On GYAN

Gyan by Skandopnishad has been defined as अभेद दर्शनं ज्ञानम् — that which cannot be penetrated or that which cannot be seen or realised through our mind-body, that which is beyond speculation of so called Man, the reflection of God, is said to be Gyan — the knowledge of unknown, unseen, incomprehensible Maya and her Lord, the God and the Cosmos. It has been reiterated forcefully time and again by the so called realisers of Gyan (Truth or the true knowledge) that man is the Universe in miniature – यथा पिंडे तथा ब्रह्माण्डे।

Will you call it bombast or will you take it as comprehensible truth that the study of the man is therefore the study of the Universe? To support this view realisers have expressed that the reality in man is the Self and the reality in the whole Universe is also Self (God). Therefore it can be easily said that all else is Unreal. Well whatever has been said above is Gyan of a Gyani, an Adept, a Realiser of the truth. This Gyan is not of any use to you because it will only confuse you and all your efforts to raise yourself as a Gyani will be defeated. You have to take this phenomenal world as real as a bayonet thrust, never undermine the value of the physical matter that stands as a support to your life. You have come here, of course, to realise the Truth or reality and enjoy the Joy of life, life which is said to be Atma, the spark of God.

All that you see around you as nature is only to assist you in your upward journey called evolution — the existence of your physical frame is totally dependent on the atmosphere and the environment. When we say that the physical body is non-existent, you in the same tone can also say that the Cosmos that you live in is also non-existent. True, but as you have not realised the truth you have not become a Gyani, you only reiterate the statement of a Gyani. Evolve yourself because only evolution will make you fit to choose between good and bad, right and wrong. It is then left to your free choice to rise up the divine state or fall into the sub-human existence. Says Gita (14.18) :

ऊर्ध्वं गच्छन्ति सत्त्वस्था मध्ये तिष्ठन्ति राजसाः।
जघन्यगुणवृत्तिस्था  अधो    गच्छन्ति    तामसाः।।

It will be a colossal waste of your Life if you do not recognise the teaching of Shri Krishna, your Lord in the core of your heart. Krishna says that those who settle in the Satva rise upward i.e. Godward; those who settle in the Rajas dwell in the mid most place (90% of the mass belong to this category); those settled in Tamas go downward to a sub-human existence, they are enveloped in the vilest behaviours, almost lost. So a large majority lives and behaves according as accompanied by their Gunas (behaviours). Says Gita 14.19 :

नान्यं गुणेभ्यः कर्तारं यदा द्रष्टानुपश्यति।
गुणेभ्यश्च परं वेत्ति मद्भावं सोऽधिगच्छति।।

When a Sadhak of yog, having raised up to a commendable height towards Godward, he sees that there is not any other cause (कर्तारम्) than the behaviours (गुणेभ्य:) and comes to know what is beyond behaviours, he comes to my point of view.

ज्ञान पर

स्कंदोपनिषद में ज्ञान की परिभाषा इस प्रकार की गई है: अभेद दर्शनं ज्ञानम् – जिसे भेदा नहीं जा सकता या जिसे हमारे मन-शरीर के माध्यम से देखा या महसूस नहीं किया जा सकता, जो तथाकथित मनुष्य की कल्पना से परे है, जो ईश्वर का प्रतिबिंब है, उसे ज्ञान कहा जाता है – अज्ञात, अदृश्य, समझ से परे माया और उसके स्वामी, ईश्वर और ब्रह्मांड का ज्ञान। तथाकथित ज्ञान (सत्य या सच्चा ज्ञान) के प्राप्तकर्ताओं द्वारा बार-बार जोर देकर दोहराया गया है कि मनुष्य लघु ब्रह्मांड है – यथा पिंडे तथा ब्रह्मांडे।

क्या आप इसे आडंबर कहेंगे या इसे समझने योग्य सत्य मानेंगे कि इसलिए मनुष्य का अध्ययन ब्रह्मांड का अध्ययन है? इस दृष्टिकोण का समर्थन करने के लिए ज्ञानियों ने व्यक्त किया है कि मनुष्य में वास्तविकता आत्मा है और पूरे ब्रह्मांड में वास्तविकता भी आत्मा (ईश्वर) है। इसलिए यह आसानी से कहा जा सकता है कि बाकी सब मिथ्या है। खैर यह ज्ञान आपके किसी काम का नहीं है क्योंकि यह आपको केवल भ्रमित करेगा और ज्ञानी बनने के आपके सारे प्रयास विफल हो जाएँगे। आपको इस अद्भुत संसार को संगीन के वार की तरह सत्य मानना ​​होगा, अपने जीवन के आधार के रूप में खड़े भौतिक पदार्थ के मूल्य को कभी कम नहीं आंकना चाहिए। आप यहाँ सत्य या वास्तविकता को समझने और जीवन के आनंद का आनंद लेने के लिए आए हैं, जिसे आत्मा कहा जाता है, ईश्वर की चिंगारी।

आप अपने आस-पास जो कुछ भी प्रकृति के रूप में देखते हैं वह केवल आपकी ऊर्ध्व यात्रा में सहायता करने के लिए है जिसे विकास कहा जाता है – आपके भौतिक ढांचे का अस्तित्व पूरी तरह से वातावरण और पर्यावरण पर निर्भर है। जब हम कहते हैं कि भौतिक शरीर अस्तित्वहीन है, तो आप उसी स्वर में यह भी कह सकते हैं कि जिस ब्रह्मांड में आप रहते हैं वह भी अस्तित्वहीन है। सच है, लेकिन चूँकि आपने सत्य को नहीं समझा है इसलिए आप ज्ञानी नहीं बने हैं, आप केवल ज्ञानी के कथन को दोहराते हैं। अपने आप को विकसित करें क्योंकि केवल विकास ही आपको अच्छे और बुरे, सही और गलत के बीच चयन करने के योग्य बनाएगा। फिर यह आपकी स्वतंत्र पसंद पर छोड़ दिया जाता है कि आप दिव्य अवस्था में ऊपर उठें या उप-मानव अस्तित्व में गिरें। गीता (१४.१८) कहती है:

ऊर्ध्वं गच्छन्ति सत्त्वस्था मध्ये तिष्ठन्ति राजसाः।
जघन्यगुणवृत्तिस्था अधो गच्छन्ति तामसाः।।

यदि आप अपने हृदय के मूल में अपने भगवान श्री कृष्ण की शिक्षा को नहीं पहचानते हैं तो यह आपके जीवन की एक बड़ी बर्बादी होगी। कृष्ण कहते हैं कि जो लोग सत्व में स्थित होते हैं वे ऊपर अर्थात् ईश्वर की ओर उठते हैं; जो लोग रजोगुण में स्थित होते हैं वे मध्य स्थान में रहते हैं (९०% लोग इसी श्रेणी के हैं); जो तामस में स्थित होते हैं वे उप-मानव अस्तित्व में चले जाते हैं, वे सबसे निकृष्ट व्यवहारों से घिरे होते हैं, लगभग खो जाते हैं। इस प्रकार अधिकांश लोग अपने गुणों (व्यवहारों) के अनुसार जीते और व्यवहार करते हैं। गीता १४.१९ कहती है: नान्यं

गुणेभ्यः कर्तारं यदा द्रष्टानुपश्यति।
गुणेभ्यश्च परं वेत्ति मदभावं सोऽधिगच्छति।।

जब योग का साधक भगवत्प्राप्ति की ओर प्रशंसनीय ऊँचाई तक उठकर यह देख लेता है कि कर्मों के अतिरिक्त अन्य कोई कारण (कर्तारम्) नहीं है (गुणेभ्य:) तथा कर्मों से परे जो है, उसे जान लेता है, तब वह मेरे दृष्टिकोण को प्राप्त होता है।

LESSON XI— Synopsis: The dullness in Karma Yogi’s life; The power of cumulation; Dryness; The Air trial, without programme; Reversion; The task one of changing the center; The need for watchfulness.

Indeed, in one place in the Scriptures they say that though the Karma Yogi has found a way for escape (Salvation) for that fraction of consciousness that he called the “I” and though he knows that not only that consciousness but all other consciousness are part of an illusion, yet he feels that his own task is not accomplished while there remains any fragment of consciousness thus un-emancipated from illusion. The Karma Yogin having found a Divine Kingdom in himself turns to find out the Divine Purpose in the complex harmony of the External life; for each one is free to live as he will and the luxury of this enjoyment is such that he becomes careful to avoid the disturbance of the equal rights of others. Yes, all objects in their activity, substance and form indicate their relationship and thereby their usefulness to all other things and the phenomena of psychical research indicate that there is absolute connection between Minds here and now existing in ways over and beyond those accounted for by the senses; though our ordinary normal consciousness are severed from each other and apparently distinct so that though we communicate with each other through speech and writing, we are nevertheless in connection with each other in subliminal levels. It can thus be seen that the Karma Yogi may not encourage, notice or make any difference between any one thing and any other thing. He may not confound the space, marks saying they are one, they are many. 

Yes, to each the knowledge of his Infinite Will, his Destiny to perform the Great Work, the realisation of his true Self; aye, be he barber or cobbler, or Brahmin or Pariah, to each again will come the knowledge of his finite will whereby one is Prophet, one poet, one worker in jade, another worker in steel. Everyone is unfettered to think, to revel in the Great Act, each one is a God, did he but know it; each one is saved, did he but realise it! And as each one binds himself and takes his pleasure does he remain blacksmith, cobbler, barber—never when his soul revolts. In everything so ever inhereth its own perfection proper to it and to neglect its full operation bringeth distortion to the whole. Act therefore in all ways, Karma Yogi, but transforming the effect of all these ways to the one way of God. I am translating verses XVIII, 45 and 46 of the Bhagavad Gita.

In the commentary on these verses, the founders of the creeds of Modern Hinduism are alike in one view about Sva-Karma, one’s own Karma. Of the Karma Yogi, Ramanuja has it that man attains perfection, i.e. attains God by God’s grace granted when he worships God as the inner soul abiding in every object of worship, God by whom all things are pervaded. According to Sankara, all activity (Pravritti) proceeds from Isvara, the Antaryamin, the Ruler Within. Worshipping the Lord, says Sankara, by one’s Acts (Thoughts), man attains the perfection of the Jnana Nishta, the willing “Death” Madhavacharya says that by one’s Acts of Worship of the Lord one obtains Jnana (Intuitive Appreciation) and next Salvation. Sva-Karma is with all these the worship of the Lord God, the true function of the real Ego (Sva) in man. That is what the Karma Yogi has to bear in mind, namely that all Act is a Sacrament, must be as a sacrament, and as naught else than a sacrament; not merely to hold the view but to turn one’s commonest acts into sacraments is the work of the Karma Yogin, to make his very self-indulgence his religion. He may drink but he shall drink to the glory of God; not to make himself besotted. He shall pick up all the flowers by the roadside in humble Pooja (worship) at the Throne of God the Invisible King behind the darkness of the Threshold of Life. Indeed, those who, whether they eat or drink or whatever they do, do all to the glory of God, may be said to turn their commonest acts into sacraments. Read carefully verse IX-27 of the Bhagavad Gita, any translation, and make it the Mantra for this Lesson.

“Whatever Thine Act, what thou consumest; What thou sacrificeth; what thou granteth, What thou yearneth after, do it to the glory of God.” Let every act of thine be a magical exercise. Some lessons back we told you of the factors governing each act, of how the factors were (1) the sphere of the act, (2) the enjoyer of the act (3) the various agents or instruments used in the act (4) the various forms in which the act came to be (Cheshta) together with (5) destiny or daiva, God the marginal error, the cumulative power of spacetime, of the whole universe as a fifth. We told you specially that consequently it would be foolish to assume that any one by himself could be the Actor; we again said that none the less the Individual was possessed of the fullest freewill and that he ought to do only as he wilt. How the position we took up was in no sense self-contradictory, we have mentioned in prior chapters but here we shall further state the great need, the very great need, there is for the exhibition of one’s Freewill every moment of one’s life. Albeit destiny be all potent as being the will of Many, it is none the less to be understood by the Karma Yogi that he too is a many in one that his will too is the will of many of him; when both wills become identical the result is sudden and favorable.

But if on the contrary the will of the individual had been unconsciously against the will of the universe, what happens? Is Thought a waste? Are not motives of any account in this divine harmony that we call the universe? Can it be that man thinking good thoughts all along, but defeated at every moment by circumstances, is to find his life a waste? No, says the Hindu-Yogi Philosophy. The subconscious incubation of the motives deposited by the experience of life when ripe do burst into flower, says the Bhagavad Gita, the text book par excellence of Karma Yogi. Thoughts are never waste; you can pile on your good intentions and good thoughts till the cumulative effect, as in all mantras, affirmations, magick, becomes of powerful effect breaking down all obstacles before the fruition of the good thought. The last straw breaks the camel’s back, says the proverb; if in alchemy you add one more atom-ion to make up of the valency of the element, it breaks up and disintegrates as seen in chemistry. Read what Madame H. P. Blavatsky says in the Voice of the Silence, part 3, the seven portals.

“70. Remember tho that fightest for man’s liberation each failure is success and each sincere attempt wins its reward in time. The holy germs that sprout and grow unseen in the disciple’s soul their stalks wax strong at each new trial, they bend like reeds but never break nor can they ever be lost. But when the hour has struck they blossom.forth.”

Yes, it is very difficult to continue practising Karma Yogi of all the Yogas because very often very little advancement is seen apparently for a very long time. To quote a familiar instance, there is water on the fire and nothing whatever happens or appears to be happening; but one continues to keep it on the fire, and lo! without warning it suddenly boils. You may get the temperature to 99 degrees and keep it at 99 degrees for a thousand years and the water will not boil. It is the last step that does the trick. Similarly in the practices given herein it may be said that one must be prepared to accept that the mantra or practice one has been doing, however bad, is the best one can go on with, and no attempt to change mantra after mantra can be encouraged by us. Such students are given up by us as perfectly hopeless.

There is an aspect of the doctrine of Detachment that has been rediscovered in the West and may be found, as “art for art’s sake.” Actually it is an indifference especially necessary when wrong thoughts come and afflict one and attempt to persuade one that if one goes on the Path of Karma Yoga he will go mad or some such thing. Says Frater O. M.: “In times of dryness the ‘Devil’ comes to you and persuades you that it is most necessary for your spiritual progress to repose (i.e. refrain from the task of the Karma Yogi). He will explain that by the great law of action and reaction you should alternate the task you have set forth to do with something else, that you should in fact somehow or other change your plans. Any attempt to argue with him will assuredly result in defeat. You must be able to reply: “But I am not in the least interested in my further progress; I am doing this because I have set it down in my program to do it. It may hurt my spiritual progress more than anything in the world. That does not matter. I will be gladly damned eternally but I will not break my obligation in the smallest detail. By doing thus you come out at the other end and discover that the whole controversy was illusion.”

This is the experience of the ordinary Yogi; the Karma Yogi’s position is harder. As Steiner says in his “Initiation” the Karma Yogi “finds no definite goal to be reached; all is left in his own hands; he finds himself in a situation where nothing occasions him to act. He must find his way all alone and from out of himself. And he must be able to attain always the point of being able when confronted suddenly with some task or problem demanding immediate attention to come to a swift conclusion, to act without delay or personal consideration or any the least hesitation. Nothing or nobody need give him the strength he needs but himself alone.”

As says H. G. Wells: “It is the amazing and distressful discovery of every believer that one can find himself caught unawares by a base impulse; he then discovers that discontinuousness of our apparently homogeneous selves, the unincorporated and warring elements that seemed altogether absent; we are tripped up by forgetfulness, by distraction, by old habits, by tricks of appearance; there come dull patches of existence; those mysterious obliterations of one’s finer sense that are due at times to the little minor poisons that one eats or drinks, to phases of fatigue, ill health or bodily disorder or one is betrayed by some unanticipated storm of emotion brewed deep in the animal being and released by any trifling discontent such as personal jealousy or one is relaxed by contentment into vanity.”

We may call the group of ideas to which man devotes himself and from which he works the “habitual center of his personal energy. It makes a great difference to a man whether one set of ideas or another be the center of his energy; and it makes a great difference as regards any set of ideas which he may possess whether they become central or remain peripheral in him,” says James, the pragmatic; but even this definition would not apply to the Karma Yogi who has always to have a changing center, who has to change the center of his point of view and cultivate his appreciation sufficiently widely so as to cover the innumerable experiences of the world; for in every sense the Karma Yogi is truly homeless and these regulations and observations that apply in an ego-centric metaphysic do not apply to him at all. And this change of center of point of view is his Karma Yoga.

Mistakes do not afflict the Karma Yogi in the least; no, not even the fact that he has in the immediate to go against the Law of Karma; he does not care, he breaks the law and suffers the reaction, but he has done what he had obligated himself to do. The Karma Yogi of all yogis.is not ever in training; rules and prohibitions for other stages of Yoga for the mantra yogi, raja yogi, sparsa yogi, abhava yogi etc., have no meaning in his case. In these cases the would-be yogins are in training; and in their case prohibitions are made general rules; but he rules do not apply to people not under training, never to people beyond the need for further yogaic training. To break training is not a sin for anyone who is not in training; the Karma Yogi is a ceaseless worker who is not only not less than a man but more than one.

The Karma Yogi in such a complexity has always to be watchful (atmavan). The watchfulness is to be very active, a watchfulness at the door of one’s thought, never off guard, but all the while there is being cultivated an inner indifference, a faith that mountains cannot shake. Apparently the Karma Yogi is silent, for he is able to inhibit thought; actually thought from the universe surges through him, strengthens him and perhaps leaves its traces behind in rendering him every moment more useful in sensing.

*** PEACE UNTO ALL BEINGS. ***

Note: This concludes the series of Eleven Lessons on Karma Yoga. The series of Lessons on Bhakti Yoga will be issued from the next issue of the Kalpaka.

Every living thing on earth, from the humble grass on the sward to the Tree of Knowledge in the Mental Plan of Man, the Potential God, is true to the law of its being, and earnestly endeavours to fulfil its destiny with a sincerity of purpose that commands the admiration of Man. Man alone, of all living beings, has the right and privilege to be sincere and insincere as he pleases. He alone, of all created beings, has the divine right of choice. He can be true and sincere to himself and his God, or false and insincere as he pleases. Why so? It is because he is the meeting point of the ways. Which ways? The way to pass upward or downward. Both Evolution and Involution meet and mingle in the heart of Man. He is the centre of the Universe. Only he does not know it. Why? Because of his waywardness! Having the God-given power of Choice, he is using or abusing it to his own good or harm. If he be but sincere and constant and true to himself according to his light, he is sure to rise above his lower self. But he has the right of choice to be otherwise, and he uses his right with a vengeance! RESULT? He is turned out of Paradise and has to live a life of woe and misery like the Prodigal Son.

Leaving the Prodigal to his fate, let us see what becomes of the obedient son who is true to himself and his filial duty. He has developed the germ of sincerity, that is, of Godliness, in him. He grows apace. His Life is one long, steady march of Progress. He has no need to turn his back, or retrace his steps, or even review his past. For him the Past and the Future meet and merge in the living Present. He knows that his actions of today will bear fruit and yield him an abundance of harvest tomorrow. Nay, not even so long has he to wait! That great sage and poetess Auvayar says : ”The seeds of action shown in the forenoon will bear fruit in the afternoon.” So quick is the harvest which sincerity yields! Sincerity is the capacity of being true to one’s self! The laws of Thought are eternal and immutable. Man has the power of interfering with their laws in virtue of his divine right of choice; but he does not so at his own peril! The sense of responsibility must ever remain with him! Or he is woefully and irretrievably lost! Lost? Yes, lost to himself. His self-consciousness (the right of choice is nothing but a manifestation of his self-conscious being!) is taken away from him. His supreme right to rise in revolt, if he chooses to do so, is taken away from him. He becomes a conscious being with the knowledge of the centre of Being within, shifted from his view. Even to be wise, one needs the Daring that comes of the sense of responsibility. ”Dare to be Wise!” is the injunction of the Adept to the Initiate! And all the world is nothing but a school to acquire this supreme daring. ”Dare to Do!”, since the fruit of your action you must willy-nilly reap! ”You must reap as you sow;” that is the eternal law, and you cannot change it!

If one is sincere in thought, word and deed, the tripartite nature of the manifested being of Man, then he sees that these three are closely inter-related to each other, as the root, the trunk and the fruit of a tree are interrelated to each other. You cannot interfere with the inter-relation of these parts to each other though you are at liberty to injure the root or the trunk or the fruit. And you cannot injure the root or inject poison into it without it affecting the trunk and the fruit. Pure water, you know, is poison to the organs of the human body which are accustomed to an environment which always has salt in solution in one form or other. So ”poison” is the change of environment in a way which is sure to overtax the adaptability of the living organism to its new environment. The man of sincerity, the true man, the Psychic man if you please, ever obeys the law of Thought. The greatest of injunctions the Vedas have to give are contained in four words—”Satyam Vada : Dharman Chara.” One cannot speak the truth if one is false to his inmost thoughts. Nor can he do his Dharma, obey the Law of his being,  if he is not sincere in his thoughts and words.

Thoughts, words and deeds—these are the root, the trunk and the fruit of the Kalpaka tree. As these three in one are contained in the seed, even so, are the thoughts, words and deeds of mankind contained in their root forms in certain Bijaksharas. These Bijaksharas are the ”seed-thoughts” of Humanity. The whole course of Human Progress from its remotest beginning to its ultimate end, can but give expression to these seed-thoughts.” Sir J.J. Thompson, President of the British Association in his Inaugural Address at Annual Meeting of the Association held at Winnipeg in Canada, said—”Consider, for a moment, the problem presented by almost any plant—the characteristic and often exquisite detail of flower, leaf and habit—and remember that the mechanism that controls this almost infinite complexity was once contained in a seed perhaps hardly large enough to be visible. We have here one of the most entrancing problems in chemistry and physics it is possible to conceive.”

Yes! The Universe is a series of entrancing problems like this! And the Kalpaka Tree is the most entrancing of all these entrancing problems of the Universe! It is the most entrancing of all entrancing problems, which is not merely stated for consideration or solution, but considered and solved and therein established for all time to come with its root and branches and the connecting trunk for all Initiates to stand by and wonder and test! The Kalpaka Tree instantly grants one who has reached its welcome shade every wish of his. It is not like the Pagoda Tree that enterprising hoards of merchant adventurers came seeking with a view to shake and grow rich. It is even more wonderful and far more real than the ”Pagoda Tree,” but far difficult to be reached or removed. Many a young and inexperienced reader of this statement would like to get himself transported to the shade of this wonder-working Divine Tree. To such I would relate a story of old.

Once upon a time, there was a Rishi who took in a young disciple at the earnest entreaty of his friend  and fellow-sage, who found that he could make nothing of him. The new Guru and disciple met and were soon reconciled to each other. The Rishi found that the disciple was too materially inclined to be initiated in the mysteries of Higher Life, and to let him go his way would mean to the young novitiate many rounds of birth and death to go through, until his stupid notions were all tested and found to involve him in misery. Knowing that avarice and love of wordly goods had taken deep root in the end of the young disciple, the rishi thought of humouring him in his own way and related to him the wonders of Heaven, and among them the wonderful powers of Kama-Dhenu and Kalpaka Tree—the Desire-fulfilling cow and the Wish-yielding Tree. The young disciple thought that Kama-Dhenu would prove to be rather a troublesome acquisition as he will have to support and take care of it, with all the plenty it may yield. He was too lazy for it! So he expressed an earnest wish to be transported to the shade of the Kalpaka Tree. And the Rishi promised to help him if he would but make an earnest endeavour sincerely wishing to be transported to the shade of the Kalpaka Tree.

The raw disciple’s mind and attention was for the nonce duly arrested and riveted to one thing. He was prepared to give himself heart and soul to doing tapas that he may be transported to the shade of this wonder-working Tree. How he wished that he could bring the tree and plant it all over the world, that the people may get plenty of what they needed and thus were lifted above want! What would be establishing heaven on earth in his opinion and he for a moment thought and wondered that these Rishis had not given a thought to it. That’s the evil of their having renounced the world, he thought within himself. He was suddenly caught brooding in this frame of mind, and his Rishi and Guru chided him saying : ”This is not the frame of mind to win the Kalpaka Tree! You must think of that and that only, and not even of anything you may do with it. Make your mind one-pointed and banish all other thoughts from it. If you promise to be true and sincere to this injunction of mine I will initiate you in the Moola Mantra of the Kalpaka Tree and give you a charm that will transport you when you have mastered the Moola Mantra to its shade!”

The young disciple eagerly gave the promise and got himself initiated in the Moola Mantra (the root seed-thought) of the Kalpaka Tree. He pronounced the Mantra as per direction (He affirmed his own wish in seed-thoughts which obeyed the Law of Thought) and in good time found himself transported to the welcome shade of the Kalpaka tree. He found a cool heavenly breeze blowing that seemed to kiss him at every pore and thrill his soul into ecstasy. His mouth watered, and the water of the mouth was not like saliva, but it proved to be the very nectar, the Ambrosia of Gods. Finding himself at ease, he wished for all that his boyish heart was set upon and could not easily obtain in that vile world of earth. He wished for viands and sweets of all sorts, of rare fruits, and they were immediately supplied to him. Having satisfied his taste for eating and drinking, he longed for the presence of beautiful women and found the very Apsaras dancing before him to his great delight. He wished to enjoy them and they were only too ready to gratify his request. Thinking that these heavenly nymphs were such stuff as dreams are made of, he longed for a princess of the Earth to live by his side and share his life, and his wish was immediately fulfilled.

Now the novitiate was satiated with all he had enjoyed. He began to doubt whether all these good fortunes that have befell him were true; and they disappeared in a trice. He feared that his favourite princess may soon get tired of him and leave him, and she left him at once. Finding himself lonely, he feared whether he will find himself in Darkness, and Darkness surrounded him. Now he feared some evil spirits may harass him and he found himself harassed by hobgoblins of all sorts. Then he feared that some robbers may come and attack him and he was soon surrounded by a band of desperadoes who attacked without mercy! Now he was in a fix! His misery knew no bounds. He thought his earthly home and life a paradise compared to the shade of this wish-fulfilling wonderful tree under which he has suffered so many blessings and woes all in too quick a succession to give him a moment of reflection! He longed for rest and reflection and that again was granted! When he awoke from his trance, he fell at the feet of his Guru and prayed that he may be left to work his own salvation, resting his mind and reflecting in the usual humdrum way and it was granted. The moral is left for you to draw, my dear Readers! AUM. ***