The shadow and the reality

Carry on with steady faith the spiritual discipline; do not hurry or expect too quick results; slow maturing makes the fruit sweeter.

Remember you are but an instrument in the hands of the Lord. But, you are not jada or inert. You have intelligence, discrimination and the power to detach yourself from the world. These three are called Viveka, Vichakshana and Vairagyam. The more you develop these the better instruments you will be. Intelligence must be able to subdue the senses, discrimination must show the path to attain the eternal and the absolute; Vairagyam must attach you only to the higher goals.

When a person walks along the road, his shadow falls on the heaps and hollows, the thorns and dirt that happen to be by the side of the road, but he is not affected by what happens to his shadow. You are the substance, not the shadow. You are the Divine Spark that is encased in the body, not the body.

Imagine a palm tree standing on the ground; its shadow stretches along the ground. The shadow is the world; the tree is the Reality. Climb the tree and reach the fruits on top; your shadow too reaches the shadow fruits. That is to say, do Sadhana and attain its goal, you will thereby attain worldly happiness and peace also.

If you lift the hand to serve, to help, to console, to encourage, another man – you are lifting it for God. Because, in every man, there is God. The body is the temple of the individual soul; the world is the temple of the Universal soul. Use all your talents for serving others; that is the best way of serving yourself. For they and you are one Entity.

The time is fast approaching when all your yearning will bear fruit. I do not belong to any particular place I have come for the whole world; all men are mine.

Excerpt from a letter Swami wrote on July 16, 1965