Page 172 - Wisdom Unfurled

absolute need to accept the One Reality beyond all sensory perception as the one and only goal before us.
The path or the means has to be such that it meets all the requirements which may be imposed upon it by the nature of the goal and must be selected with due caution and careful consideration. Hasty judgment in the matter leads often to disappointing results and hence it is absolutely necessary for us to judge at the very outset that the path adopted for realization is the right one. The criteria for the selection of the path should not be merely because it is the oldest and/or majority follows it. The oldest will be ill-suited to the changed conditions of the world and society and the majority could be in the wrong. We should arrive at the conclusion only after due consideration and trial through the help of reason and experience. Once we are convinced of the merits of the thing we should stick to it with faith and constancy.
Faith thus formed, i.e., after trial, careful consideration and the exercise of reason and the benefit of experience will be genuine and lasting while faith promoted by inducement offered by outwardly attractive features and display of petty materialistic achievements is no faith at all amounting to mere persuasion. The Master emphasizes the prime need for the aspirant to have unassailable faith in himself that he will achieve his goal of God or Self- Realization. Despondency and despair are the worst diseases in spirituality. The Lord declares in the Gita (sraddhavan labate jnanam—; - asraddhadanascha samsayatma vinasyati; nayam lokoasti na paro na sukam samsayatmanah IV 39-40) that the man with faith in himself, the means and the Lord attains to the supreme knowledge. On the contrary the man plagued by doubt in all the above three goes to destruction and further that there is neither this world nor the other nor happiness for such a person.
Talking about the means to be adopted for achieving the ultimate Reality, the Master makes the important point that the final state we have to march up to being the one where we assume the same pure form we had at the time of creation, we have to renounce necessarily all our belongings of samskaras, maya and egoism and grow lighter and lighter every step. Heaviness of mind or internal denseness caused by gross forms of worship is thus a great impediment to our spiritual advancement and should be avoided. Faith claimed by persons addicted to gross ways of worship is not faith in the real sense but prejudice caused by their limited vision and their refusal to raise themselves high to seek Reality. The method advised in PAM i.e., taking up the meditation on the divine light without luminosity is eminently suitable to attaining to the final state described above, being the simplest and the subtlest method which could be adopted for the purpose. Once the aspirant is convinced of the right means he should stick to it constantly with faith. This