Spiritual Protection.

If you start having a positive impact on the world, you can expect negative opposition to you. Here's some advice from Mayah Balse's Mystics and Men of Miracles in India, 1978, Orient Paperbacks, page 110, paragraph 4:


I remembered what Mrs Nimmi Sharma from Trimulghery had told me at a party. "Black magic might be powerful," she had said, "but just let it come in contact with a pure strain of the highest spirituality and it is doomed. My father was a great devotee of the Shirdi Sai Baba. Unknown to him, his rival in business was doing black magic to ruin him. Once, my father was praying when the God's lamp flickered, then its flame grew larger and larger. My father was surprised. A little later, the wife of this business partner came running and crying. She said her husband for some inexplicable reason had fallen down quite dead. The time of death synchronised with the time the flame had magnified. The evil art he had been practising to harm my father, had been repelled by the forces of good and rebounded on the black magician."


If you're wondering how to be pure, look at the Bhagavad Gita for Busy People posts and look up SATTVA (purity).

***

This might be a good protective ceremony for receptive Christians:


Frank E. Stranges, Ring of Fire Prayer on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiXjQX1uz-8

I felt a good vibe when I watched that.


Here's most of the transcript:


Frank E Stranges, Ring of Fire prayer for Divine Protection

1:10 min


Light (a white) candle.

(Frank E. Stranges) "Repeat after me please:"

"Eternal Father, creator of the universe, hear this hour my earnest prayer. Anoint my lips, my ears, my mind, and my heart with your divine flame of fire. Provide me now, with perfect health, abundance, and longevity. Revitalize and redirect my energies into divine service. Touch me with your divine inner flame of fire and cause me to be the master that you intended me to be. In the blessed name of the master and creator of the universe, the Lord Jesus Christ. So be it. Amen"

"Turn to this flame."

"Concentrate and put your thought into gear. Look into that flame. I want everybody to see the flame, and put your thoughts in gear. Look into that flame and spiritually, mentally, put all of your desires, everything that you desire in life, all the good things of life, put that desire in the flame and the moment that the flame is extinguished and the smoke begins to rise as a testimony in the nostrils of God. When that flame goes out it means that you have faithfully placed all of your hopes and dreams and desires into the flame and as soon as it's smoke rises it means that it's a testimony that your prayers are answered. This, all of this, according to your faith in almighty God."

"Look into the flame, we're going to extinguish it now, and as it does see in your third eye (brain) the end of all of your troubles."

"Repeat after me:"

"I see the end of all my troubles, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen."

Blow out flame....


I read Frank E. Stranges, Stranger at the Pentagon years ago. I recall that Ring of Fire Prayer had you visualize a Ring of Fire surrounding you protecting you. You can add that image and a prayer of protection to the one in the video, above.


***


Here it is straight from Stranger at the Pentagon:


Ring of Fire prayer and ceremony from Stranger at the Pentagon by Frank E. Stranges, Ph.D., page 101:


Divine Protection: There is a formula by which all of you can benefit from the Divine Protection which results from this ceremony... Fire has always been representative of Divine Protection, cleansing and purification...


A Ritual You Can Perform

Please follow these instructions carefully:

1. Place a lighted white candle before you on a table or other flat surface. Be careful to place a dish or other object under the candle to catch any drips.

2. Under no circumstances should you permit anyone or anything to interrupt you while you are performing this ceremony.

3. Recite The Lord's Prayer.

(The Lord's Prayer from The New King James Version of the Christian Bible, Matthew chapter 6, verses 9 to 13:

"In this manner, therefore, pray:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed by Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done.
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.

For Yours is the kingdom and
the power and the glory forever.

Amen." *

*NU-Text omits For Yours through Amen.)

4. Pray the following prayer without doubt in your heart. Believe that the God of Creation is hearing you at the very moment that you are praying! Keep your eyes open as you pray, lifting your outstretched hands heavenward. Look into the flame and maintain your full senses. Know what you are doing at all times. Repeat aloud...

"Eternal Father, Creator of the Universe... Hear this day my petition. Surround me NOW... with your Divine Ring of Fire... The Fire of Your Protection... The Fire of Your Abundance... The Fire of Complete Healing... The Fire of Divine Abundance.

I now command the Hand of Almighty God on my behalf... Let it be so... this very moment... In the Blessed Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."

Now, as you look into the flame of the candle, place ALL your heartfelt desires as well as your problems, into the flame. Extinguish the candle and watch the smoke rising as to the nostrils of God as He receives your prayers. Do not remove yourself from the room for at least three full minutes. As you stand before the extinguished candle, keep your eyes open and feel the presence of the "Ring of Fire". You can perform this prayer/ceremony anywhere, anytime. Even while driving your car, you can pronounce the words and feel the protection of the "Ring of Fire". You will never be the same again.


***

HH

Blending with the land.

Some more ideas to toss out.



Blending with the land:


Permaculture, Bill Mollison & David Holmgren; some good videos out there on Google

Forest Garden, Robert Hart
Masanobu Fukuoka's No-Work Farming (for all you farm boys, out there!)
Earthship, Michael Reynolds
Earth Architecture, Nader Khalili, Calearth Institute
Biodynamic Agriculture, Rudolph Steiner
Perelandra Garden, Machelle Small Wright
Findhorn Garden & manifesting
Solviva, Anna Edey



Less is more:

Your Money or Your Life, Vicki Robin & Joe Dominguez
Stop Working, Start Living; Diane Nahirny
Thrift, Frugality (subjects; I don't remember the titles & authors without checking)


Medicine:

The Herb Book, John Lust
Ayurveda, David Frawley
Edgar Cayce readings; all-edgar cayce cd rom, books, castor oil
Traditional Chinese Medicine, Stephen Chang



New Technology:

Jeanne Manning, The Coming Energy Revolution, and Breakthrough Power
Viktor Schauberger, see Callum Coats books
Dr. Fred Bell, Pyradyne
Nikola Tesla, see my earlier blog
Panacea University, Australia: http://www.panaceauniversity.org/



Religion:

There's an inner tradition in every one of them, if you do the search and want to put out the effort.



HH

Reviving local economies.

Reviving local economies.


I just wanted to toss out some ideas that people can research.

Just do a web-search, it's all out there.


*Permaculture
*Local Exchange and Trading System (LETS)
*Scrip (local currencies)
*Solari, Catherine Austin Fitts, Financial Permaculture


HH

The Hopi Survival Kit by Thomas E. Mails

The Hopi Survival Kit by Thomas E. Mails. 1997.

***

I read this book back in the 90s. It's about the teachings of the traditional Hopi: Their prophecies of things to come (now!) and how to survive them. I didn't think they could happen but looking around me, now (2010)... I'm definitely concerned.

In the last century we had The Roaring '20s, The Great Depression, and WWII (& WWI). I'm very concerned that history is going to repeat itself.

The Hopi Survival Kit tells the story of the traditional Hopis, their prophecies, their struggles against unending opposition in modern times and the key to survival. The key can be summed up in one phrase: BLEND WITH THE LAND AND CELEBRATE LIFE.

This book contains the teachings that the traditional Hopi wanted to get out to the world concerning their prophecies, philosophy, and the key to survival.

Get ready. Things are going to get interesting.


HH


Notes from The Hopi Survival Kit by Thomas E. Mails, 1997:



Blend With The Land And Celebrate Life. There Is A Gentle Way to Survival.

Simple Life, Self-Sufficiency, Sharing.

Respect all living things.




To escape the wrath indicated by the prophecies; begin by:

1. Making your own Covenant with Massaw (the Guardian Spirit of the Earth).

2. Living simply, as Maasaw himself lives. [the good, spiritual Maasaw]

3. Practicing self-denial.

4. Practicing self-sufficiency. [min. 1 yr. stored food supplies & self-sufficient]

5. Changing your priorities [to spiritual ones]

6. Recognizing that it is the Creator's wish to rescue us, and that, together with the Hopi, we can rescue the world.



"Be self-sufficient so that you are not dependent upon others for survival. Don't rely on supermarkets for food and don't be entirely dependent upon wages. What will happen to you if someday the white man's world collapses?"

Self-Suggestion by Max Freedom Long

Self-Suggestion by Max Freedom Long


Get control of your conscious and subconsious minds. More importantly, learn how to pray effectively (contact the superconscious mind).


Read or download it for free at www.sacred-texts.com, New Thought section.


http://www.sacred-texts.com/nth/index.htm

or

http://www.sacred-texts.com/nth/ssug/index.htm


HH

The Secret Science Behind Miracles

The Secret Science Behind Miracles by Max Freedom Long


This book reads like a real-life Indiana Jones adventure:


A school-teacher in Hawaii learns of the secret practices of the Kahunas: the Hawaiian magicians of old. An elderly scientist trains him to continue the search for the secrets of the Kahunas. He finds the key, one day, but is unable to break the Kahunas secret code. Fortunately, a retired British journalist reads Max Long's book and helps him break the Kahuna code by sharing his secret knowledge of the African Berber tribe... One of the twelve lost tribes of ancient Egypt?

Could the Hawaiians have originated from ancient Egypt, and could they have kept the secrets of the ancient Egyptian priesthood intact whilst Egypt's civilization fell and ignorance swept over the planet?

And just what was the secret the Kahunas were keeping? It's all here.


Read it on-line or download it for free at www.sacred-texts.com, New Thought section.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/nth/index.htm

or

http://www.sacred-texts.com/nth/ssbm/index.htm




HH

Handbook for the New Paradigm

The Old Paradigm is coming to an end. It is collapsing all around us. A new way of doing things must arise from the dust. The Handbook for a New Paradigm shows the way.

The Handbook for the New Paradigm is freely available in PDF download form from George Green's website: www.nohoax.com.

It is available on this webpage in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese:

http://www.nohoax.com/?page_id=226


It is also available to read on-line in english on this website:

http://www.trufax.org/handbooks/paradigmvol1.html


The information in this book could become very important, very, very soon.
We can change the path we are going down. It all starts in the mind.

HH


***

These are some quotes from The Handbook for the New Paradigm:




This is not a time to hide in your usual excuse of "what can one person do?" A large number of "one persons" can accomplish a great deal. Becoming "cannon fodder" is not the solution. It is required that you become a much more subtle influence. Learn one truth now. Subtle energy is powerful and the most powerful energy is subtle. Your bible says, "In the beginning was the word" but words are thoughts spoken out loud, an inaccurate translation. In the beginning was thought! That is the subtle energy that we are asking you to employ. Simply change the focus of your thought. Do not allow yourself to dwell upon the horrors of what is planned for you, but turn your thought to what it is that you would prefer to experience.

You are trained by their methodology to think only about the programmed thoughts of acquiring things, others opinions, self preservation among thieves and murderers, and escape from self directed thoughts through addiction to TV, movies and Soul jarring music. Last but not least, pursuit of sexual experience, be it in or out of monogamous relationships. There is also the mind-boggling profusion of religious entities to further lead you from the personal quest of understanding the connection to the source of your presence on this planet in the first place. I can assure you that Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed had nothing to do with it. It is not that these beings did not exist, nor that they were not here to attempt to give you guidance in getting through this dilemma, but the messages they brought were distorted long ago. Neither did they come here to "get you out" by your belief in their existence, past or present. They came to teach you that you must get yourself through this by taking personal responsibility and creating through thought a new planetary experience. In this way only, will you be able to move through this painful experience.

You accept this responsibility by making a personal commitment between you and the creative energy that focused you through thought into this existence. You will know how to participate in creating what will replace this living nightmare with a new experience! How? You search for it through your desire to know and to participate in its creation. Then through seemingly miraculous coincidence, how to participate shall become known to you. The critical point of the process is in making the commitment within your own awareness that the most important thing is participating in the creation of an experience that is 180 degrees opposite what is now planned to be your final earthly sojourn. The evidence of the necessity to do this surrounds you in irrefutable profusion. You need only to open your eyes, consider the changes in your personal freedoms that are happening in quick succession and listen to (hear) the researched evidence in both spoken and written presentations on your radios, internet and in books. Very soon those will no longer be available to you, leaving only word of mouth, so it is imperative that you respond to this information. You are encouraged to react only through your change of attitude and in your commitment to become a part of this subtly powerful movement.

There will not be an Armageddon as suggested in their version of your bible. It shall be a replacement of their planned world through shifting the focus of the awareness of the beings on this planet toward that which is desired rather than that which is being forced upon them. It shall be individual inner change that shall conquer the outer forces that plan to control your very essence of self-awareness. Upon the acceptance of this clarion call lies the future of your survival and the experiences that wait for you within eternity.






Luckily there is another part of the mind that is beyond this conscious thinking. Your psychologists call it your subconscious mind. They have painted it as holding your perception of Life hostage because it is full of dark, horrible experiences perpetrated on you by well meaning but abusive parents. As a result you fear it and block it from participating in your experience of Life. Why is the word Life capitalized? Because that is the purpose of your experience on this planet! You are alive, that is aware of experiencing this Life energy moving through you and played out on the screen of your observing ego mind. Ah, the ego, the devil of your existence, or so you have been led to believe. Anyone acting in a pushy manner is being egotistical. His ego has him by the necktie and is causing him to misbehave according to the imposed social norms. He is controlled by his evil sub-conscious acting out through his ego and he must be brought down a peg and that awful ego humbled into compliance.

The successful businessman is successful because his inflated ego runs amuck over others and snatches success from the hands of the deserving underlings, etc., etc. Need I go on painting this picture of slight of mind? What then is the true picture? If there is no ego, there will be no awareness of the manifested experience! The ego is your tape recorder. It is the observer of your thoughts, wants, needs and desires. It takes these thoughts in a type of robotic focused format, and this allows them to manifest into circumstances and situations that create your experience. It literally filters your thoughts, feelings and desires and causes them to coalesce into manifested experience. It is a process, not an entity. It is a process over which you have complete control, if you can take charge of thoughts, feelings and desires and actively direct them toward what you want to experience.

These thoughts must be relatively depictive. For example, if you simply focus on change then expect chaos within your life for that will be the change you create until you decide upon some more precise idea of what you want in your experience. The process of how this works involves a Universal Law called Attraction. Once an idea is formed with the positive understanding that it is possible, then the ego holds this picture and completes the process through positive/negative polarity energy.

Through the action of the Law of Attraction and the malleable nature of the potential of an idea actually coming into your experience, it does. Since instant manifestation of ideas on this planet at the moment is very difficult, the ego incorporates the process within your supporting idea of time. If you are unable to remain focused on your desire of a certain experience, then often times you deny yourself that desired experience. There is a comment in your Bible regarding "praying amiss". Since that which you refer to as God is creative in nature, whenever you are focusing your desire in a sincere manner for an experience, then you are in "constant prayer" for you are within this creative, expansive expression that originates within the Source of your existence. But, what if you are asking for something that would cause problems for someone else? The law works! But, there is an effect for that which you have caused. As noted above you are using the Universal Law of Attraction and its process involves like energy attracting more like energy. If you cause a problem for someone else as a purposeful use of this Law, then what you create for someone else, you also will experience. It is like two sides of the same coin. One is presented to the other person and one is presented to you. If you are serious in attempting to understand this Law, then if you dare, look at the events that you have already experienced and you will see that this has been the case many times. When you have wished a blessing for someone else, you also experienced one, not in exactly the same way, but in something of meaning that came within your Life. Consider also difficulties. I believe there is a reference in the Bible that instructs you to "put a guard on your mouth for the words (including thoughts) that come forth do not return to you empty."

In utilizing this understanding, you must hold the desire steadily within your consciousness. If you error in desire by wishing to create a problem in the life of another you have time early in the process in which to reconsider and to withdraw the focus of that intent. Then it will not manifest for them to experience. Emotion, strong feelings, can increase the potential of manifestation and hurry the process, whether it is for your own "good" experience or for another one. The opposite is also true.

It is time for the entertainment portion of this purposefully written portion of the play and the distraction of your attention from your purpose for being within this experience on planet Earth to end. Now you must decide whether to take back your power, remove the blindfold of your own volition or wait until it’s removed for you. The picture will be even more shocking if you wait, for you will be totally unprepared for the scene planned for you to view. There is little time remaining for you to make your decision. The glitzy world you are living within is an illusion. Behind its facade is another one that plays out a game of power that requires your total cooperation and the giving over of your creative power willingly by overwhelming your sense of possessing any personal power what ever. Example: "But, what can one person do?" Sound familiar. Answer: "More than you can possibly imagine, but first you must realize that you have the power!"

New Thought solutions.

There is a movement in America called New Thought that provides creative solutions to problems based on changing your thinking. Many of their main texts are free to read and download on-line at www.sacred-texts.com, under New Thought and Unity.

(New Thought) http://www.sacred-texts.com/nth/index.htm

(Unity) http://www.sacred-texts.com/nth/unity/index.htm


You can also find information on these teachings by doing a web-search on New Thought, Unity, Science of Mind, etc.


HH

Below are the main ideas of Unity:

***



Unity's Five Basic Principles


Unity has five basic principles, all of equal importance. They are:

1. "God is absolute good, everywhere present."

2. "Human beings have a spark of divinity within them, the Christ spirit within. Their very essence is of God, and therefore they are also inherently good."

3. "Human beings create their experiences by the activity of their thinking. Everything in the manifest realm has its beginning in thought."

4. "Prayer is creative thinking that heightens the connection with God-Mind and therefore brings forth wisdom, healing, prosperity, and everything good."

5. "Knowing and understanding the laws of life, also called Truth are not enough. A person must also live the Truth that he or she knows."

Changing your world through thought.

The Nature of Personal Reality by Seth/Jane Roberts

***

I've been aware of this book since the 70s and read it three times in the 90s. I'm writing this "review" now to introduce the main ideas in this book to a larger audience.

The world is full of problems: so many that people just seize up and become apathic. This isn't going to make things better.

In The Nature of Personal Reality by Seth/Jane Roberts, Seth introduces the idea that we create our personal realities out of our thoughts - out of our beliefs. If you believe that you're an insignificant, powerless serf in society that is what you're going to create. If you believe that you can make the world a better place: you will.

The old structures of society are collapsing because they were never viable in the first place. Don't be afraid. Don't be apathetic. Be creative.

You Create Your Own Reality



Below are the Table of Contents and some quotes from the first four chapters of Seth/Jane Roberts, The Nature of Personal Reality. 1974.

HH


***


Seth (Jane Roberts: 1929-1984). The Nature of Personal Reality, 1974.



CONTENTS

Introduction by Jane Roberts

Preface by Seth: The Manufacture of Personal Reality


PART ONE: Where You and the World Meet

CHAPTER

1 The Living Picture of the World

2 Reality and Personal Beliefs

3 Suggestion, Telepathy, and the Grouping of Beliefs

4 Your Imagination and Your Beliefs, and a Few Words About the Origin of Your Beliefs

5 The Constant Creation of the Physical Body

6 The Body of Your Beliefs, and the Power Structures of Belief

7 The Living Flesh

8 Health, Good and Bad Thoughts, and the Birth of "Demons"

9 Natural Grace, the Framework of Creativity, and the Health of Your Body and Mind. The Birth of Conscience



PART TWO: Your Body as Your Own Unique Living Sculpture. Your Life as Your Most Intimate Work of Art, and the Nature of Creativity as It Applies to Your Personal Experience


CHAPTER

10 The Nature of Spontaneous Illumination, and the Nature of Enforced Illumination. The Soul in Chemical Clothes

11 The Conscious Mind as the Carrier of Beliefs. Your Beliefs in Relation to Health and Satisfaction

12 Grace, Conscience, and Your Daily Experience

13 Good and Evil, Personal and Mass Beliefs, and Their Effect Upon Your Private and Social Experience

14 Which You? Which World? Your Daily Reality as the Expression of Specific Probable Events

15 Which You? Which World? Only You Can Answer. How to Free Yourself From Limitations

16 Natural Hypnosis: A Trance Is a Trance Is a Trance

17 Natural Hypnosis, Healing, and the Transference of Physical Symptoms Into Other Levels of Activity

18 Inner Storms and Outer Storms. Creative "Destruction." The Length of the Day and the Natural Reach of a Biologically Based Consciousness

19 The Concentration of Energy, Beliefs, and the Present Point of Power

20 The Dream Landscape, the Physical World, Probabilities, and Your Daily Experience

21 Affirmation, Love, Acceptance, and Denial

22 Affirmation, the Practical Betterment of Your Life, and the New Structuring of Beliefs


Quotes:


The Manufacture of Personal Reality

Experience is the product of the mind, the spirit, conscious thoughts and feelings, and unconscious thoughts and feelings. These together form the reality that you know. You are hardly at the mercy of a reality, therefore, that exists apart from you, or is thrust upon you. You are so intimately connected with the physical events composing your life experience that often you cannot distinguish between the seemingly material occurrences and the thoughts, expectations and desires that gave them birth.

If there are strongly negative characteristics present in your most intimate thoughts, if these actually form bars between you and a more full life, still you often look through the bars, not seeing them. Until they are recognized they are impediments. Even obstacles have a reason for being. If they are your own, then it is up to you to recognize them and discover the circumstances behind their existence.

Your conscious thoughts can be great clues in uncovering such obstructions. You are not nearly as familiar with your own thoughts as you may imagine. They can escape from you like water through your fingers, carrying with them vital nutrients that spread across the landscape of your psyche -and all too often carrying sludge and mud that clog up the channels of experience and creativity.

An examination of your conscious thoughts will tell you much about the state of your inner mind, your intentions and expectations, and will often lead you to a direct confrontation with challenges and problems. Your thoughts, studied, will let you see where you are going. They point clearly to the nature of physical events. What exists physically exists first in thought and feeling. There is no other rule. (emphasis mine)





THE NATURE OF PERSONAL REALITY



Your experience in the world of physical matter flows outward from the center of your inner psyche. Then you perceive this experience. Exterior events, circumstances and conditions are meant as a kind of living feedback. Altering the state of the psyche automatically alters the physical circumstances.

There is no other valid way of changing physical events. It might help if you imagine an inner living dimension within yourself in which you create, in miniature psychic form, all the exterior conditions that you know. Simply put, you do exactly this. Your thoughts, feelings and mental pictures can be called incipient exterior events, for in one way or another each of these is materialized into physical reality.

You change even the most permanent-seeming conditions of your life constantly through the varying attitudes you have toward them. There is nothing in your exterior experience that did not originate within you.

Interactions with others do occur, of course, yet there are none that you do not accept or draw to you by your thoughts, attitudes, or emotions. This applies in each area of life. In your terms, it applies both before life and after it. In the most miraculous fashion are you given the gift of creating your experience.

In this existence you are learning to handle the inexhaustible energy that is available to you. The mass condition of the world, and the situation of each individual in it, is the materialization of man's progress as he forms his world.


The joy of creativity flows through you as effortlessly as your breath. From it the most minute areas of your outer experience spring. Your feelings have electromagnetic realities that rise outward, affecting the atmosphere itself. They group through attraction, building up areas of events and circumstances that finally coalesce, so to speak, either in matter as objects - or as events in "time."


You make your own reality. There is no other rule. Knowing this is the secret of creativity.



You form the fabric of your experience through your own beliefs and expectations. These personal ideas about yourself and the nature of reality will affect your thoughts and emotions.



There is one belief, however, that destroys artificial barriers to perception, an expanding belief that automatically pierces false and inhibiting ideas. Now, separately:

The Self Is Not Limited.

That statement is a statement of fact. It exists regardless of your belief or disbelief in it. Following this concept is another:

There Are No Boundaries or Separations of the Self.

Those that you experience are the result of false beliefs. Following this is the idea that I have already mentioned:

You Make Your Own Reality.




First of all, you must realize that no one can change your beliefs for you, nor can they be forced upon you from without. You can indeed change them for yourself, however, with knowledge and application.

Look about you. Your entire physical environment is the materialization of your beliefs. Your sense of joy, sorrow, health or illness - all of these are also caused by your beliefs. If you believe that a given situation should make you unhappy, then it will, and the unhappiness will then reinforce the condition.

Within you is the ability to change your ideas about reality and about yourself, to create a personal living experience that is fulfilling to yourself and others. I would like you to write down your beliefs about yourself as you become aware of them.


Your ideas and beliefs form the structure of your experience. Your beliefs and the reasons for them can be found in your conscious mind.


The realization that you form your own reality should be a liberating one. You are responsible for your successes and your joys. You can change those areas of your life with which you are less than pleased, but you must take the responsibility for your being.


If you use your conscious mind properly, then, you examine those beliefs that come to you. You do not accept them willy-nilly. If you use your conscious(u) mind properly, you are also aware of intuitive ideas that come to you from within. You are only half conscious when you do not examine the information that comes to you from without, and when you ignore the data that comes to you from within.


If you dwell upon limitations, then you will meet them. You must create a new picture in your mind. It will differ from the picture your physical senses may show you at any given time, precisely in those areas where changes are required.

Hatred of war will not bring peace - another example. Only love of peace will bring about those conditions.


Once you understand that you form your reality, then you must begin to examine these beliefs by letting the conscious mind freely examine its own contents.



All you have to do is decide to examine the contents of your conscious mind, realizing that it contains treasures that you have overlooked.

Another way to do this is to recognize through examination that the physical effects you meet exist as data in your conscious mind - and the information that formerly seemed unavailable will be obvious. The seemingly invisible ideas that cause your difficulties have quite obvious visible physical effects, and these will lead you automatically to the conscious area in which the initiating beliefs or ideas reside.

Once more, if you become aware of your own conscious thoughts, these themselves will give you clues for they clearly speak your beliefs.



You get what you concentrate upon. There is no other main rule.



It may be easy for you to see beliefs that are invisible to others in themselves. Reading this book, you may be able to point at friends or acquaintances and see clearly that their ideas are invisible beliefs which limit their experience - and yet be blind to your own invisible beliefs, which you take so readily as truth or characteristics of reality.


In writing down your list of personal beliefs, therefore, leave nothing out. Examine the list as though it belonged to someone else. I did not want to imply that you make a list of specifically negative ideas, however. It is of supreme importance that you recognize the existence of joyful beliefs, and take into consideration those elements of your own experience with which you have had success.


I want to you capture that feeling of accomplishment, and to translate it, or transfer it, to areas in which you have had difficulty. But you must remember that the ideas exist first and the experience physically follows.


You make your own reality. I cannot say this too often.


The truth that you form your reality directly. You react consciously and unconsciously to your beliefs. You collect from the physical universe, and the interior one, data that seems to correlate with your beliefs.

Believe, then, that you are a being unlimited by nature, born into flesh to materialize as best you can the great joy and spontaneity of your nature.


It is vital that you realize you are working with beliefs in your mind - that the real work is done there in the mind - and not look for immediate physical results.

They will follow as surely and certainly as the "bad" results
followed, and this must be a belief: that the good results will come. But the real work is done in the mind. If you do the work then you can rest assured of the results, but you must not check constantly for them....


I mentioned a game in which you playfully adopt an idea that you want to materialize, then imagine it happening in your mind. Know that all events are mental and psychic first and that these will happen in physical terms, but do not keep watching yourself. Continue with the game.


Because beliefs form reality - the structure of experience - any change in beliefs altering that structure initiates change to some extent, of course. The status quo which served a certain purpose is gone, new elements are introduced, another creative process begins.


Once more, if you think of daily life as an ever-moving three-dimensional painting with you as the artist, then you will realize that as your beliefs change so will your experience. You must accept the idea completely, however, that your beliefs for your experience. Discard those beliefs that are not bringing you those effects you want. In the meantime you will often be in the position of telling yourself that something is true in the face of physical data that seems completely contradictory. You may say, "I live amid abundance and am free from want," while your eyes tell you that the desk is piled with bills. You must realize that you are the one who produced that "physical evidence" that still faces you, and you did so through your beliefs.

So as you alter the belief, the physical evidence will gradually begin to "prove" your new belief as faithfully as it did your old one. You must work with your own ideas. While there are general categories of beliefs, and general reasons for them, you must become personally aware of your own, for no one person is completely like any other. The old beliefs served a purpose and fulfilled a need.


Listen to your own conversation as you speak with friends, and to theirs. See how you reinforce each other's beliefs. See how your imaginations often follow the same lines. All of this is quite out in the open if you realize that it is.


You must therefore understand and examine your beliefs, realize that they form your experience, and consciously change those that do not give the effects you want. In such an examination you will be aware of many excellent beliefs that work for you. Trace these through. See how they were followed by your imagination and emotions. If possible, look in your own past for points where recognizable new ideas came to you and beneficially changed your experience.


Ideas not only alter the world constantly, they make it constantly.
(emphasis mine)

A Better World Starts With You!

A BETTER WORLD STARTS WITH YOU!


This message may be freely reproduced.


Every problem has a solution. A problem and its solution are like the two sides of a coin. One cannot exist without the other.

People try to find solutions to their problems, outside of themselves. They look to government, religion, celebrities, and anyone else but themselves for a solution. This indicates a lack of responsibility. A lack of responsibility for their own lives, and for the doings of their society. No one is going to wave a magic wand and take away your problems. You created them and it's your responsibility to solve them.

Protesting (whining for grown-ups) is about as effective as it was when you were a child. Voting for change is a euphemism for "passing the buck". If you want a better world to live in, you have to make your world a better place to live in.

Now what is the real origin of all your problems? You created this mess, so where did it originate from? Well, your body produced these actions and they had these unwanted effects (problems). Passing the buck allowed other people to make a mess of things. It's time to stop sucking your thumb and to start acting like a responsible adult! Your body did these things but your body was directed by your mind. This means that your own mind was the origin of these problems. This is the place to look for a solution - not outside of yourself.

The American Dream. The Good Life. I got mine and who cares about anyone else! You can buy your way to happiness. Greed is the reason you're in the mess you're in now.

The economy is collapsing. Not just in America but in countries around the world. If you think your government is going to help you, I'm sorry: They're just a bunch of individuals looking out for themselves - just like you!

Since you can't rely on your government to help you and you probably can't rely on your neighbor who's about as selfish as you are, there's only one person you can rely on. Not mommy or daddy but YOU!

Turn off the TV; stop smoking your weed. Get your head clear and think about coming up with a solution. Remember the problem originated in your mind and the solution will also originate in your mind. Think about it long enough and a solution will definitely come to mind. Once you've got the solution, get off your butt and start changing things for the better!

Jordan Maxwell, advice for perilous times

Jordan Maxwell is an American researcher of secretive topics - the hidden reality that exists in our everyday world that goes undetected.

His website is: www.jordanmaxwell.com

HH

***

Jordan Maxwell on YouTube: Survival advice for perilous times



Jordan Maxwell - The Bible, End Times & Pre-History 6/9 & 7/9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MywJFoWMB8c&feature=PlayList&p=5900CB3E8A9A0798&index=5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t872jEJMo58&feature=PlayList&p=5900CB3E8A9A0798&index=6





6/9, 5:39 min - 10:00 min


Jordan Maxwell (JM):

"I believe that the only hope that we have as individual humans. I am totally convinced because of too much has proven this to me. That over and above this scenario, if it has any validity at all, over and above this scenario as bad as it is, there is above the scenario a higher power in the universe that men have called for a lack of a better term, God. There are many terms that could be used for God: the Divine Presence in the universe, the Holy Spirit. I don't care what you call it because all nations, races and peoples on the earth have acknowledged the presence of "It", whatever "It" is. But it's there. If you choose to call it God or the Divine... but I don't care if you call God, the Divine One, the Holy Spirit, the Great Father. It doesn't matter what you call that presence in the universe. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that there is a higher power in the universe that watches these skirmishes between races in It's great creation.

And I would suggest that all of us. The way to protect yourself is the way the Scriptures say to do it, and the way that the New Testament admonishes to do it, and that is to verbally, verbally all by yourself when no one is around, audibly talk to the Spirit, as if the Spirit were a very highly intelligent powerful man or woman that you were talking to. If you were talking to a very powerful dignitary, you would not jumble your worlds. You would be very specific in what you want to say. Have the highest of respect for that one you are speaking before and once you have said your piece before the king, before that high official, then drop it. You have said your piece, he has heard it. It's over.

Now he will do whatever he decides to do on your behalf, but it's over. You don't need to explain anything more or whine about it and so I think that this is the most powerful thing that an individual can do: is to talk to the Creator, the Divine Spirit in the universe. Ask for direction; ask what am I supposed to know; what am I supposed to do; how can I protect myself and my loved ones; show me what I am to know; show me what I am to do; and I will listen. I will do whatever it is. No matter how wrong I am, I will listen, you show me.

What you need to understand that once you do that, Jesus, the Scripture has Jesus say: You have not because you ask not. It is a normal thing in human communications, if you ask someone for something they now have the option to grant the wish or not grant the wish. Well if you go before a very powerful king or very powerful man and ask him, for something, Don't make a nuisance out of yourself. You've asked. You've asked and he has heard and he'll decide. Maybe he'll decide no but whatever the decision is, that's it anyway.

So consequently, I believe that the smart thing, if you're concerned about your spirituality and your life is to quietly talk to God or talk to the universe or God force because believe me it's there and it hears you and ask: what am I to do, what am I to know, show me where I'm wrong, tell me what I have to do and I'm going to do it. Then leave it alone and watch the way the Spirit works. Things will begin to happen around you and all of a sudden things will begin to pop up in front of you. You will be asking a question and it'll come on television...."


7/9, 0:00 min - 0:37 min

"You'll open up a magazine and there it is, right in front of you. And you think that's by chance? No, you asked God for direction, didn't you? So the Scripture says that God works in strange ways, His wonders to accomplish. So, I'm saying that we are in a very perilous time. TOHUVOHU. Cosmic things are going to happen. But I believe that there is a higher force in the universe. Talk to that Spirit and it will protect you and guide you because all wise men have always said that and it's true and I want to thank you for your time...."

Jordan Maxwell, www.jordanmaxwell.com

Karma-Yoga. Chapter 8

CHAPTER VIII.
THE IDEAL OF KARMA-YOGA.

The grandest idea in the religion of the Vedanta is that: we may reach the same goal by different paths; and these paths I have generalised into four—viz., those of work, love, psychology and knowledge. But you must, at the same time, remember that these divisions are not very marked and quite exclusive of each other. Each blends into the other. But according to the type which prevails we name the divisions. It is not that you cannot find a man who has no other faculty than that of work, nor that you cannot find men who are more than devoted worshippers only, nor that there are not men who have more than mere knowledge. These divisions are made in accordance with the type or the tendency that may be seen to prevail in a man. We have found that, in the end, all these four paths converge and become one. All religions and all methods of work and worship lead us to one and the same goal.

I have already tried to point out that goal. It is freedom as I understand it. Everything that we perceive around us is struggling towards freedom, from the atom to the man, from the insentient, lifeless particle of matter to the highest existence on earth, the human soul. The whole universe is in fact the result of this struggle for freedom. In all combinations every particle is trying to go on its own way, to fly from the other particles; but the others are holding it in check. Our earth is trying to fly away from the sun, and the moon from the earth. Everything has a tendency to infinite dispersion. All that we see in the universe has for its basis this one struggle towards freedom; it is under the impulse of this tendency that the saint prays and the robber robs. When the line of action taken is not a proper one we call it evil, and when the manifestation of it is proper and high we call it good. But the impulse is the same, the struggle towards freedom. The saint is oppressed with the knowledge of his condition of bondage, and he wants to get rid of it; so he worships God. The thief is oppressed with the idea that he does not possess certain things, and he tries to get rid of that want, to obtain freedom from it; so he steals. Freedom is the one goal of all nature, sentient or insentient; and, consciously or unconsciously, everything is struggling towards that goal. The freedom which the saint seeks is very different from that which the robber seeks; the freedom loved by the saint leads him to the enjoyment of infinite, unspeakable bliss, while that on which the robber has set his heart only forges other bonds for his soul.

There is to be found in every religion the manifestation of this struggle towards freedom. It is the groundwork of all morality, of unselfishness, which means getting rid of the idea that men are the same as their little body. When we see a man doing good work, helping others, it means that he cannot be confined within the limited circle of 'me and mine'. There is no limit to this getting out of selfishness. All the great systems of ethics preach absolute unselfishness as the goal. Supposing this absolute unselfishness can be reached by a man, what becomes of him? He is no more the little Mr. So-and-so; he has acquired infinite expansion. That little personality which he had before is now lost to him for ever; he has become infinite, and the attainment of this infinite expansion is indeed the goal of all religions and of all moral and philosophical teachings. The personalist, when he hears this idea philosophically put, gets frightened. At the same time, if he preaches morality, he after all teaches the very same idea himself. He puts no limit to the unselfishness of man. Suppose a man becomes perfectly unselfish under the personalistic system, how are we to distinguish him from the perfected ones in other systems? He has become one with the universe and to become that is the goal of all; only the poor personalist has not the courage to follow out his own reasoning to its right conclusion. Karma-Yoga is the attaining through unselfish work of that freedom which is the goal of all human nature. Every selfish action, therefore, retards our reaching the goal, and every unselfish action takes us towards the goal; that is why the only definition that can be given of morality is this:—That which is selfish is immoral, and that which is unselfish is moral. But, if you come to details, the matter will not be seen to be quite so simple.

For instance, environment often makes the details different as I have already mentioned. The same action under one set of circumstances may be unselfish, and under another set quite selfish. So we can give only a general definition, and leave the details to be worked out by taking into consideration the differences in time, place and circumstances. In one country one kind of conduct is considered moral, and in another the very same is immoral, because the circumstances differ. The goal of all nature is freedom, and freedom is to be attained only by perfect unselfishness; every thought, word or deed that is unselfish takes us towards the goal, and, as such, is called moral. That definition, you will find, holds good in every religion and every system of ethics. In some systems of thought morality is derived from a Superior Being—God. If you ask why a man ought to do this and not that, their answer is:

"Because such is the command of God." But whatever be the source from which it is derived, their code of ethics also has the same central idea—not to think of self but to give up self. And yet some persons, in spite of this high ethical idea, are frightened at the thought of having to give up their little personalities. We may ask the man who clings to the idea of little personalities to consider the case of a person who has become perfectly unselfish, who has no thought for himself, who does no deed for himself, who speaks no word for himself, Band then say where his 'himself' is. That 'himself' is known to him only so long as he thinks, acts or speaks for himself. If he is only conscious of others, of the universe, and of the all, where is his 'himself'? It is gone for ever.

Karma-Yoga, therefore, is a system of ethics and religion intended to attain freedom through unselfishness, and by good works. The Karma-Yogi need not believe in any doctrine whatever. He may not believe even in God, may not ask what his soul is, nor think of any metaphysical speculation. He has got his own special aim of realising selflessness; and he has to work it out himself. Every moment of his life must be realisation because he has to solve by mere work, without the help of doctrine or theory, the very same problem to which the Jnani applies his reason and inspiration and the Bhakta his love.

Now comes the next question: What is this work? What is this doing good to the world? Can we do good to the world? In an absolute sense, no in a relative sense, yes. No permanent or everlasting good can be done to the world; if it could be done, the world would not be this world. We may satisfy the hunger of a man for five minutes, but he will be hungry again. Every pleasure with which we supply a man may be seen to be momentary. No one can permanently cure this ever-recurring fever of pleasure and pain. Can any permanent happiness be given to the world? In the ocean we cannot raise a wave without causing a hollow somewhere else. The sum-total of the good things in the world has been the same throughout in its relation to man's need and greed. It cannot be increased or decreased. Take the history of the human race as we know to-day. Do we not find the same miseries and the same happiness, the same pleasures and pains, the same differences in position? Are not some rich, some poor, some high, some low, some healthy, some unhealthy? All this was just the same with the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans in ancient times as it is with the Americans to-day. So far as history is known, it has always been the same; yet at the same time we find, that running along with all these incurable differences of pleasure and pain, there has ever been the struggle to alleviate them. Every period of history has given birth to thousands of men and women who have worked hard to smooth the passage of life for others. And how far have they succeeded? We can only play at driving the ball from one place to another. We take away pain from the physical plane, and it goes to the mental one. It is like that picture in Dante's hell where the misers were given a mass of gold to roll up a hill. Every time they rolled it up a little, it again rolled down. All our talks about the millennium are very nice as school-boys’ stories, but they are no better than that. All nations that dream of the millennium also think, that of all peoples in the world, they will have the best of it then for themselves. This is the wonderfully unselfish idea of the millennium!

We cannot add happiness to this world; similarly, we cannot add pain to it either. The sum-total of the energies of pleasure and pain displayed here on earth will be the same throughout. We just push it from this side to the other side, and from that side to this, but it will remain the same, because to remain so is its very nature. This ebb and flow, this rising and falling, is in the world's very nature; it would be as logical to hold otherwise as to say that we may have life without death. This is complete nonsense, because the very idea of life implies death and the very idea of pleasure implies pain. The lamp is constantly burning out, and that is its life. If you want to have life you have to die every moment for it. Life and death are only different expressions of the same thing, looked at from different standpoints; they are the falling and the rising of the same wave, and the two form one whole. One looks at the 'fall' side and becomes a pessimist, another looks at the 'rise' side and becomes an optimist. When a boy is going to school and his father and mother are taking care of him, everything seems blessed to him; his wants are simple, he is a great optimist. But the old man, with his varied experience, becomes calmer, and is sure to have his warmth considerably cooled down. So, old nations, with signs of decay all around them, are apt to be less hopeful than new nations. There is a proverb in India. "A thousand years a city, and a thousand years forest." This change of city into forest and vice versa is going on everywhere, and it makes people optimists or pessimists according to the side they see of it.

The next idea we take up is the idea of equality. These millennium ideas have been great motive powers to work. Many religions preach this as an element in them, —that God is coming to rule the universe, and that then there will be no difference at all in conditions. The people who preach this doctrine are mere fanatics, and fanatics are indeed the sincerest of mankind. Christianity was preached just on the basis of the fascination of this fanaticism, and that is what made it so attractive to the Greek and the Roman slaves. They believed that under the millennial religion there would be no more slavery, that there would be plenty to eat and drink; and therefore they flocked round the Christian standard. Those who preached the idea first were of course ignorant fanatics, but very sincere. In modern times this millennial aspiration takes the form of equality—of liberty, equality and fraternity. This is also fanaticism. True equality has never been and never can be on earth. How can we all be equal here?

This impossible kind of equality implies total death. What makes this world what it is? Lost balance. In the primal state, which is called chaos, there is perfect balance. How do all the formative forces of the universe come then? By struggling, competition, conflict. Suppose that all the particles of matter were held in equilibrium, would there be then any process of creation? We know from science that it is impossible. Disturb a sheet of water, and there you find every particle of the water trying to become calm again, one rushing against the other; and in the same way all the phenomena which we call the universe—all things therein—are struggling to get back to the state of perfect balance. Again a disturbance comes, and again we have combination and creation. Inequality is the very basis of creation. At the same time the forces struggling to obtain equality are as much a necessity of creation as those which destroy it.

Absolute equality, that which means a perfect balance of all the struggling forces in all the planes, can never be in this world. Before you attain that state, the world will have become quite unfit for any kind of life, and no one will be there. We find, therefore, that all these ideas of the millennium and of absolute equality are not only impossible but also that, if we try to carry them out, they will lead us surely enough to the day of destruction. What makes the difference between man and man? It is largely the difference in the brain.

Nowadays no one but a lunatic will say that we are all born with the same brain power. We come into the world with unequal endowments; we come as greater men or as lesser men, and there is no getting away from that pre-natally determined condition. The American Indians were in this country for thousands of years, and a few handfuls of your ancestors came to their land. What difference have they caused in the appearance of the country! Why did not the Indians make improvements and build cities, if all were equal? With your ancestors a different sort of brain power came into the land, different bundles of past impressions came, and they worked out and manifested themselves. Absolute non-differentiation is death. So long as this world lasts, differentiation there will and must be, and the millennium of perfect equality will come only when a cycle of creation comes to its end.

Before that equality cannot be. Yet this idea of realising the millennium is a great motive power. Just as inequality is necessary for creation itself, so the struggle to limit it is also necessary. If there were no struggle to become free and get back to God, there would be no creation either. It is the difference between these two forces that determines the nature of the motives of men. There will always be these motives to work, some tending towards bondage and others towards freedom.

This world's wheel within wheel is terrible mechanism; if we put our hands in it, as soon as we are caught we are gone. We all think that when we have done a certain duty, we shall be at rest; but before we have done a part of that duty another is already in waiting. We are all being dragged along by this mighty, complex world-machine. There are only two ways out of it; one is to give up all concern with the machine, to let it go and stand aside, to give up our desires.

That is very easy to say, but is almost impossible to do. I do not know whether in twenty millions of men one can do that. The other way is to plunge into the world and learn the secret of work, and that is the way of Karma-Yoga. Do not fly away from the wheels of the world-machine, but stand inside it and learn the secret of work. Through proper work done inside, it is also possible to come out. Through this machinery itself is the way out.

We have now seen what work is. It is a part of nature's foundation, and goes on always. Those that believe in God understand this better, because they know that God is not such an incapable being as will need our help. Although this universe will go on always, our goal is freedom; our goal is unselfishness; and according to Karma-Yoga that goal is to be reached through work. All ideas of making the world perfectly happy may be good as motive powers for fanatics; but we must know that fanaticism brings forth as much evil as good. The Karma-Yogi asks why you require any motive to work other than the inborn love of freedom. Be beyond the common worthy motives; "To work you have the right, but not to the fruits thereof." Man can train himself to know and to practise that, says the Karma-Yogi. When the idea of doing good becomes a part of his very being, then he will not seek for any motive outside.

Let us do good because it is good to do good; he who does good work even in order to get to heaven binds himself down, says the Karma-Yogi. Any work that is done with any the least selfish motive. instead of making us free, forges one more chain for our feet.

So the only way is to give up all the fruits of work, to be unattached to them. Know that this world is not we, nor are we this world; that we are really not the body; that we really do not work. We are the Self, eternally at rest and at peace. Why should we be bound by anything? It is very good to say that we should be perfectly nonattached, but what is the way to do it? Every good work we do without any ulterior motive, instead of forging a new chain, will break one of the links in the existing chains. Every good thought that we send to the world without thinking of any return, will be stored up there and break one link in the chain, and make us purer and purer, until we become the purest of mortals.

Yet all this may seem to be rather quixotic and too philosophical, more theoretical than practical. I have read many arguments against the Bhagavad-Gita, and many have said that without motives you cannot work. They have never seen unselfish work except under the influence of fanaticism, and therefore they speak in that way.

Let me tell you in conclusion a few words about one man who actually carried this teaching of Karma-Yoga into practice. That man is Buddha. He is the one man who ever carried this into perfect practice. All the prophets of the world, except Buddha, had external motives to move them to unselfish action. The prophets of the world, with this single exception, may be divided into two sets, one set holding that they are incarnations of God come down on earth, and the other holding that they are only messengers from God; and both draw their impetus for work from outside, expect reward from outside, however highly spiritual may be the language they use. But Buddha is the only prophet who said, "I do not care to know your various theories about God. What is the use of discussing all the subtle doctrines about the soul? Do good and be good. And this will take you to freedom and to whatever truth there is." He was, in the conduct of his life, absolutely without personal motives; and what man worked more than he? Show me in history one character who has soared so high above all.

The whole human race has produced but one such character, such high philosophy, such wide sympathy. This great philosopher, preaching the highest philosophy, yet had the deepest sympathy for the lowest of animals, and never put forth any claims for himself. He is the ideal Karma-Yogi, acting entirely without motive, and the history of humanity shows him to have been the greatest man ever born; beyond compare the greatest combination of heart and brain that ever existed, the greatest soul-power that has ever been manifested. He is the first great reformer the world has seen. He was the first who dared to say, "Believe not because some old manuscripts are produced, believe not because it is your national belief, because you have been made to believe it from your childhood; but reason it all out, and after you have analysed it, then, if you find that it will do good to one and all believe it, live up to it, and help others to live up to it." He works best who works without any motive, neither for money, nor for fame, nor for anything else; and when a man can do that, he will be a Buddha, and out of him will come the power to work in such a manner as will transform the world. This man represents the very highest ideal of Karma-Yoga.

Karma-Yoga. Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII.
FREEDOM.

In addition to meaning work, we have stated that psychologically the word Karma also implies causation. Any work, any action, any thought that produces an effect is called a Karma. Thus the law of Karma means the law of causation, of inevitable cause and sequence. Wheresoever there is a cause, there an effect must be produced; this necessity cannot be resisted, and this law of Karma, according to our philosophy, is true throughout the whole universe.

Whatever we see, or feel, or do, whatever action there is anywhere in the universe, while being the effect of past work on the one hand, becomes, on the other, a cause in its turn, and produces its own effect. It is necessary, together with this, to consider what is meant by the word 'law.' By law is meant the tendency of a series to repeat itself. When we see one event followed by another, or sometimes happening simultaneously with another, we expect this sequence or co-existence to recur. Our old logicians and philosophers of the Nyâya school call this law by the name of Vyâpti.

According to them all our ideas of law are due to association. A series of phenomena becomes associated with things in our mind in a sort of invariable order, so that whatever we perceive at any time is immediately referred to other facts in the mind. Any one idea or, according to our psychology, any one wave that is produced in the mind-stuff, chitta, must always give rise to many similar waves. This is the psychological idea of association, and causation is only an aspect of this grand pervasive principle of association. This pervasiveness of association is what is, in Sanskrit, called Vyâpti. In the external world the idea of law is the same as in the internal,—the expectation that a particular phenomenon will be followed by another, and that the series will repeat itself.

Really speaking, therefore, law does not exist in nature. Practically it is an error to say that gravitation exists in the earth, or that there is any law existing objectively anywhere in nature. Law is the method, the manner in which our mind grasps a series of phenomena; it is all in the mind. Certain phenomena, happening one after another or together, and followed by the conviction of the regularity of their recurrence, thus enabling our minds to grasp the method of the whole series, constitute what we call law.

The next question for consideration is what we mean by law being universal. Our universe is that portion of existence which is characterised by what the Sanskrit psychologists call desa-kâla-nimitta, or what is known to European psychology as space, time and causation. This universe is only a part of infinite existence, thrown into a peculiar mould, composed of space, time and causation. It necessarily follows that law is possible only within this conditioned universe; beyond it there cannot be any law.

When we speak of the universe we only mean that portion of existence which is limited by our mind; the universe of the senses, which we can see, feel, touch, hear, think of, imagine; this alone is under law; but beyond it existence cannot be subject to law, because causation does not extend beyond the world of our minds. Anything beyond the range of our mind and our senses is not bound by the law of causation, as there is no mental association of things in the region beyond the senses, and no causation without association of ideas. It is only when 'being' or existence gets moulded into name and form that it obeys the law of causation, and is said to be under law; because all law has its essence in causation.

Therefore, we see at once that there cannot be any such thing as free will; the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know, and everything that we know is within our universe, and everything within our universe is moulded by the conditions of space, time and causation. Everything that we know, or can possibly know, must be subject to causation, and that which obeys the law of causation cannot be free. It is acted upon by other agents, and becomes a cause in its turn. But that which has become converted into the will, which was not the will before, but which, when it fell into this mould of space, time and causation, became converted into the human will, is free; and when this will gets out of this mould of space, time and causation, it will be free again. From freedom it comes, and becomes moulded into this bondage, and it gets out and goes back to freedom again.

The question has been raised as to from whom this universe comes, in whom it rests, and to whom it goes; and the answer has been given that from freedom it comes, in bondage it rests, and goes back into that freedom again. So, when we speak of man as no other than that infinite being which is manifesting itself, we mean that only one very small part thereof is man; this body and this mind which we see are only one part of the whole, only one spot of the infinite being. This whole universe is only one speck of the infinite being; and all our laws, our bondages, our joys and our sorrows, our happinesses and our expectations, are only within this small universe; all our progression and digression are within its small compass. So you see how childish it is to expect a continuation of this universe—the creation of our minds—and to expect to go to heaven, which after all must mean only a repetition of this world that we know.

You see at once that it is an impossible and childish desire to make the whole of infinite existence conform to the limited and conditioned existence which we know. When a man says that he will have again and again this same thing which he is having now, or, as I sometimes put it, when he asks for a comfortable religion, you may know that he has become so degenerate that he cannot think of anything higher than what he is now; he is just his little present surroundings and nothing more. He has forgotten his infinite nature, and his whole idea is confined to these little joys, and sorrows, and heart-jealousies of the moment. He thinks that this finite thing is the infinite; and not only so, he will not let this foolishness go. He clings on desperately unto Trishnâ, the thirst after life, what the Buddhists call Tanha and Trissâ. There may be millions of kinds of happiness, and beings, and laws, and progress, and causation, all acting outside the little universe that we know, and after all the whole of this comprises but one section of our infinite nature.

To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe; it cannot be found here. Perfect equilibrium, or what the Christians call the peace that passeth all understanding, cannot be had in this universe, nor in heaven, nor in any place where our mind and thoughts can go, where the senses can feel, or which the imagination can conceive. No such place can give us that freedom, because all such places would be within our universe, and it is limited by space, time and causation.

There may be places that are more etherial than this earth of ours, where enjoyments may be keener, but even those places must be in the universe, and therefore in bondage to law; so we have to go beyond, and real religion begins where this little universe ends. These little joys, and sorrows, and knowledge of things end there, and the reality begins. Until we give up the thirst after life, the strong attachment to this our transient conditioned existence, we have no hope of catching even a glimpse of that infinite freedom beyond.

It stands to reason then that there is only one way to attain to that freedom which is the goal of all the noblest aspirations of mankind, and that is by giving up this little life, giving up this little universe, giving up this earth, giving up heaven, giving up the body, giving up the mind, giving up everything that is limited and conditioned. If we give up our attachment to this little universe of the senses, or of the mind, we shall be free immediately. The only way to come out of bondage is to go beyond the limitations of law, to go beyond causation.

But it is a most difficult thing to give up the clinging to this universe; few ever attain to that. There are two ways to do that, mentioned in our books. One is called the 'neti, neti' (not this, not this), the other is called the 'iti' (this); the former is the negative, and the latter is the positive way. The negative way is the most difficult. It is only possible to the men of the very highest, exceptional minds and gigantic wills who simply stand up and say, "No, I will not have this," and the mind and body obey their will, and they come out successful. But such people are very rare. The vast majority of mankind choose the positive way, the way through the world, making use of all the bondages themselves to break those very bondages. This is also a kind of giving up; only it is done slowly and gradually, by knowing things, enjoying things and thus obtaining experience, and knowing the nature of things until the mind lets them all go at last and becomes unattached.

The former way of obtaining non-attachment is by reasoning, and the latter way is through work and experience. The first is the path of Jnana-Yoga, and is characterised by the refusal to do any work; the second is that of Karma-Yoga, in which there is no cessation from work. Every one must work in the universe. Only those who are perfectly satisfied with the Self, whose desires do not go beyond the Self, whose mind never strays out of the Self, to whom the Self is all in all, only those do not work. The rest must work.

A current rushing down of its own nature falls into a hollow and makes a whirlpool, and, after running a little in that whirlpool, it emerges again in the form of the free current to go on unchecked.

Each human life is like that current. It gets into the whirl, gets involved in this world of space, time and causation, whirls round a little, crying out 'my father, my brother, my name, my fame,' and so on, and at last emerges out of it and regains its original freedom. The whole universe is doing that. Whether we know it or not, whether we are conscious or unconscious of it, we are all working to get out of the dream of the world. Man's experience in the world is to enable him to get out of its whirlpool.

What is Karma-Yoga? The knowledge of the secret of work. We see that the whole universe is working. For what? For salvation, for liberty; from the atom to the highest being working for the one end, liberty for the mind, for the body, for the spirit. All things are always trying to get freedom, flying away from bondage. The sun, the moon, the earth, the planets, all are trying to fly away from bondage. The centrifugal and the centripetal forces of nature are indeed typical of our universe.

Instead of being knocked about in this universe, and after long delay and thrashing, getting to know things as they are, we learn from Karma-Yoga the secret of work, the method of work, the organising power of work. A vast mass of energy may be spent in vain, if we do not know how to utilise it. Karma-Yoga makes a science of work, you learn by it how best to utilise all the working of this world. Work is inevitable, it must be so; but we should work to the highest purpose.

Karma-Yoga makes us admit that this world is a world of five minutes; that it is a something we have to pass through; and that freedom is not here, but is only to be found beyond. To find the way out of the bondages of the world we have to go through it slowly and surely. There may be those exceptional persons about whom I just spoke, those who can stand aside and give up the world, as a snake casts off its skin and stands aside and looks at it. There are no doubt these exceptional beings; but the rest of mankind have to go slowly through the world of work; Karma-Yoga shows the process, the secret and the method of doing it to the best advantage.

What does it say? "Work incessantly, but give up all attachment to work." Do not identify yourself with anything. Hold your mind free. All this that you see, the pains and the miseries are but the necessary conditions of this world; poverty and wealth and happiness are but momentary; they do not belong to our real nature at all. Our nature is far beyond misery and happiness, beyond every object of the senses, beyond the imagination; and yet we must go on working all the time. "Misery comes through attachment, not through work." As soon as we identify ourselves with the work we do, we feel miserable; but if we do not identify ourselves with it we do not feel that misery.

If a beautiful picture belonging to another is burnt, a man does not generally become miserable; but when his own picture is burnt how miserable he feels Why? Both were beautiful pictures, perhaps copies of the same original; but in one case very much more misery is felt than in the other. It is because in one case he identifies himself with the picture, and not in the other. This 'I and mine' causes the whole misery. With the sense of possession comes selfishness, and selfishness brings on misery.

Every act of selfishness or thought of selfishness makes us attached to something, and immediately we are made slaves. Each wave in the chitta that says 'I and mine,' immediately puts a chain round us and makes us slaves; and the more we say 'I and mine' the more slavery grows, the more misery increases. Therefore, Karma-Yoga tells us to enjoy the beauty of all the pictures in the world, but not to identify ourselves with any of them.

Never say 'mine.' Whenever we say a thing is mine, misery will immediately come. Do not even say 'my child' in your mind. Possess the child, but do not say 'mine.' If you do, then will come the misery. Do not say 'my house,' do not say 'my body.' The whole difficulty is there. The body is neither yours, nor mine, nor anybody's. These bodies are coming and going by the laws of nature but we are free, standing as witness. This body is no more free than a picture, or a wall. Why should we be attached so much to a body? If somebody paints a picture, he does it and passes on. Do not project that tentacle of selfishness, "I must possess it." As soon as that is projected, misery will begin.

So Karma-Yoga says, first destroy the tendency to project this tentacle of selfishness, and when you have the power of checking it, hold it in and do not allow the mind to get into the wave of selfishness. Then you may go out into the world and work as much as you can. Mix everywhere; go where you please; you will never be contaminated with evil. There is the lotus leaf in the water; the water cannot touch and adhere to it; so will you be in the world.

This is called 'Vairâgya,' dispassion or non-attachment. I believe I have told you that without non-attachment there cannot be any kind of Yoga. Non-attachment is the basis of all the Yogas. The man who gives up living in houses, wearing fine clothes, and eating good food, and goes into the desert, may be a most attached person. His only possession, his own body, may become everything to him; and as he lives he will be simply struggling for the sake of his body. Non-attachment does not mean anything that we may do in relation to our external body, it is all in the mind.

The binding link of 'I and mine' is in the mind. If we have not this link with the body and with the things of the senses, we are nonattached, wherever and whatever we may be. A man may be on a throne and perfectly non-attached; another man may be in rags and still very much attached. First, we have to attain this state of non-attachment, and then to work incessantly. Karma-Yoga gives us the method that will help us in giving up all attachment, though it is indeed very hard.

Here are the two ways of giving up all attachment. The one is for those who do not believe in God, or in any outside help. They are left to their own devices; they have simply to work with their own will, with the powers of their mind and discrimination, saying, "I must be nonattached." For those who believe in God there is another way, which is much less difficult. They give up the fruits of work unto the Lord, they work and are never attached to the results. Whatever they see, feel, hear, or do, is for Him. For whatever good work we may do, let us not claim any praise or benefit. It is the Lord's; give up the fruits unto Him. Let us stand aside and think that we are only servants obeying the Lord, our Master, and that every impulse for action comes from Him every moment.

Whatever thou worshippest, whatever thou perceivest, whatever thou doest, give up all unto Him and be at rest. Let us be at peace, perfect peace, with ourselves, and give up our whole body and mind and everything as an eternal sacrifice unto the Lord. Instead of the sacrifice of pouring oblations into the fire, perform this one great sacrifice day and night—the sacrifice of your little self. "In search of wealth in this world, Thou art the only wealth I have found; I sacrifice myself unto Thee. In search of some one to be loved, Thou art the only one beloved I have found; I sacrifice myself unto Thee." Let us repeat this day and night, and say, "Nothing for me; no matter whether the thing is good, bad, or indifferent; I do not care for it; I sacrifice all unto Thee." Day and night let us renounce our seeming self until it becomes a habit with us to do so, until it gets into the blood, the nerves and the brain, and the whole body is every moment obedient to this idea of self-renunciation. Go then into the midst of the battlefield, with the roaring cannon and the din of war, and you will find yourself to be free and at peace.

Karma-Yoga teaches us that the ordinary idea of duty is on the lower plane; nevertheless, all of us have to do our duty. Yet we may see that this peculiar sense of duty is very often a great cause of misery. Duty becomes a disease with us; it drags us ever forward. It catches hold of us and makes our whole life miserable. It is the bane of human life. This duty, this idea of duty is the midday summer sun which scorches the innermost soul of mankind. Look at those poor slaves to duty! Duty leaves them no time to say prayers, no time to bathe.

Duty is ever on them. They go out and work. Duty is on them! They come home and think of the work for the next day. Duty is on them! It is living a slave's life, at last dropping down in the street and dying in harness, like a horse.

This is duty as it is understood. The only true duty is to be unattached and to work as free beings, to give up all work unto God. All our duties are His.

Blessed are we that we are ordered out here. We serve our time; whether we do it ill or well, who knows? If we do it well, we do not get the fruits. If we do it ill, neither do we get the care. Be at rest, be free, and work. This kind of freedom is a very hard thing to attain. How easy it is to interpret slavery as duty—the morbid attachment of flesh for flesh as duty! Men go out into the world and struggle and fight for money or for any other thing to which they get attached. Ask them why they do it. They say, "It is a duty." It is the absurd greed for gold and gain, and they try to cover it with a few flowers.

What is duty after all? It is really the impulsion of the flesh, of our attachment; and when an attachment has become established, we call it duty. For instance, in countries where there is no marriage, there is no duty between husband and wife; when marriage comes, husband and wife live together on account of attachment; and that kind of living together becomes settled after generations; and when it becomes so settled, it becomes a duty. It is, so to say, a sort of chronic disease. 'When it is acute we call it disease, when it is chronic we call it nature. It is a disease. So when attachment becomes chronic, we baptise it with the high-sounding name of duty. We strew flowers upon it, trumpets sound for it, sacred texts are said over it, and then the whole world fights, and men earnestly rob each other for this duty's sake.

Duty is good to the extent that it checks brutality. To the lowest kinds of men, who cannot have any other ideal, it is of some good; but those who want to be Karma-Yogis must throw this idea of duty overboard. There is no duty for you and me.

Whatever you have to give to the world, do give by all means, but not as a duty. Do not take any thought of that. Be not compelled. Why should you be compelled?

Everything that you do under compulsion goes to build up attachment. Why should you have any duty? Resign everything unto God. In this tremendous fiery furnace where the fire of duty scorches everybody, drink this cup of nectar and be happy. We are all simply working out His will, and have nothing to do with rewards and punishments. If you want the reward you must also have the punishment; the only way to get out of the punishment is to give up the reward. The only way of getting out of misery is by giving up the idea of happiness, because these two are linked to each other. On one side there is happiness, on the other there is misery. On one side there is life, on the other there is death. The only way to get beyond death is to give up the love of life.

Life and death are the same thing, looked at from different points. So the idea of happiness without misery, or of life without death, is very good for school-boys and children; but the thinker sees that it is all a contradiction in terms and gives up both. Seek no praise, no reward, for anything you do. No sooner do we perform a good action than we begin to desire credit for it. No sooner do we give money to some charity than we want to see our names blazoned in the papers. Misery must come as the result of such desires. The greatest men in the world have passed away unknown. The Buddhas and the Christs that we know are but second rate heroes in comparison with the greatest men of whom the world knows nothing.

Hundreds of these unknown heroes have lived in every country working silently. Silently they live and silently they pass away; and in time their thoughts find expression in Buddhas or Christs, and it is these latter that become known to us.

The highest men do not seek to get any name or fame from their knowledge. They leave their ideas to the world; they put forth no claims for themselves and establish no schools or systems in their name. Their whole nature shrinks from such a thing. They are the pure Sâttvikas, who can never make any stir, but only melt down in love. I have seen one such Yogi who lives in a cave in India. He is one of the most wonderful men I have ever seen. He has so completely lost the sense of his own individuality that we may say that the man in him is completely gone, leaving behind only the all-comprehending sense of the divine. If an animal bites one of his arms, he is ready to give it his other arm also, and say that it is the Lord's will. Everything that comes to him is from the Lord. He does not show himself to men, and yet he is a magazine of love and of true and sweet ideas.

Next in order come the men with more Rajas, or activity, combative natures, who take up the ideas of the perfect ones and preach them to the world. The highest kind of men silently collect true and noble ideas, and others—the Buddhas and Christs—go from place to place preaching them and working for them. In the life of Gautama Buddha we notice him constantly saying that he is the twenty-fifth Buddha. The twenty-four before him are unknown to history, although the Buddha known to history must have built upon foundations laid by them.

The highest men are calm, silent and unknown. They are the men who really know the power of thought; they are sure that, even if they go into a cave and close the door and simply think five true thoughts and then pass away, these five thoughts of their will live through eternity. Indeed such thoughts will penetrate through the mountains, cross the oceans, and travel through the world. They will enter deep into human hearts and brains and raise up men and women who will give them practical expression in the workings of human life. These Sâttvika men are too near the Lord to be active and to fight, to be working, struggling, preaching and doing good, as they say, here on earth to humanity.

The active workers, however good, have still a little remnant of ignorance left in them. When our nature has yet some impurities left in it, then alone can we work. It is in the nature of work to be impelled ordinarily by motive and by attachment. In the presence of an ever active Providence who notes even the sparrows fall, how can man attach any importance to his own work? Will it not be a blasphemy to do so when we know that He is taking care of the minutest things in the world? We have only to
stand in awe and reverence before Him saying, "Thy will be done." The highest men cannot work, for in them there is no attachment. Those whose whole soul is gone into the Self, those whose desires are confined in the Self, who have become ever associated with the Self, for them there is no work. Such are indeed the highest of mankind; but apart from them every one else has to work. In so working we should never think that we can help on even the least thing in this universe. We cannot. We only help ourselves in this gymnasium of the world. This is the proper attitude of work. If we work in this way, if we always remember that our present opportunity to work thus is a privilege which has been given to us, we shall never be attached to anything. Millions like you and me think that we are great people in the world; but we all die, and in five minutes the world will have forgotten us.

But the life of God is infinite. "Who can live a moment, breathe a moment, if this all-powerful One does not will it?" He is the ever active Providence. All power is His and within His command. Through His command the winds blow, the sun shines, the earth lives, and death stalks upon the earth. He is the all in all; He is all and in all. We can only worship Him. Give up all fruits of work; do good for its own sake; then alone will come perfect non-attachment. The bonds of the heart will thus break, and we shall reap perfect freedom. This freedom is indeed the goal of Karma-Yoga.

Karma-Yoga. Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI.
NON-ATTACHMENT IS COMPLETE SELF-ABNEGATION.

Just as every action that emanates from us comes back to us as reaction, even so our actions may act on other people and theirs on us. Perhaps all of you have observed it as a fact that when persons do evil actions they become more and more evil, and when they begin to do good they become stronger and stronger and learn to do good at all times.

This intensification of the influence of action cannot be explained on any other ground, than that we can act and react upon each other. To take an illustration from physical science, when I am doing a certain action, my mind may be said to be in a certain state of vibration; all minds which are in similar circumstances will have the tendency to be affected by my mind.

If there are different musical instruments tuned alike in one room, all of you may have noticed that when one is struck the others have the tendency to vibrate so as to give the same note. So all minds that have the same tension, so to say, will be equally affected by the same thought.

Of course, this influence of thought on mind will vary, according to distance and other causes, but the mind is always open to affection. Suppose I am doing an evil act, my mind is in a certain state of vibration, and all minds in the universe, which are in a similar state, have the possibility of being affected by the vibration of my mind. So, when I am doing a good action, my mind is in another state of vibration; and all minds similarly strung have the possibility of being affected by my mind; and this power of mind upon mind is more or less according as the force of the tension is greater or less.

Following this simile further, it is quite possible that, just as light waves may travel for millions of years before they reach any object, so thought waves may also travel hundreds of years before they meet an object with which they vibrate in unison. It is quite possible, therefore, that this atmosphere of ours is full of such thought pulsations, both good and evil. Every thought projected from every brain goes on pulsating, as it were, until it meets a fit object that will receive it.

Any mind which is open to receive some of these impulses will take them immediately. So, when a man is doing evil actions, he has brought his mind to a certain state of tension and all the waves which correspond to that state of tension, and which may be said to be already in the atmosphere, will struggle to enter into his mind. That is why an evil-doer generally goes on doing more and more evil. His actions become intensified. Such, also, will be the case with the doer of good; he will open himself to all the good waves that are in the atmosphere, and his good actions also will become intensified. We run, therefore, a twofold danger in doing evil: first, we open ourselves to all the evil influences surrounding us; secondly, we create evil which affects others, may be, hundreds of years hence. In doing evil we injure ourselves and others also. In doing good we do good to ourselves and to others as well; and, like all other forces in man, these forces of good and evil also gather strength from outside.

According to Karma-Yoga, the action one has done cannot be destroyed, until it has borne its fruit; no power in nature can stop it from yielding its results.

If I do an evil action, I must suffer for it; there is no power in this universe to stop or stay it. Similarly if I do a good action, there is no power in the universe which can stop its bearing good results. The cause must have its effect; nothing can prevent or restrain this. Now comes a very fine and serious question about Karma-Yoga—namely, that these actions of ours, both good and evil, are intimately connected with each other. We cannot put a line of demarcation and say, this action is entirely good and this entirely evil.

There is no action which does not bear good and evil fruits at the same time. To take the nearest example: I am talking to you, and some of you, perhaps, think I am doing good; and at the same time I am, perhaps, killing thousands of microbes in the atmosphere; I am thus doing evil to something else. When it is very near to us and affects those we know, we say that it is very good action, if it affects them in a good manner. For instance, you may call my speaking to you very good, but the microbes will not; the microbes you do not see, but yourselves you do see.

The way in which my talk affects you is obvious to you, but how it affects the microbes is not so obvious. And so, if we analyse our evil actions also we may find that some good possibly results from them somewhere. He who in good action sees that there is something evil in it, and in the midst of evil sees that there is something good in it somewhere, —has known the secret of work.

But what follows from it? That, howsoever we may try, there cannot be any action which is perfectly pure, or any which is perfectly impure, taking purity and impurity in the sense of injury and non-injury. We cannot breathe or live without injuring others, and every bit of the food we eat is taken away from another's mouth: our very lives are crowding out other lives. It may be men, or animals, or small microbes, but some one or other of these we have to crowd out.

That being the case, it naturally follows that perfection can never be attained by work. We may work through all eternity, but there will be no way out of this intricate maze; you may work on, and on, and on; there will be no end to this inevitable association of good and evil in the results of work.

The second point to consider is, what is the end of work? We find the vast majority of people in every country believing that there will be a time when this world will become perfect, when there will be no disease, or death, or unhappiness, or wickedness. That is a very good idea, a very good motive power to inspire and uplift the ignorant; but if we think for a moment we shall find on the very face of it that it cannot be so.

How can it be, seeing that good and evil are the obverse and reverse of the same coin? How can you have good without evil at the same time? What is meant by perfection? A perfect life is a contradiction in terms. Life itself is a state of continuous struggle between ourselves and everything outside. Every moment we are fighting actually with external nature, and if we are defeated our life has to go.

It is, for instance, a continuous struggle for food and air. If food or air fails we die. Life is not a simple and smoothly flowing thing, but it is a compound effect. This complex struggle between something inside and the external world is what we call life. So it is clear that when this struggle ceases, there will be an end of life.

What is meant by ideal happiness is that,—when there is the cessation of this struggle. But then life will cease, for the struggle can only cease when life itself has ceased. We have seen already that in helping the world we help ourselves. The main effect of work done for others is to purify ourselves.

By means of the constant effort to do good to others we are trying to forget ourselves; this forgetfulness of self is the one great lesson we have to learn in life. Man thinks foolishly that he can make himself happy, and after years of struggle finds out at last that true happiness consists in killing selfishness and that no one can make him happy except himself. Every act of charity, every thought of sympathy, every action of help, every good deed, is taking so much of self-importance away from our little selves and making us think of ourselves as the lowest and the least; and, therefore, it is all good.

Here we find that Jnana, Bhakti, and Karma, all come to one point. The highest ideal is eternal and entire self-abnegation, where there is no "I," but all is "thou"; and whether he is conscious, or unconscious of it Karma-Yoga leads man to that end. A religious preacher may become horrified at the idea of an impersonal God; he may insist on a personal God and wish to keep up his own identity and individuality, whatever he may mean by that. But his ideas of ethics, if they are really good, cannot but be based on the highest self-abnegation. It is the basis of all morality; you may extend it to men, or animals, or angels, it is the one basic idea, the one fundamental principle running through all ethical systems.

You will find various classes of men in this world. First, there are the God-men, whose self-abnegation is complete, and who do only good to others even at the sacrifice of their own lives. These are the highest of men. If there are a hundred of such in any country, that country need never despair. But they are unfortunately too few. Then there are the good men who do good to others so long as it does not injure themselves; and there is a third class, who, to do good to themselves, injure others. It is said by a Sanskrit poet that there is a fourth unnameable class of people who injure others merely for injury's sake. Just as there are at one pole of existence the highest good men, who do good for the sake of doing good, so, at the other pole, there are others who injure others just for the sake of the injury. They do not gain anything thereby, but it is their nature to do evil.

Here are two Sanskrit words. The one is "Pravritti," which means revolving towards, and the other is "Nivritti," which means revolving away. The "revolving towards" is what we call the world, the "I and mine"; it includes all those things which are always enriching that "me" by wealth and money and power, and name and fame, and which are of a grasping nature, always tending to accumulate everything in one centre, that centre being "myself."

That is the "Pravatti," the natural tendency of every human being; taking everything from everywhere and heaping it around one centre, that centre being man's own sweet self. When this tendency begins to break, when it is "Nivritti" or "going away from," then begin morality and religion. Both "Pravritti" and "Nivritti" are of the nature of work: the former is evil work, and the latter is good work.

This "Nivritti" is the fundamental basis of all morality and all religion, and the very perfection of it is entire self-abnegation, readiness to sacrifice mind and body and everything for another being. When a man has reached that state he has attained to the perfection of Karma-Yoga. This is the highest result of good works.

Although a man has not studied a single system of philosophy, although he does not believe in any God, and never has believed, although he has not prayed even once in his whole life, if the simple power of good actions has brought him to that state where he is ready to give up his life and all else for others, he has arrived at the same point to which the religious man will come through his prayers and the philosopher through his knowledge; and so you may find that the philosopher, the worker, and the devotee, all meet at one point, that one point being self-abnegation.

However much their systems of philosophy and religion may differ, all mankind stand in reverence and awe before the man who is ready to sacrifice himself for others. Here, it is not at all any question of creed, or doctrine—even men who are very much opposed to all religious ideas, when they see one of these acts of complete self-sacrifice, feel that they must revere it.

Have you not seen even a most bigoted Christian, when he reads Edwin Arnold's "Light of Asia," stand in reverence of Buddha, who preached no God, preached nothing but self-sacrifice? The only thing is that the bigot does not know that his own end and aim in life is exactly the same as that of those from whom he differs. The worshipper, by keeping constantly before him the idea of God and a surrounding of good, comes to the same point at last and says, "Thy will be done," and keeps nothing to himself. That is self-abnegation. The philosopher, with his knowledge, sees that the seeming self is a delusion and easily gives it up; it is
self-abnegation. So Karma, Bhakti and Jnana all meet here; and this is what was meant by all the great preachers of ancient times, when they taught that God is not the world. There is one thing which is the world and another which is God; and this distinction is very true; what they mean by world is selfishness.

Unselfishness is God. One may live on a throne, in a golden palace, and be perfectly unselfish; and then he is in God. Another may live in a hut and wear rags, and have nothing in the world; yet, if he is selfish, he is intensely merged in the world.

To come back to one of our main points, we say that we cannot do good without at the same time doing some evil, or do evil without doing some good. Knowing this, how can we work? There have therefore been sects in this world who have in an astoundingly preposterous way preached slow suicide as the only means to get out of the world; because, if a man lives he has to kill poor little animals and plants or do injury to something or some one. So, according to them the only way out of the world is to die. The Jainas have preached this doctrine as their highest ideal. This teaching seems to be very logical. But the true solution is found in the Gita. It is the theory of non-attachment, to be attached to nothing while doing our work of life. Know that you are separated entirely from the world; that you are in the world, and that whatever you may be doing in it, you are not doing that for your own sake. Any action that you do for yourself will bring its effect to bear upon you. If it is a good action you will have to take the good effect, and, if bad, you will have to take the bad effect; but any action that is not done for your own sake, whatever it be, will have no effect on you. There is to be found a very expressive sentence in our scriptures embodying this idea: —"Even if he kill the whole universe (or be himself killed) he is neither the killer nor the killed, when he knows that he is not acting for himself at all."

Therefore Karma-Yoga teaches, "Do not give up the world; live in the world, imbibe its influences as much as you can; but if it be for your own enjoyment's sake—work not at all. Enjoyment should not be the goal. First kill your self and then take the whole world as yourself; as the old Christians used to say, "the old man must die." This old man is the selfish idea that the whole world is made for our enjoyment. Foolish parents teach their children to pray, "O Lord, Thou hast created this sun for me and this moon for me," as if the Lord has had nothing else to do than to create everything for these babies. Do not teach your children such nonsense. Then again, there are people who are foolish in another way; they teach us that all these animals were created for us to kill and eat, and that this universe is for the enjoyment of men. That is all foolishness.

A tiger may say, "Man was created for me," and pray, "O Lord, how wicked are these
men, who do not come and place themselves before me to be eaten; they are breaking Your law." If the world is created for us we are also created for the world. That this world is created for our enjoyment is the most wicked idea that holds us down. This world is not for our sake; millions pass out of it every year; the world does not feel it; millions of others are supplied in their place. Just as much as the world is for us, so we are also for the world.

To work properly, therefore, you have first to give up the idea of attachment.

Secondly, do not mix in the fray, hold yourself as a witness and go on working.

My master used to say, "Look upon your children as a nurse does." The nurse will take your baby and fondle it and play with it and behave towards it as gently as if it were her own child; but as soon as you give her notice to quit, she is ready to start off with bag and baggage from the house. Everything in the shape of attachment is forgotten; it will not give the ordinary nurse the least pang to leave your children and take up other children. Even so are you to be with all that you consider your own. You are the nurse, and if you believe in God, believe that all these things which you consider yours are really His.

The greatest weakness often insinuates itself as the greatest good and strength. It is a weakness to think that any one is dependent on me, and that I can do good to another. This belief is the mother of all our attachment, and through this attachment comes all our pain. We must inform our minds that no one in this universe depends upon us; not one beggar depends on our charity; not one soul on our kindness; not one living thing on our help. All are helped on by nature, and will be so helped even though millions of us were not here. The course of nature will not stop for such as you and me; it is, as already pointed out, only a blessed privilege to you and to me that we are allowed, in the way of helping others, to educate ourselves.

This is a great lesson to learn in life, and when we have learned it fully we shall
never be unhappy; we can go and mix without harm in society anywhere and everywhere. You may have wives and husbands, and regiments of servants, and kingdoms to govern; if only you act on the principle that the world is not for you and does not inevitably need you, they can do you no harm. This very year some of your friends may have died.

Is the world waiting without going on, for them to come again. Is its current stopped? No, it goes on. So drive out of your mind the idea that you have to do something for the world; the world does not require any help from you. It is sheer nonsense on the part of any man to think that he is born to help the world; it is simply pride, it is selfishness insinuating itself in the form of virtue. When you have trained your mind and your nerves to realise this idea of the world's non-dependence on you or on anybody, there will then be no reaction in the form of pain resulting from work.

When you give something to a man and expect nothing—do not even expect the man to be grateful—his ingratitude will not tell upon you, because you never expected anything, never thought you had any right to anything in the way of a return; you gave him what he deserved; his own Karma got it for him; your Karma made you the carrier thereof. Why should you be proud of having given away something? You are the porter that carried the money or other kind of gift, and the world deserved it by its own Karma. Where is then the reason for pride in you? There is nothing very great in what you give to the world.

When you have acquired the feeling of non-attachment, there will then be neither good nor evil for you. It is only selfishness that causes the difference between good and evil. It is a very hard thing to understand, but you will come to learn in time that nothing in the universe has power over you until you allow it to exercise such a power.

Nothing has power over the Self of man, until the Self becomes a fool and loses
independence. So, by non-attachment, you overcome and deny the power of anything to act upon you. It is very easy to say that nothing has the right to act upon you until you allow it to do so; but what is the true sign of the man who really does not allow anything to work upon him, who is neither happy nor unhappy when acted upon by the external world? The sign is that good or ill fortune causes no change in his mind; in all conditions he continues to remain the same.

There was a great sage in India called Vyasa. This Vyasa is known as the author of the Vedanta aphorisms, and was a holy man. His father had tried to become a very perfect man and had failed. His grandfather had also tried and failed. His great-grandfather had similarly tried and failed. He himself did not succeed perfectly, but his son, Shuka, was born perfect. Vyasa taught his son wisdom; and after teaching him the knowledge of truth himself, he sent him to the court of King Janaka. He was a great king and was called Janaka Videha.

Videha means "without a body." Although a king, he had entirely forgotten that he was a body; he felt that he was a spirit all the time. This boy Shuka was sent to be taught by him. The king knew that Vyasa's son was coming to him to learn wisdom; so he made certain arrangements beforehand; and when the boy presented himself at the gates of the palace, the guards took no notice of him whatsoever. They only gave him a seat, and he sat there for three days and nights, nobody speaking to him, nobody asking him who he was or whence he was. He was the son of a very great sage; his father was honoured by the whole country, and he himself was a most respectable person; yet the low, vulgar guards of the palace would take no notice of him. After that, suddenly, the ministers of the king and all the big officials came there and received him with the greatest honours. They conducted him in and showed him into splendid rooms, gave him the most fragrant baths and wonderful dresses, and for eight days they kept him there in all kinds of luxury. That solemnly serene face of Shuka did not change even to the smallest extent by the change in the treatment accorded to him; he was the same in the midst of this luxury as when waiting at the door. Then he was brought before the king. The king was on his throne, music was playing, and dancing and other amusements were going on. The king then gave him a cup of milk, full to the brim, and asked him to go seven times round the hall without spilling even a drop. The boy took the scup and proceeded in the midst of the music and the attraction of the beautiful faces. As desired by the king, seven times did he go round, and not a drop of the milk was spilt. The boy's mind could not be attracted by anything in the world, unless he allowed it to affect him. And when he brought the cup to the king, the king said to him. "What your father has taught you, and what you have learned yourself, I can only repeat; you have known the truth; go home."

Thus the man that has practised control over himself cannot be acted upon by anything outside; there is no more slavery for him. His mind has become free; such a man alone is fit to live well in the world. We generally find men holding two opinions regarding the world. Some are pessimists and say, "How horrible this world is, how wicked!" Some others are optimists and say, "How beautiful this world is, how wonderful!" To those who have not controlled their own minds, the world is either full of evil or at best a mixture of good and evil.

This very world will become to us an optimistic world when we become masters of our own minds. Nothing will then work upon us as good or evil; we shall find everything to be in its proper place, to be harmonious. Some men, who begin by saying that the world is a hell, often end by saying that it is a heaven when they succeed in the practice of self-control. If we are genuine Karma-Yogis and wish to train ourselves to the attainment of this state, wherever we may begin we are sure to end in perfect self-abnegation; and as soon as this seeming self has gone, the whole world, which at first appears to us to be filled with evil, will appear to be heaven itself and full of blessedness. Its very atmosphere will be blessed; every human face there will be good. Such is the end and aim of Karma-Yoga, and such is its perfection in practical life.

Our various Yogas do not conflict with each other; each of them leads us to the same goal and makes us perfect; only each has to be strenuously practised. The whole secret is in practising. First you have to hear, then think, and then practise. This is true of every Yoga. You have first to hear about it and understand what it is; and many things which you do not understand will be made clear to you by constant hearing and thinking. It is hard to understand everything at once. The explanation of everything is after all in yourself.

No one was ever really taught by another; each of us has to teach himself. The external teacher offers only the suggestion which rouses the internal teacher to work to understand things. Then things will be made clearer to us by our own power of perception and thought, and we shall realise them in our own souls; and that realisation will grow into the intense power of will. First it is feeling, then it becomes willing, and out of that willing comes the tremendous force for work that will go through every vein and nerve and muscle, until the whole mass of your body is changed into an instrument of the unselfish Yoga of work, and the desired result of perfect self-abnegation and utter unselfishness is duly attained. This attainment does not depend on any dogma, or doctrine, or belief.

Whether one is Christian, or Jew, or Gentile, it does not matter. Are you unselfish? That is the question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading a single religious book, without going into a single church or temple. Each one of our Yogas is fitted to make man perfect even without the help of the others, because they have all the same goal in view. The Yogas of work, of wisdom, and of devotion are all capable of serving as direct and independent means for the attainment of Moksha. "Fools alone say that work and philosophy are different, not the learned." The learned know that, though apparently different from each other, they at last lead to the same goal of human.. perfection.