the desire for self-improvement.

The example Jesus gave us was intended more for those in whom sattva guna is predominant. But if you yourself find elements in your consciousness that resist even the effort to cling to God in prayer and meditation, don't despair. Patience, as it has been well said, is the fastest path to God. As long as your efforts take you steadfastly in the right direction, you will come out right in time. Remember Yogananda's words: A saint is a sinner who never gave up.

If, however, your nature impels you, even against your will, to move in the wrong direction—toward egoic desires, and away from God -- strive at least to detach yourself mentally from your wrong actions, which are induced by habit. The time will come when their own stored-up energy will tire and diminish. At that time, if you have not contributed to that energy by your consenting will, you will find it possible at last to redirect your energies more constructively.

THE BIBLE TELLS US in Chapter 4 of the Gospel of St. Matthew:

Then [after baptism] was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

To most modern minds, this passage seems quaintly obsolete. Psychologists would say - - have said, in fact; that the temptation of Jesus, if it occurred at all, was purely psychological. They call it a projection of desires lurking in his own subconscious mind.

The subconscious plays a strong part, certainly, even if not a unique one, in any testing the spiritual seeker must undergo.

The Bhagavad Gita, in dealing with this undeniable reality, quotes Arjuna in the third Chapter, and then Sri Krishna's reply:

Yet tell me, Teacher! [said Arjuna] by what force doth man
Go to his ill, unwilling; as if one
Pushed him in that path?
[Krishna replied:]
Desire it is!
Passion it is! born of the Darknesses,
Which pusheth him. Mighty of appetite,
Sinful, and strong is this; man's enemy!

Yet even Krishna describes passion as born of the Darknesses. The fact is, as Paramhansa Yogananda wrote in Autobiography of a Yogi, All thoughts vibrate eternally in the cosmos. . . . Thoughts are universally and not individually rooted; a truth cannot be created, but only perceived. Psychology, yes, but psychology attuned to currents of consciousness that pervade the entire universe, attracted by each of us according to our own personal inclinations.

Yogananda, quoted in The Path, said, I used to think Satan was only a human invention, but now I know, and add my testimony to that of others who lived before me, that Satan is a reality. He is a universal, conscious force whose sole aim is to keep all beings bound to the wheel of delusion.

We should take pains, then, to attract uplifting currents of universal consciousness, and to avoid attracting the negative, which (disease that it is!) can infect our thoughts even while it leads us to believe that our thoughts are purely our own.

IN LAST WEEK'S READING we saw that the great masters themselves counsel discretion in the dissemination of truth. The counter-argument is sometimes made, But the Lord doesn't hide! He reveals His beauty in the sunsets, His tender sympathy in the rain, His wrath in the thunder, His restless energy in the brooks, His power in the sunlight.

There are exoteric truths, and there are also esoteric truths. There is that which is revealed impersonally and left up to us to interpret -- such as the thunder and our perception of it as divine wrath; the rain and our perception of it as God's sympathy. But behind even God's most open expressions there lies impenetrable mystery.

The wind blows where it wills, said Jesus in Chapter 3 of the Gospel of St. John. You hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from, or where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.

And Sri Krishna says in the ninth Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita:

By Me the whole vast Universe of things
Is spread abroad; -- by Me, the Unmanifest!
In Me are all existences contained;
Not I in them!

God's hidden reality cannot be understood by the reasoning faculty. India's Shankya philosophy states frankly, Ishwar ashiddha: God is not provable.

A willingness to seek the underlying reality behind appearances is essential for those who would know God.

WE LIVE IN AN AGE when people assume that knowledge should be available equally to all. In matters susceptible of judgment by normal common sense, however, everyone knows there are exceptions. Access to a control room for intercontinental missiles is limited, by universal consent, to a very few. Access to the controls of a passenger airliner is limited to those with the necessary knowledge for operating them, and also to those with the proper authorization. If people don't see the disadvantages of making more subtle knowledge universally available, it is only because they are ignorant of the risks involved.

In the case of subtle knowledge, the main disadvantage in making it universally available is the harm it might do to one who isn’t ready for it, and who might even mock it. True, by mocking truth he might undermine the faith of a few truth seekers. But then, such tests can also be beneficial, as a means of strengthening faith. Again true, the clever doubter's misrepresentation of those truths may dissuade a few seekers from following the spiritual path. But if a seeker really is sincere, he will recognize the truth eventually because it resonates with his own being.

No, the greatest problem accrues to the shallow doubter himself. To give him an opportunity to affirm his ignorance might only estrange him even more from the truth, delaying the time when he will turn -- as all people must, eventually -- to the light.

Thus, the Scriptures advise, not secrecy, but discretion in the sharing of truth. Jesus Christ says in the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 7:

Give not that which is holy unto dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

And Sri Krishna says in the eighteenth Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita:

Never speak of these truths to one who is without self-control or devotion, who renders no service, who does not care to hear, or who speaks ill of Me.

Many people scoff at the idea of having a guru. True to human nature generally, they make a virtue of their scoffing. I am responsible for what I do, they announce, responsible for my mistakes as well as for my victories. What would I ever learn if I handed over my development to someone else? To depend on another for guidance would be an act of spiritual cowardice.

It would be understandable for someone gifted with some trivial ability, for instance with words, to insist on doing his crossword puzzle himself without letting anyone else help him. But supposing, even in such trivial matters, he had no such gift? What virtue would there be in refusing to learn? For that matter, where would the gift itself come from? That which is a gift is not a native ability. Still, crossword puzzles are hardly an important challenge. What if a person wanted to do something daring: to climb a cliff, for instance, but refused to study the art of mountain climbing? He would climb at the risk of his life.

And how much more is risked than physical life in the great adventure of the divine search, where the risk is to salvation itself! Where is the sacrifice in seeking guidance? Even a mountain guide wouldn't presume to do one's climbing for one; his purpose would be only to help the neophyte to climb safely. To have a wise guru is not a sign of weakness, but of plain common sense.

All the saints, aware as they are of the hazards of the adventure, agree on the importance of having a guide, or guru. And these are the heroes speaking, not cowards or spiritual weaklings.

Jesus emphasized the importance of having a teacher by asking John the Baptist to baptize him.

In the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 3, we read of his coming to John. Thus,” Jesus said to John, it becomth us tofulfull all righteousness.

In the Bhagavad Gita, the fourth Chapter, Sri Krishna says:

Open thyself to those who have attained wisdom. They will be thy teachers. Ask questions of them [both verbally and mentally]. Serve them faithfully, and with devotion.

How is the devotee to recognize one who has attained wisdom? The Bhagavad Gita gives us this inspiring description of the sage:

By this sign is he known,
Being of equal grace to comrades, friends,
Chance-comers, strangers, lovers, enemies,
Aliens and kinsmen; loving all alike,
Evil or good.

These past weeks we discussed the need for balancing self-effort with receptivity to divine grace. Both are important in the spiritual life. Passive dependence on grace hasn't the magnetism to attract grace. Boastful self-confidence, however, which closes itself off from the higher, divine power is shallow, brittle, and—given life's many uncertainties—susceptible to ultimate failure.

There is a story in the Bible that illustrates the need to put forth personal effort so as to draw magnetically on the divine power. The story occurs in the Gospel of St. Luke, Chapter 8:

But as he went, the crowds nearly suffocated him. Among them was a woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years and who had derived no benefit from anybody's treatment. She came up behind Jesus and touched the edge of his cloak. As a result, her hemorrhage stopped immediately.

“Who was it who touched me?” Jesus asked.

When everybody denied it, Peter remonstrated,

“Master, the crowds are all round, pressing you on every side!”

But Jesus said, “Somebody touched me. I felt power going out from me.”

When the woman realized that she had not escaped notice, she came forward trembling and fell at his feet, and admitted before everyone why she had touched him, adding that she had been instantaneously cured.

“Daughter,” Jesus said, “It is by your faith that you have been healed. Go in peace.”

Self-confidence and self-effort are necessary, as the ignition of a car is necessary to the motor. Of what use the ignition, however, if the motor itself will not work? Wise is he who recognizes the real power in the universe, and guides his life by that supreme power. As it says in the Bhagavad Gita, the ninth Chapter:

To those who meditate on Me as their Very Own, ever united to Me by incessant worship, I make good their deficiencies, and render permanent their gains

Swami Kriyananda was once asked, “What is the best yoga posture?” “That one,” he replied, “which sets you squarely on your own two feet.”

Our strength must come from within. If that strength comes from the ego, however, instead of from soul-consciousness, it is like a guitar string without its sounding board: the notes it emits will be thin and feeble. Our strength must come from within, but must be coupled with recognition of our inner link with broader and higher realities.

The Bhagavad Gita says in the tenth Chapter:

Everyone in this world whose life is glorious, or prosperous, or powerful—know that his achievement is but a little spark from the great sun of My effulgence.

Jesus in talking to his disciples emphasized also the power of attunement with his own consciousness as a ray of the Divine. For this ray had descended already, through him, in response to their devotion; it was a sign that God was already “listening” to them with receptive attention, and did not require to be wooed in that way any longer. In the passage preceding the one that we read last week, Jesus said:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

This was the meaning of Paramhansa Yogananda's counsel also, when speaking more intimately to the disciples of the need for attunement with him.

Jesus Christ said in the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 15:

I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.

How can we “abide in him”? Jesus says,“If my words abide in you.” By words he meant not only his spoken words, but his vibrations, his consciousness, of which the words are only an expression. We must abide by the teachings, but we must also absorb those teachings into ourselves, that they become our own experience. For disciples of this path, the more, in their hearts, they live consciously in the presence of the masters, the more they will find the divine presence living within them.

And for all truth seekers, whether disciples or not, the more they live sustained inwardly by the awareness of God's presence, the higher they will find themselves soaring in wisdom and joy.

For the Bhagavad Gita says, in the tenth Chapter:

I am the Source of everything; from Me all creation emerges. Blessed with this realization, the wise, awe-stricken, adore Me.

In the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 4, Jesus Christ says:

Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.

There is a practical teaching in these words, apart from their statement that we have God already, and have only to realize that truth. Jesus is saying, “Lift up your eyes and look. . . .” To hold the eyes uplifted is the best position for meditation. For the seat of superconsciousness lies at a point midway between the eyebrows—in the frontal lobe of the brain just behind that point. This point is known also as the Christ center. By lifting up your eyes and concentrating there, you will find it easier to enter the state of ecstasy. That is why saints in every religion have often been observed, during states of deep inner communion, with their eyes uplifted, focused on the inner light—“white,” as Jesus said, “already to harvest.”

The Bhagavad Gita goes further into this meditative teaching. In the sixth Chapter it states:

Holding the spine firm, the neck and head erect and motionless, let the yogi focus his eyes at the starting place of the nose [the point between the eyebrows]. Let not his gaze roam elsewhere.

In meditation, tell yourself: “I have Him already! I am alive forever in the Divine Light.”

Last week we asked the question, Why do devotees fall? and we considered the downfall of Judas in this context. Jesus, in answer to Judas's criticism for allowing Mary to rub his feet with spikenard, a very costly ointment, said, “The poor always ye have with you: but me ye have not always.”

Jesus is saying here that there is one supreme “injustice” that needs eradication: poverty, yes, but not of a material kind: poverty in a spiritual sense.

Divine blessings are not common in this world. They are extraordinary. When they come, we should give them priority above every other consideration.

Never allow a moment of inner joy, for instance, to be set aside for lesser “duties.” Divine attunement is our highest priority. As Lahiri Mahasaya, the guru of Yogananda's guru, said, “To listen to the heart's inner sound (AUM, which issues from the very center of our being) is man's highest duty.”

Mary, on this occasion, was not communing in inner silence with Christ’s spirit, as she had been when Martha urged that she be reproached by Jesus for not helping out in the kitchen. Mary this time was serving outwardly, but in a different spirit from the restless fussing for which Jesus had reprimanded her sister, Martha. Those who see a radical difference between the paths of action and meditation should understand this distinction. To serve in the right spirit is necessary, for only thereby can we overcome our karmic tendencies toward restless activity. The important thing is that that spirit be always inwardly focused: that in everything we do we act in loving service to the Lord.

Therefore the Bhagavad Gita says in the third Chapter:

The state of freedom from action [that is, of eternal rest in the Spirit] cannot be achieved without action. No one, by mere renunciation and outward non-involvement, can attain perfection.

Whenever the spirit of God descends upon you, however, remember the words of Jesus, “Me ye have not always with you.”