Monthly Readings

In India, when a disciple comes to a teacher, the teacher tries first of all to give the student a firm faith in himself or herself, and a feeling that weakness and cowardice and failure have no part in their true nature. Almost the first words that Sri Krishna says to his disciple in the second book of the Bhagavad Gita are: "What is this weakness? It is beneath you. . . . Shake off this cowardice, Arjuna. Stand up!

One must do some work. Through work alone one can remove the bondage of work, not by avoiding work. Total detachment comes later on. One should not be without work even for a moment.

As for those who depend upon God and have faith in Him, well, that itself is their spiritual practice, sadhana. God is one’s very own. It is an eternal relationship. One realizes Him in proportion to the intensity of one’s feeling for him. Don’t be afraid. Always remember that somebody is protecting you.

In recent years a great deal of interest has been aroused in this country concerning yoga. And, we may be sure, whenever there is a demand for anything, there will be people to meet that demand regardless of whether the article is genuine or spurious. As a result of this present demand, a large number of teachers as well as institutions of yoga have begun to flourish.

From all this it is clear that, while positively charged memories can and should be used for specific therapeutic purposes, there must be no indiscriminate indulgence in “natural piety”; for such indulgence may result in a condition akin to trance—a condition at the opposite pole from the wakefulness that is understanding. Those who live with unpleasant memories become neurotic and those who live with pleasant ones become somnambulistic. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof—and the good thereof.