Absorption in one thing
"At crucial periods of my life, I can stop all extraneous forces or influences from entering into me and remain steady and affixed on only one force -- one energy." Thus says Issadora Duncan, the famous dancer in her book My life. She was completely devoted to dancing. I do not know how far she had been able to sublimate that art to a high spiritual state. I only heard somebody reading the former statement and wrote it to you. Whatever be her case, it is a dead-certain fact that it is impossible for us to gain a high spiritual state, unless we pursue our goal without the slightest digression or unless our own mind itself naturally possesses the power of infallible concentration.
If somebody says, "We should remain fully aware of the world around us as well as of its many activities and be interested in them, even while following the spiritual path," let him say so. Maybe for him it is okay. But I at least cannot stomach that view at all. There may be a rare personality with exceptional powers capable of efficiently looking after may things at a time and yet achieving the main objective of spiritual progress.
Let us not forget that we do not belong to that category of genius. For ordinary people like us, it is undoubtedly the best to be totally and lovingly absorbed in the quest of the One Eternal. It is a well-known fact that all the saints and sages, who have carved a niche in the temple of fame in this world, were always thinking and dreaming and living in their God.
If we want to save ourselves from foreign obstructive influences, we can do so only when we can remain addicted to our one and only purpose in life - that of gaining atonement with the Life Eternal. Only when we become more and more devoted to that one occupation does constant practice create a very lively awareness that wakes us up with a start when irrelevant harmful forces try to attack us. Without such exclusive attention, let alone destructive forces, we can never avoid the surges of meaningless, negative thoughts, attitudes, feelings, and desires. Constant lively awareness is impossible without vigorous soulful continuous practice. Vital awareness is regarded as the very heart of sadhana. Only after our hearts become very positively alive to elevating influences, can our sadhana be said to have just begun in its real sense.
Please, therefore, bestir yourself and turn your mind to the constant practice of sadhana. The mind knows no end to its rambling, and you are not fully aware of its wild flights. How often shall I brace you to make efforts to control the mind's vagaries? Is there any meaning in these repeated warnings?
Exclusive Interest But Good Feeling
As we proceed in the sadhana of life-development, we shall not, and should not, care whether we receive love from worldly people of not. Read the lives of other saints and sages. The world has belittled them and only a very few souls have expressed their reverence for them.He who is out to secure love from others does not make any real headway in his path. What we want is only one thing - God's love - and yet we should never entirely neglect anyone else. We should consciously make efforts for self-realization and still have for everyone good feelings, love, harmony, sympathy, and liberal-mindedness. This is done for our own sake (i.e. for our own self-elevation). This too is sadhana itself, but this is only the first step in sadhana.
If we can do even that much with propriety, and completeness, God will simply be madly in love with us. This is my personal experience and it has already been put before you. Action filled with love is a necessity for us in order that our minds may be filled with satisfaction, peace, and cheerfulness.
All this I have to state again and again, because even now I do not see such loving and ardent behaviour in all of you, nor do I see the accompanying satisfaction.
Eagerness to Reform Others
We should give up all worry about reforming others. If we go on bearing the standard of reforming them, is it proper for us to do so, when we ourselves are yet not reformed?
It's excellent to have an earnest desire to serve, but we must also have the fitness to do so. In the field of service, we have to come in contact with many people. As long as our nature is subject to dualities like joy and sorrow, hate and love, and is full of attachment and aversion, our action will create prejudices and we shall increase differences and friction in our service. It does not matter if our objectives (in serving others) are excellent. Since our nature is not free from duality, it will create among others whirlpools of unreformed nature and consequent improper actions. Be sure of this.
Both of us were, until now, working in the filed of social service for a long time. If the real spirit of service has already come to the fore in a servant of society, it brings about reconciliation and peace, not differences. Harmony will then go on growing in our hearts. Such service, issuing from a loving heart, will assuredly raise the spirit of our society.
Mahatma Gandhi's Cry in the Wilderness
But in doing so what is most necessary is to elevate our nature and temperament to its original sattwic (noble) state. These days every common man takes up the profession of social service and moves about in society in a flush of enthusiasm. Mahatma Gandhi, for his part, often cries himself hoarse about the need for purity of the self, but who ever cares to listen to him? He goes to the extent of affirming: " We shall not be able to keep up ourselves in freedom, when we get it, unless we have sufficient purity to stand against the temptations of unshackled freedom." But no one does him reverence.
Self-reform and Proper Service
Frankly speaking, service is for raising our nature and temperament to the state of nobility. This is possible only by continued sadhana with the conscious objective of elevating ourselves. Such action alone is service worth the name. I thought, and so I gave up my membership in our Gujarat Harijan Sevak Sangh. I have never been member of the Indian National Congress by paying only four annas (one quarter of a rupee) for the same reason. I did continue to work, however, in the filed of constructive serivce, but by God's grace, I always strove to make myself fit for service of the right kind. Though I was always intent on becoming fit for proper service, the work I had undertaken, never suffered from any constant thinking of self-elevation. This is not all. To my knowledge, my work has never created the slightest dissatisfaction among any of my co-workers. And you also know this fact.