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about yourselves, and understand your position in the expanse of the environment
around you, whether it is family, the community, the country, or the world. Face your
weaknesses with an adamantine will, but know also your strengths, and use them to
adapt yourselves to the circumstances in which you find yourselves to the circumstances
in which you find yourselves at any given moment of time. In this you have to be very
diligent, sincere and honest. Remember, always, that what is important is not so much
what you are, as to what extent you know why you are what you are, and how much you
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endeavour to improve yourselves in the right direction. Of course, do not be in a hurry.
Understand well before you take a step. There cannot be a right attempt without a clear-
cut ideal before it, and directing it. A race horse put to a plough or a plough horse put to
race will not lead to any substantial result. We have to know our powers, our knowledge,
and go only so far; not further.
If you are emotionally healthy, you will find that you will be comfortable with
yourselves, and would not need the company of a crowd, or even of other persons
related to you. No doubt, this is only one aspect of the question, because the most well
adjusted person should be comfortable and perfectly at ease either way. Watch
yourselves in a crisis, and detect what you are. You can know your weaknesses when you
are thwarted, opposed, threatened or when you find yourselves in danger. You can also
know your buried desires and urges, your cravings and fears, when you are put to such a
test. The training of the emotions and the development of strength within, however, is
not difficult for one who has a genuine conviction that he is backed up at all times by a
mighty Power that works everywhere in the cosmos, and that he has nothing to fear.
This faith should be born of conviction, enlightened understanding, and a real love for
the Supreme Being. This is self-mystery, by which one can invoke incredible powers to
function at any time in one's life.
Do not have inner conflicts. Such conflicts are mostly results of the inability to fulfil the
basic instinctive urges, which, again, is due to ignorance of one's hidden capacities and
of the way by which to utilise properly the facilities provided under the conditions in
which one is placed. You have to know clearly (1) what ought to be done, (2) what is
capable of being done, (3) what has been done already, (4) why something has not been
done yet, and (5) how to overcome the obstacles in a reasonable manner. This means
that you have to be master of your own psychology. A successful life includes physical,
emotional, intellectual and moral fitness based on an integration of being in all its
degrees, inwardly as well as outwardly. Know yourselves as higher than you now are.
Summon the reserve forces which lie latent within, and use them for the constructive
work of building the structure of life which is not merely yours, but of everyone, equally.
When the diversity of beings is beheld as rooted in the One, and as having proceeded
from the One, then does one attain to Perfection, says the Bhagavad-Gita. But the
achievement of this end is hard, though possible for everyone. It demands inner
toughness born of a perfect moral nature. A capacity to love and to serve all with the
feeling of the presence of a common element behind everyone, to be truthful and honest
and straightforward at any cost, to be able to feel for others as one does for oneself, not
to do to others what would not be desirable for oneself, to have always a concern for the
good of the whole world and not merely of a restricted group of persons, not to attempt
at appropriating things which do not lawfully belong to one self, to be perfectly
continent and restrained in thought, word and deed, to be able to look at the world with
a cosmic vision, and to act at all times with this consciousness, is the requisite
qualification demanded of a truly cultured person and a seeker of Truth. We are neither
wise nor right when we lose sight of this meaning of the educational process and act in a
way that is not warranted by this vision of perfection. But success is near at hand, if only
we would have a rightly directed will. And it is for our own good. Let us pray in the
sublime words of the Upanishad:
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Lead us from the unreal to the Real,
Lead us from darkness to Light,
Lead us from death to Immortality.
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APPENDIX I
PATH TO PERFECTION
The attempt to achieve perfection begins with the consciousness and application of the
immediate reality that is presented to the senses. That which is definitely known to be
existent in the normal human state of consciousness is the body situated in a world of
plurality. The maintenance of the body in harmony and of the proper relation of the
body with the external world is the first empirical concern of man. It should be the duty
of a seeker of perfection to be careful to see that the body is not out of its balance in any
way, at any time. The health of the body is of great importance in one's endeavour to
utilise one's power in the quest of truth. External purity and observance of the laws of
hygiene are not to be neglected if the body is to be maintained as one's friend and
helper. Saucha is the basic rule of sound health. This must include the system of
partaking of diet of a suitable quality, in a suitable quantity, at a suitable place and
suitable time. Mental health and physical health are, generally, interdependent.
The practice of the moral law and ethical conduct will pave the way to the maintenance
of a sound mind in a sound body. Passions and disturbing emotions disbalance the
system and ruin the health of a person. A mental disturbance means the irrhythmic
distribution of the vital energy and the disturbance of the nerves. This leads to the
illness of the body. A good aspiration towards a non-selfish end is the prerequisite of a
good programme of life. The early stages of one's life should be spent in the pursuit of
knowledge, service of the teacher, self-control and austerity. At this stage one should not
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