I. Renunciation
The teacher answers the students' complaints about yoga’s difficulty:
Doubtless the mind is hard to restrain and restless, but by practise and by indifference it may be restrained.
The wandering mind becomes tired of resisting and finally submits. However, even if you do not achieve, your reward will still mature.
Having attained to the worlds of the righteous, and having dwelt there for eternal years, he who failed in concentration is reborn in a house of the pure and wealthy.
No effort is lost and everything you have done, all you have attained during your striving, will come back to you in the next earthly birth. Furthermore, if it is possible, you will be reborn into a spiritual family, where it will be easier to attain success on this path. Such a birth is very hard to obtain, however.
Of all yogis, he who full of faith worships Me, with his inner self abiding in Me, is deemed by Me as most devout.
The deepest worship is that of resting in the Overself. Then is one devout in the highest possible fashion. If you feel that rite and ceremony help you, use them. But ultimately you may have to give them up. When you come to realize that the Lord of the world is ever performing the dance of the universe, and that the rite is being performed everywhere, you will no longer want to be in a place limited to some fleeting ceremony, but to take place in the great temple of the world by always remembering and worshipping the God in your heart.
This ends the first section of this wonderful and instructive dialogue, and it is fitting that it should close upon the details of the art of mental quiet. The world would be surprised if it knew how many of its famous figures,past and present, have secretly made this daily withdrawal their refuge from duties and heavy responsibilities, finding in their moments of meditation and strength to endure their inescapable destiny, and guidance amid confusion, when other men grope in the darkness.
He is the loneliness that is within you….You are standing all alone before the sacred fire, and from this time on the fire that will be given to you will be lonely, and you will be lonely with it. Are you ready to accept that loneliness?
In plain language, it simply means that the initiate will first look towards his inner holier self for help, light, love and strength, and only after that towards frail mortal men. This is really the best form of self reliance, for it brings higher spiritual powers to work through your personal life.
A divine purpose pulsates throughout nature. He who learns the art of meditation will ultimately put himself into harmony with that purpose, which will use him as a holy instrument in his labours among the strayed sheep amongst mankind. The universal awareness of the Higherself or Overself as being present in all others, automatically brings him into perfect symphony with others, and therefore makes him yearn to bring them all into how own self-awareness. Because they are living in a physical world and in a physical body, the best way to reach them is through physical means, which means a life of inspired activity.
