Page 323 - Silence Speaks

Role of Abhyasi
this action of hers was actuated by an eager desire to remain close to her husband ever after. If the only purpose of a sati is to maintain a perpetual connection with her husband, I think she may well be compared to a true disciple who also likes to maintain his link with the master after he has given up his material form. Will not such a devoted disciple be at par with a sati?
Now, let us for a while consider the theory of purusha and prakriti as the positive and negative forces of Nature. A woman as a female represents prakriti or the negative while man as a male represents purusha or the positive. A disciple is absorbed in the thought of the master who is presumably the positive. For that, he must necessarily make himself negative. Taking into account the two terms mathematically, the former refers to going above the base or Zero, while the latter refers to going below. Let the present state of man be the starting point or the base. Negation, therefore, means going below or giving up, or in other words, becoming poor and destitute of all which constituted his apparent being, i.e. materiality.
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