Indicating the helplessness of a lover, the poet Hafiz has said, "In loving my Beloved, I have become like an ant under the foot of an elephant — safe and secure, but helpless to move."

To demand anything from the Beloved is an insult to Love. Love only gives and goes on giving till the will of the Beloved alone manifests through the lover.

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So keen was its longing that notwithstanding the severity of cold or the intensity of scorching heat, by day as well as by night, the deer carried on its desperate search for the source of the sweet scent. It knew no fear or hesitation but undaunted went on its elusive search, until at last, happening to lose its foothold on a cliff, it had a precipitous fall resulting in a fatal injury.

While breathing its last, the deer found that the scent that had ravished its heart and inspired all these efforts came from its own navel. This last moment of the deer's life was its happiest, and there was on its face inexpressible peace.

All spiritual sadhanas of the aspirant are like the efforts of the kasturi-mriga. The final fructification of sadhana involves the termination of the ego-life of the aspirant. At that moment there is the realization that he himself has, in a sense, been the object of all his search and endeavor.

All that he suffered and enjoyed — all his risks and adventures, all his sacrifices and desperate strivings — were intended for achieving true Self-knowledge, in which he loses his limited individuality only to discover that he is really identical with God, who is in everything.

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First and foremost, our complete surrender to the God-man, in whom God reveals Himself in His full glory, His infinite power, His unfathomable knowledge, His inexpressible bliss, and His eternal existence.

Should this complete surrender not be possible, then one or some of the following, if faithfully carried out, can win the grace of God:

(1) Wholehearted love for God. Thirst for seeing Him, longing to know Him and burning desire for union with Him, constitutes this all-consuming love for which the lover forsakes everything, including himself.

(2) Keeping constant company with saints and lovers of God, and rendering them wholehearted service.

(3) Guarding the mind against temptations of lust, greed, anger, hatred, power, fame and fault-finding.

(4) Absolute and complete external renunciation whereby one leaves everyone and everything, and in solitude devotes oneself to prayer, fasting and meditation.

(5) Living in the world and yet practicing complete internal renunciation. This means attending to all worldly duties without attachment, knowing all to be an illusion and only God to be real, carrying out one's worldly affairs with a pure heart and clean mind, and living the life of a recluse in the midst of intense activity.

(6) Selfless service. One who practices this thinks not of himself but of the happiness of others, serves others with no thought of gain or reward, never allows the mind to be upset or disappointed; and facing all odds and difficulties cheerfully, sacrifices his welfare for the good of others. This is the life of the selfless worker.

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The aspirant looks at life as an integral whole, without allowing any part to monopolize his attention at the cost of others.

Even when the aspirant is rendering service that is selfless, he keeps constant guard upon his mind. The aspirant must be humble, honest, and sincere. The service he renders must not be for the sake of mere show; it should be an outcome of true love.

If the aspirant is inspired by love, his love will enable him to be in complete harmony with other aspirants without being jealous.

If there is not complete harmony among fellow workers, the service that is rendered falls short of the spiritual ideal. Further, if the aspirant renders the outward service without a spirit of love, he is acting from a sense of duty, as in worldly institutions where there are paid workers.

In the institutions of the world people work for pay. At best it is a cold sense of duty that prompts them to be efficient. Their work cannot have the inward beauty of work spontaneously done out of love.

The aspirant can best assimilate the lessons of true service if he has the good fortune to be in contact with a Perfect Master. The Master teaches not through preaching but through example.

When the Master is seen in his capacity of rendering service to humanity, the aspirant is quick to catch that spirit because of his love for the Master.

Contact with the Master is also helpful in imbibing the spirit of cooperation, which the aspirants can cultivate easily because of their common love for the Master. They serve because the Master wants it.

They do the Master's work, not their own; and they do it not of their own accord but because they have been entrusted with that work by the Master. Therefore they are all free from any ideas of individualistic claims, rights, or privileges.

They are keen only about the Master's work, ready to serve his cause to the best of their ability when they are called upon to do so, and equally ready to hand over that work to another aspirant if he can do it better.

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True love is unconquerable and irresistible. It goes on gathering power and spreading itself until eventually it transforms everyone it touches.

Humanity will attain a new mode of being and life through the free and unhampered interplay of pure love from heart to heart.

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The aspirant looks at life as an integral whole, without allowing any part to monopolize his attention at the cost of others.

Even when the aspirant is rendering service that is selfless, he keeps constant guard upon his mind. The aspirant must be humble, honest, and sincere. The service he renders must not be for the sake of mere show; it should be an outcome of true love.

If the aspirant is inspired by love, his love will enable him to be in complete harmony with other aspirants without being jealous.

If there is not complete harmony among fellow workers, the service that is rendered falls short of the spiritual ideal. Further, if the aspirant renders the outward service without a spirit of love, he is acting from a sense of duty, as in worldly institutions where there are paid workers.

In the institutions of the world people work for pay. At best it is a cold sense of duty that prompts them to be efficient. Their work cannot have the inward beauty of work spontaneously done out of love.

The aspirant can best assimilate the lessons of true service if he has the good fortune to be in contact with a Perfect Master. The Master teaches not through preaching but through example.

When the Master is seen in his capacity of rendering service to humanity, the aspirant is quick to catch that spirit because of his love for the Master.

Contact with the Master is also helpful in imbibing the spirit of cooperation, which the aspirants can cultivate easily because of their common love for the Master. They serve because the Master wants it.

They do the Master's work, not their own; and they do it not of their own accord but because they have been entrusted with that work by the Master. Therefore they are all free from any ideas of individualistic claims, rights, or privileges.

They are keen only about the Master's work, ready to serve his cause to the best of their ability when they are called upon to do so, and equally ready to hand over that work to another aspirant if he can do it better.

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Although both the daily morning and the universe of the man were simultaneously created for him by his own dormant impressions, yet both were already handily preserved for him by his own impressions of his life in the everyday awake state, and also through the procreation in his own everyday life of deeper and deeper impressions or sanskaras of the already existing Illusion, or of the original creation, which sprang from the original whim of God. Eventually, both the morning (or the day) and the universe of the man are destroyed by the man's own opposite impressions experienced in his sleep state, which are diametrically opposite to the impressions of his awake state.

Hence, in regular unfailing succession, God in the man state as man, consistently asserts Himself as the Creator of His own Creation through the dormant impressions of man; as the Preserver of His own Creation through man's leading the everyday life in the awake state, procreating the impressions of creation; and as the Destroyer of His own Creation through the opposite impressions of man when he falls asleep and ultimately passes away in the sound sleep state.

Every day, finally destroying the very creation as individualized by his consciousness, man once again creates, preserves and destroys the whole creation through the play of impressions. Even through the very being of every thing and of every creation, God consistently asserts His infinite triune attributes as the Creator, the Preserver and the Destroyer.

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This is because each of these finite bases of the triple nature of man — the energy, the mind and the body (typifying happiness) — is closely linked with and upheld by each of the three infinite bases of the trio-nature of God (sat-chit-anand), infinite power, infinite knowledge and infinite bliss.

The fact is that when the latent infinite trio-nature of God is gradually manifested out of the gradual projection of the finite Nothing, and when it simultaneously protrudes the projection of the finite Nothing as Nothingness manifested ad infinitum, this very same infinite trio-nature of God, at this state of manifestation, becomes enmeshed in the apparent and false infinity of the Nothingness and thus gets itself expressed as the finite triple nature of man with capabilities demonstrated ad infinitum.

How (1) the mind, (2) the energy and (3) the body, as the triple nature of man, demonstrate their capabilities ad infinitum in Illusion is clearly experienced through (1) the inventive mind of a scientist, who finds no end to discoveries and inventions; (2) through the release of nuclear energy in Illusion, which has reached a stage where it threatens with its own force of illusion to destroy the very Nothingness out of which it emerged and evolved into such a terrific force; (3) through the body (typifying happiness) which, now keeping pace with the advanced progress of the evolution of the Nothing, is infinitely urged to seek greater and greater happiness to such an extent that happiness actually becomes the very basis of the life of illusion.

The only reason for such infinite demonstration in the field of Nothingness (which is Illusion) is because the basic finite triple nature of man — energy, mind and happiness of Nothingness — is upheld and stretched out ad infinitum by the basic infinite trio-nature of God — infinite power, infinite knowledge and infinite bliss of Everything.

Infinite power is unbounded and is never reduced nor exhausted, whereas finite energy, though linked with infinite power, is reduced and exhausted because it is only the outcome of the Nothing manifested as the finite energy of Nothingness.

Infinite knowledge is eternal, uniform and all-pervading and therefore is without a break in its continuity. The limited mind, however, though linked with infinite knowledge, is annihilated and made to vanish ultimately because it is the outcome of the Nothing manifested as the finite mind of Nothingness.

Infinite bliss is bliss eternal and continual and because it is perpetual it is without any opposite aspect. Happiness, on the other hand, although linked with infinite bliss, is not perpetual and therefore it has an opposite aspect of misery. This finite happiness vanishes, even though it is the very basis of the life of the human being, because life itself is transient. As the life of illusion is the outcome of the Nothing manifested as the life of Nothingness, this life must perish.

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