Sadhana | Page 9

relation of
understanding is partial, but the relation of love is complete. In love the sense of
difference is obliterated and the human soul fulfils its purpose in perfection, transcending
the limits of itself and reaching across the threshold of the infinite. Therefore love is the
highest bliss that man can attain to, for through it alone he truly knows that he is more
than himself, and that he is at one with the All.
This principal of unity which man has in his soul is ever active, establishing relations far
and wide through literature, art, and science, society, statecraft, and religion. Our great
Revealers are they who make manifest the true meaning of the soul by giving up self for
the love of mankind. They face calumny and persecution, deprivation and death in their
service of love. They live the life of the soul, not of the self, and thus they prove to us the
ultimate truth of humanity. We call them _Mahatmas,_ "the men of the great soul."
It is said in one of the Upanishads: _It is not that thou lovest thy son because thou desirest
him, but thou lovest thy son because thou desirest thine own soul._ [Footnote: Na va are
putrasya kamaya putrah priyo bhavati, atmanastu kamaya putrah priyo bhavati.] The
meaning of this is, that whomsoever we love, in him we find our own soul in the highest
sense. The final truth of our existence lies in this. _Paramatma_, the supreme soul, is in
me, as well as in my son, and my joy in my son is the realisation of this truth. It has
become quite a commonplace fact, yet it is wonderful to think upon, that the joys and
sorrows of our loved ones are joys and sorrows to us--nay they are more. Why so?
Because in them we have grown larger, in them we have touched that great truth which

comprehends the whole universe.
It very often happens that our love for our children, our friends, or other loved ones,
debars us from the further realisation of our soul. It enlarges our scope of consciousness,
no doubt, yet it sets a limit to its freest expansion. Nevertheless, it is the first step, and all
the wonder lies in this first step itself. It shows to us the true nature of our soul. From it
we know, for certain, that our highest joy is in the losing of our egoistic self and in the
uniting with others. This love gives us a new power and insight and beauty of mind to the
extent of the limits we set around it, but ceases to do so if those limits lose their elasticity,
and militate against the spirit of love altogether; then our friendships become exclusive,
our families selfish and inhospitable, our nations insular and aggressively inimical to
other races. It is like putting a burning light within a sealed enclosure, which shines
brightly till the poisonous gases accumulate and smother the flame. Nevertheless it has
proved its truth before it dies, and made known the joy of freedom from the grip of
darkness, blind and empty and cold.
According to the Upanishads, the key to cosmic consciousness, to God-consciousness, is
in the consciousness of the soul. To know our soul apart from the self is the first step
towards the realisation of the supreme deliverance. We must know with absolute
certainty that essentially we are spirit. This we can do by winning mastery over self, by
rising above all pride and greed and fear, by knowing that worldly losses and physical
death can take nothing away from the truth and the greatness of our soul. The chick
knows when it breaks through the self-centered isolation of its egg that the hard shell
which covered it so long was not really a part of its life. That shell is a dead thing, it has
no growth, it affords no glimpse whatever of the vast beyond that lies outside it. However
pleasantly perfect and rounded it may be, it must be given a blow to, it must be burst
through and thereby the freedom of light and air be won, and the complete purpose of
bird life be achieved. In Sanskrit, the bird has been called the twice-born. So too the man
who has gone through the ceremony of the discipline of self-restraint and high thinking
for a period of at least twelve years; who has come out simple in wants, pure in heart, and
ready to take up all the responsibilities of life in a disinterested largeness of spirit. He is
considered to have had his rebirth from the blind envelopment of self to the freedom of
soul life; to have come into living relation with his surroundings; to have become at one
with the