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<p class=MsoNormal align=right style='text-align:center; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal'><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'><font size="4">How
Can Time Be a Friend?</font><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></i></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>IT depends on the way you look at it. It depends on the
relation you have with it. If you take it as a friend, it becomes a friend, if
you consider it as an enemy, it becomes an enemy.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>But, perhaps, what you wanted to ask is how to
feel when it is an enemy and when it is a friend. Well, when you are impatient
and say, &quot;Oh, I cannot get to the end of the thing, oh, when shall I
finish it?&quot; and when you are not able to do the thing immediately and get
desperate, then time is your enemy. But when you say, &quot;Well and good, I
have not done it this time, I shall do it next time, and I am sure, one day or
another, I shall do it,&quot; then it becomes your friend.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i>Is time merely subjective or is there something concrete, something
like a personality in it?</i></p>
	<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&nbsp;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none; margin-bottom:0'>Perhaps this also depends on how you
look at it. All forces are personal forces, all forces of Nature are also
personal forces. But if we look at them as impersonal things, our relation with
them becomes impersonal. Take for example what has happened just I!°W' If you
were a meteorologist, you would calculate the currents of the wind, the
pressures of the atmosphere etc., etc. and conclude: &quot;Given all that,
what has happened had exactly to happen and there will be so many days of rain
and so on.&quot; So it is for you a force which you are obliged to call a force
of Nature and you can only look at it quietly and wait for the fixed number of
rainy days to pass.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>But it may happen also that you are in a sort of
personal relation with the little conscious beings that are behind wind and
storm and rain, behind thunder and lightning and the so-called forces of
Nature, which are, however) personal forces;<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
'>Page – 140<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>then through the relation you establish a kind of
friendship with them. And instead of looking at them as enemies and mechanical
inexorables that you have simply to bear without being able to do anything, you
arrive at a cordial understanding with them, you succeed in having an influence
over them and you may tell them: &quot;But why do you want to blow and pour
here, why don't you do it just by the side where there is a field?&quot;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>And I have seen with my own eyes, here and in <st1:country-region><st1:place>France</st1:place></st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region><st1:place>Algeria</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
the rain falling on a very definite spot exactly where it should rain, because
it was dry and there was a field that needed to be watered. And at another
place, just a few yards away, it was all sunny and dry, because the place
needed to be sunny and dry. Naturally, if you proceed very scientifically, they
will explain the thing scientifically; but as for myself, I saw it happen as
the result of an intervention from someone who had asked for it and got it.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>I have told you of my experiences in <st1:country-region><st1:place>Algeria</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
Very many interesting things happened there. For a certain atmosphere was
there, an atmosphere, one might say, of a little more real knowledge. There
were certain small beings, those that controlled or produced snow. They could
come and enter into a room and say: &quot;Now, it must snow here&quot; –
&quot;But there has been no snow in this country! Snow? You don't mean that?
Near the <st1:place>Sahara</st1:place>, it's going to snow?&quot; - &quot;It
must snow, because they have planted fir trees on the mountain and when we see
fir trees we come. Fir trees mean we are called and so we come.&quot; Thus
there was a little argument and the little beings went away with the permission
to snow. The mountain was covered with snow. And it was quite near the <st1:place>Sahara</st1:place>.
You come down a few miles and you reach the <st1:place>Sahara</st1:place>.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.7pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Someone took the fancy of covering the hills with
fir and fir is a tree of cold countries. The beings were called in and there
they came. All that is true fact, it is not an invention.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.55pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Everything depends on your relation. <span
style='mso-bidi-font-weight:bold'>It<b> </b></span>may be that the
meteorologists could explain the thing, explain it away, I do not know – they
explain all things in all ways.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.15in;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Things are as you look at them. That is the truth.
I have seen other things also, not so pleasant as the one I have just
described. For since men have invented – not invented but<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
'>Page – 141<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>discovered things they did not know of, atom bombs and
things worse than that and have begun to play with them like babies, it has
thoroughly upset the little beings which lived according to their own rhythm of
life and were accustomed to habits that answered to events they could foresee.
Now all that is changed and they have suffered in consequence. They have lost
their head and they do not know what they do.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>There was a time, at the end of the war, when
things over there became terribly chaotic and one lived in the absurd and as
the unfortunate experience continues, the little beings have not yet been able
to come out of their maddening confusion. Yes, they have become maddened. Men
play with things of which they know only the exterior, that is to say, which
they do not know at all. Anything may happen, including, alas! catastrophes
that have been foretold long long ago.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>That may happen and may not. It depends on the
thing that will intervene.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>I had once spoken to you of all that, of wind and
cloud and rain and I told you to pray if you wanted the weather to change, but
I am afraid you thought I was joking.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.7pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>One thing is certain. It is this. If you are able
to see the deeper law of things and if you are in contact with a higher
consciousness in order to realise something that is far beyond all human
conceptions, why should you be concerned with any human opinion? Ordinary men
have no notion of what spiritual life or divine realisation may be like.
Naturally, it is precisely because of their ignorance that they come and judge
those things quite nonchalantly and advise you as to how you should live and
move and act and be. They know nothing, they see nothing. Your attitude towards
them should be one of supreme indifference. And yet you should not feel
superior to them. On the other hand, you should be kind and wish that they
should be reborn in the Light. You should avoid arguing with such people and
never try to convince them, that would be a vain attempt. You should be
absolutely indifferent, indifferent to their criticisms and indifferent to
their praise. You should know it is easier to be indifferent to criticism than
to compliments. I shall tell you a story in this connection.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>I have spoken to you more than once of Madame D. N.¹ </p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>¹<span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>
Madame Alexandra David-Neele.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
'>Page – 142<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>She was a militant personality and a great Buddhist
luminary. When she came to India she wanted to see some of the great Indian
sages, Gurus, that is to say, and she went to one of them – I do not give you
his name – who looked at her and asked her, as the talk was about Yoga and
personal effort and all that, whether she was indifferent to criticism. She
answered him in the classical expression: &quot;Does one mind the barking of a
dog?&quot; She added, when she was narrating to me the story, with much humour:
&quot;Happily, he did not ask me whether I was indifferent to praise – for that
is much more difficult!&quot;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>So then, you should not consider yourself superior
to others and I shall tell you why; you must know that in a being, human or
other, it is the consciousness that matters and you are either conscious or
unconscious: you can consider yourself superior only when you are unconscious;
the very moment you are conscious, truly conscious, you lose the sense of
superiority or inferiority. In either case you must not feel superior, for it
is smallness, pettiness; but you must be full of goodwill and sympathy and care
little about what one says or does not say; however, be always polite, for it
is always better to be polite than to be impolite. In that way you put yourself
in relation with forces that are more harmonious and you can fight better
against the forces of destruction and ugliness. But in reality you must rise
above all that and feel yourself interested only in the Divine, in what He
expects of you and in what to do for Him, for that is the only thing that
counts. The rest has no importance.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
'>Page – 143<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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