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Section Three Three To the Sadhaks of the Ash HEALTH IN THE ASHRAM (I) There are people who come to me and say that they would like to go home, for their health does not permit them to continue here; it gradually gets worse and worse and they ask for my permission.
I wonder at their ignorance. Perhaps I should not wonder; human nature is like that. These people do not know or see or feel in the least that they are here in the best of conditions for cure, nowhere else in the world would they get anything like the opportunity or the help that is here. Naturally, if one is to be here and derive the full benefit of his stay, one has to fulfil certain conditions or rather one
condition. That one condition is to give
up the ego, not to live the life of the ego, but
to live
the life of the soul, to dedicate oneself to the Divine. So it is evident that
if this condition is not fu1filled, that is to say, being here you continue
to live the life of your old self, your ego, if you
Page-105 refuse to change, naturally you do not get the benefit of the help that is given here. And when you refuse to go forward, not only do you halt where you are, you go backward. That is the meaning of one'-s health getting worse. Of course if you ask my permission to go away, you have it. The Grace is everywhere for all to the extent they can receive and allow it to come to them. But that is not what things would be if you were here and agreed to attempt to fulfil the conditions of the life here. To be able to stay here one must have faith. But people's faith depends upon what the ego desires and seeks. "I believe in the Divine if I find Him doing or arranging things as I would like them to be. If things happen contrary to my notions and wishes, then I believe no more in the Divine." That is their attitude. Now it is precisely this ego-view that vitiates one's approach to life and existence. In the true and the most ancient tradition of spirituality, the world was never looked upon as Maya or illusion, it was the ego that was considered as an illusion and the generator of illusions. It is the ego and ego's view that puts us in a wrong relation with the world and the consequences are all the falsehoods and miseries. Be egoless, do not Page-106 contaminate your perception or your movement with the ego's touch, you will see the world changed and transformed. If you had faith, if you had less of the egoistic demands and shrinkings, you would see how beautifully Nature collaborates with you. The greatest thing that can ever be, the most marvellous thing since the beginning of creation, the miracle has happened. And that is the only thing that concerns us most intimately and the only thing we should be concerned with. A new world, yes a completely new world, is born and is here. Nothing can be more momentous. And yet, do you know, feel or perceive it? Unless things give a physical knock upon your nose, you do not believe in its reality. And yet it is there. You are blind and without sense because you are ego-bound. It is your I, My and Mine that has woven around you a web, a screen. (2) Wake up in yourself a will to conquer. Not a mere will in the mind but a will in the very cells of your body. Without that you can't do anything, e.g., you may take a hundred medicines Page-107 but they won't cure you unless you have a will to overcome the physical illness. I may destroy the adverse force that has possessed you. I may repeat the action a thousand times. But each time that a vacuum is created it will be filled up by one of the many forces that try to rush in. That is why, I say, wake up the will to conquer. Page-108 |