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<title>Are Not The Ascetic Means Helpful At Times</title>

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<p class="MsoBodyText" align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'>
<font size="4">Are Not The Ascetic
Means Helpful At Times?</font><o:p></o:p></b></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></i></p>

<p class=MsoBodyTextIndent2 style='text-indent:0in;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
border:medium none;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 0in 0in; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>I DO not think so. You cure
nothing in that way. You give yourself the illusion that you are progressing,
but you are really freed of nothing. The proof is that as soon as you stop the
practices, the old things come back violently with a vengeance.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>But
naturally all depends upon the meaning you attach to the word. If it means not
yielding to your desires, then it is not asceticism, it is common sense, it is
good sense. By asceticism people usually understand fasting, bearing biting
cold or burning heat, lying on a bed of sharp nails, that is to say, torturing
the body in some way or other. That gives you only self-importance or
spiritual egoism, nothing more. You acquire no true control or mastery in this
way. People do it because it is so simple and easy, because it satisfies their
vanity. You make a show of your ascetic virtues and under the guise hide many
other things. </p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>It
is much more difficult, however, to master one's impulses quietly,
deliberately, prevent them from bursting out instead of mortifying the body
with ascetic feats. It is much more difficult not to be attached to things that
one possesses than to possess nothing. Yet it is a simple truth that has been
recognised through ages. To be without posessions or to reduce one's
possessions to a minimum is easy: difficult it is not to be attached to
whatever you happen to possess. It means a higher degree of moral value. Try to
do this simply and you will know what it costs: when a thing comes to you,
accept it and if it goes away, for some reason or other, let it go, without
regret, without trying to hold it back; not to refuse it when it comes, not to
regret when it leaves – naturally, I speak of material objects, things
required for use in life.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:15.6pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Physical asceticism does not
cure. <span class=GramE>For the defects are within.</span> You are afraid of
contacts from outside and you withdraw into<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:15.6pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page
– 56<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:15.6pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
class=GramE>caves</span> and jungles and hilltops, to live all by yourself. But
you need no borrowing from others; you carry a sufficient load yourself. In
fact if they were not in you, you would not have even detected them in others.
You catch the infection from outside, simply because you carry the germs
inside. Great waves of passion, one can say with much truth, roll through <span
class=GramE>men,</span> they are not generated in them. But if there is anyone
perfectly pure, with no possibility of any passion in him, then such waves may
be sweeping over for centuries together, he will not be affected or touched by
them. He may see them, look at them as they pass, like a storm across the sky,
but he will not feel them.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.05pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>When
there is an answering vibration in us to the vibration outside, it means that
the vibration is already there within, otherwise no outside vibration can enter
or make an impression. <span class=GramE>The explanation of a panic – a general
fear entering into each and every one of a crowd – lies there.</span> A panic,
however, can be stopped, if there <span class=GramE>are</span> one or two who
can resist, who are not touched, who are outside the vibrations. Such
individuals can save the situation and prevent the stampede. The thing has
happened often. A movement, a vibration, a force is contagious, because the
ground of contagion is already there.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.05pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace: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;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i>Why does
not the effort towards progress come always spontaneously, especially for us
who are here in the Ashram?</i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&nbsp;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:10.55pt;
mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-bottom:0'>It is because the physical nature in man is usually
tamasic. Effort is natural to the vital. But the vital generally makes the
effort for its own satisfaction. I do not think that the physical nature left
to itself moves spontaneously in the direction of effort; it needs some
activity but of a subdued kind.</p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.15in;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none;
border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;
mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Here the thing is somewhat different. The
principle of education or training followed here is that of liberty. Life is <span
class=SpellE>organised</span> on the basis of maximum freedom; in other words,
rules and regulations, injunctions and prohibitions are reduced to a minimum.
If you compare our way with that followed by parents in the world with their
constant admonitions: don't do this, that is forbidden, must do this but not
that etc., etc., you will find the difference. At the school and the college,
everywhere, there are rules infinitely <span class=GramE>more strict</span>
than are found here. So, because no absolute conditions are imposed on you for
your progress,<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none;border:medium none;
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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 57</span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
class=GramE>you</span> do it when it pleases you and you don't do when it does
not please you; you take things quite easily.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Of
course there are some who do make the effort spontaneously. And that from the
spiritual point of view has an infinitely greater value. You make the progress,
because you feel within you the need to do so, because it is an impulse that
wells up from your depths, not because you are driven by a compel ling force
outside. What you do spontaneously and sincerely of your own accord <span
class=GramE>is</span> something part and grain of yourself. You do a thing not
because if you do it you will be rewarded and if you do not do it you will be
punished. It might happen, however, sometimes that something comes to you or
into you and gives you the impression that your effort is appreciated, but the
effort is not due to that. Indeed, things are arranged in such a way here that
the satisfaction of having done and done well is the best reward one has and
one punishes oneself thoroughly by doing badly or not doing; no other
punishment can be more real or more concrete. All this is immensely significant
and valuable from the standpoint of spiritual growth, much more than things
produced by external regulation and pressure.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace: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;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i>What is exactly a
spiritual experience?</i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&nbsp;</p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;
mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;
padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%; margin-bottom:0'>It is something which puts you
in contact with a consciousness higher than that you have ordinarily. You live
in a certain state and you do not even know what it is like. That is the ordinary
consciousness. Suddenly you become conscious within you of something very
different and much superior – that is a spiritual experience, whatever it may
be. You may formulate it in a mental idea or you might not, you may explain it
or you may not, it may last or it may not, it may be quite momentary. But if
there is this difference in the essential quality of the consciousness,
signifying something coming from above, from a greater height, something pure
and true, purer and truer than anything you normally experience, that I call
spiritual experience, although there are a thousand things that belong to that
category.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-top:0;text-align:center;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
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mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; margin-bottom:0'>
<span style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt;'>Page – 58<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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