THE VOICE -- Blistered are thy feet, oh pilgrim! parched are thy lips with thirst! From what far-off climes hailest thou? Who put this heavy burden on thy stooping back? Across what trackless deserts hast thou come?

THE ETERNAL PILGRIM -- Whosoever the Voice is, be thou my guide and light. So tired am I of my long journeyings that I have well-nigh forgotten whence I set out. I have roamed over regions of whose features I have now no more recollection than the cuckoo has of its eggs. Times many and unnumbered have I passed with such heavy burdens, but none relieved me of my load. There is darkness behind, there is darkness before and darkness all around. Wherever I turn Despair stares me in the face. When I think that help is at hand, and when I eagerly ply my steps forward, I find that my path, though a little changed, is always one of thorns, woes and fatigue. O Voice! Know that I am the twin brother of sorrow; but there is something within my innermost WITHIN that oft-times tells me that I am heir of Eternal Bliss. Oh! for one to lead me to my HOME!

THE VOICE -- Fear not, pain-wedded wanderer, thou art not the only one who is in search of rest. Millions upon millions like thee are panting to reach their goal, now driven here, now whirled away there, lost and bewildered, not knowing where to go, upon what road to walk. Heir to the Kingdom of Heaven, rightfully and in the long run thine own, thy purity of mind and thy strong will will carry thee safely on. There was a time when thou livedst with, nay thou wast the Nitya Vastu, that Thinking itself, unclogged with the many garments of flesh which thou hast now and again worn. Thy separation has cost thee dear, and thy habits, the consequence of thy past deeds, which have made of thee an exotic in strange lands, stand an insuperable barrier in thy upward path.

THE PILGRIM -- Teach me then, O Voice, my WHAT, my WHENCE, and my WHITHER.

THE VOICE -- Just say what is there before thine eyes?

THE PILGRIM -- I see nothing but bare Space.

THE VOICE -- Ah! that is thy illusion; it is not bare; it is the everliving source from which flow forth the fleeting forms which, times out of mind, thou hast borne with thee. A time there was when thou wast one with it. So long wast thou safe. This is the soil divine from which spring forth trees big with sweet and bitter fruits. When the trees wither and are no more, new ones from the seeds let fall on the eager soil are but a question of time.

Turn thine eyes from north to south, from east to west, from the zenith to the nadir, from the sun to the stars, thou shalt see nothing but forms, name-bearing forms dotting what thou callest empty space all over. It is the body of the unknown X which human mind can never discern. Above Time, its greatest attribute is that IT is Attributeless. I can not name it otherwise than as expressing what each one has to realize within himself in his moments of deepest calm, in his self-oblivious Svanubhava when the outward world sleeping gives full play to the Divinity within. It is the nirvanic sleep when the Limited merges into the Unlimited. In those moments, O Pilgrim, when thou enterest within thyself, then hast thou a chance of knowing who thou art.

Cease thy wanderings after the unreal, free thy mind from those baits which fetter thy Divine Self to finite things, shut thine ears to those siren voices which drag thy mind in a thousand and one directions, and thou shalt be one with HIM who fills all space. Thou hast a body, so weak and so easily preyed upon by what mortals call PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE, a body which varies with Time, ever subject to appearance and disappearance, to Birth and Death, whilst this Space is the ever-living robe of the Eternal Self. This boundless, seeming Void is saturated with thought, invisible, ineffable wingless phoenixes, ever dying, ever living, of waves upon waves of Humanity that have come and gone from the Mayavic theater of Life.

Not a man came to sentient life, but asked himself for what purpose did he exist. From the beginning of Kosmos -- if ever it had a beginning -- man has been attempting to solve this knotty, all-absorbing, many-sided question. Its solutions seem as many and as numerous as there are human heads. The riddle is betwixt Man and his God, the Fathomable and the Unfathomable; the former, with intellect beyond arithmetic, unable to grasp the One mighty INTELLECT, which thrills through the stone, the tree, the insect, the animal, the man, the whole solar system, nay, through each and every atom so minute as the billionth part of an inch. Anor aniyan Mahato mahiyan [smaller than the small, greater than the great]. Like the lotus which opens its great rose-colored petals on the tank to the golden sun at dawn, the minutest fraction of the Divine unbosoms itself to the First Integer. The Hidden and the Manifest, the Noumenon and the Phenomenon, are but the two aspects of THE ONE. During the long process of purification which each undergoes in cyclic eons of TIME, the Divine AIM is unbroken Progress.

So long as the Phoenix Thought is used for noble super-sensuous purposes, that spark of the Undying Flame wafteth thee through the mazes of Life, subtle or gross. Every Progress has a beginning, its uninterrupted march upwards and onwards, the spiritual Himavats towering upon Himavats of still higher, purer altitudes, till Thought itself at such grand heights is dazed, and poor man holds his temples in his hands, shuts his eyes and banishes speech from his mouth, to reach the Final Goal. To scale such heights is then thy mission. How can the Boundless be made to rest in the Confined? As the whole Universe has evoluted from a single Parabrahmic Point into its present vastness, even so its present vastness will, after its period of activity, be involuted to the same mysterious Point. Man, the phenomenal phase of the Universal Mind, has within him the essence of the same Point which is able to expand likewise to systems as many as the grains of sand on the seashore.

To man, to Humanity in the aggregate, is given the all-reaching privilege, by retreating within his inmost INMOST, to offer his homage to the steady Light, and by his most transcendental soarings and constant meditation, to become that Light. To know the Truth is to become Truth. O man, divine man, lord of the great and small, the real and unreal, the eternal and the fleeting, thou temple of Jerusalem, thou hast depths of consciousness within thee. Here I do not mean the man of flesh who carries like a snail his house of clay upon him, but the Real Man: a Power, a Glory, a Divinity, aye, the truest Truth, the Supreme Self, itself. It only needs that the blind of Ignorance should be removed to be one with Nature and Nature's laws. A hooded hawk is powerless to seize its prey.

The human mind ever longs to know its origin and its destiny. In this arduous struggle man sometimes launches into the Sea of Despair, and for this very reason, O Wanderer of Worlds, benevolent hearts throbbing in sympathy with human miseries, once their own, are ever ready to extend fellowship to those who are anxious to advance. They are MERCY itself on earth. What shall I say of these MAN-GODS who, filled with universal love, are ever on the lookout to help weary pilgrims like thee, who, tired of the trials of life, the heritage of the Body, are ready to take a leap into the abysmal pit of Darkness and Death?

That there is the perishable man and that therefore there must be his counterpart, the imperishable Atman, can never be doubted, inasmuch as Nature, the most faithful and unswerving observer of Harmony in her Laws, has evolved all beings in pairs. Look, there are the dualities of light and darkness, happiness and woe, good and evil. In this two-fold rule of Nature, that which is good, that which is light, everything in short that has not the taint of the transitory upon it, will guide your barque of life safe into the haven of Nirvana.

Moksha is cessation from Birth and Death. It is the ladder which leads man heavenwards. Hence thy efforts should be devoted rather towards shaking off the trammels of the Flesh with a view to idealize the Real, realize the Ideal, than towards any motive which is founded in selfishness.

Do not question the existence of Life until thou art in the folds of thy Spirit. For regaining Self-consciousness, as the part and parcel of the Great Perfection; for the grander appreciation of the THAT; for thy higher advancement -- perfection wanting to be perfected; for the realization of Sat -- Chit -- Ananda in the envelope of matter, as a demonstrable proof that Spirit has the power of endowing the former with its divinities; but above all for the Bliss of that Eternal Knowledge which no words and no thoughts can fitly describe, hast thou chosen this self-imposed task of Life. This MYSTERY is a "Beyond all Beyonds."

Each one's mission is best known to himself. He is the be-all and end-all of his own experiences, and is guided by his own Karmic foretastes. The one drawback to the regeneration of the world is that each man, having his own Eternal God within himself, goes to another to ask where his God is. How can the mirror reflect itself? He whose God is not within him cannot find HIM without him. In the Karmic picture gallery there are philosophers and fools, the godly and the godless, a very medley of contraries, but, with self-reawakening, a diapason of the most seraphic music fills the vaults of heaven.

The eternal Sat is ever the same in all phases of manifestation; good and bad alike to it are the same; each is so to his own weal or woe. Said the great Vaivasvata to Sri Sankaracharya, -- the sun withholds not his rays from the Holy Ganga, nor from the foul cesspool. Bear in mind suffering purifies, as gold is refined by fire.

"Know, will, dare, and keep silence," for Silence is Heaven's own Virtue.

THE PILGRIM -- Voice Divine, teach me how to reach the POINT whence radiates the Kosmic effulgence, the one White Ray of variegated colors.

THE VOICE -- First and foremost, if thou art ready to revisit thy native shores, hear what the "Voice of the Silence" constantly whispers in the ears of man: "Empty thyself, and I will fill thee."

Earthbound and spell-bound, thou Temple of the Invisible Deity, thy mortal walls are under the battering-ram of Time. The Shrine, the heirloom of Mother Earth who reared it, is truly hers, but the God within -- who art thyself -- is above and beyond decay. Therefore if thou wishest to be one with the Universal, cast off thy limitations that thy coming Progress may be commensurate with thy present living. With thoughts of the world thou art finite, above them thou art infinite.

The Supreme Point cannot be conceived by what mortals call Thought, the product of the brain loom. But to you is given the Key which unlocks the "Gates of Gold"; it is not found in mere cerebration. To make myself clear to thee, I shall call that which is beyond thought -- the key which ushers man into the regions of the One Pure Life -- META-THOUGHT, or Intuition. Free from man-made blendings it gives an insight into that supernatural knowledge which is the Quintessence of Life. To gain this META-THOUGHT thy mind should be wholly free from those ties which bind it to the Earth. When the Ocean, attracted by the hot Sun, becomes transformed into humid atmosphere, it leaves its saltness behind and sails to the skies in buoyant clouds. Shorn of thy earthly impediments, O Wanderer! thy flight will be both easy and speedy. When thy mind ceases to get its nourishment from the outer world, Samadhi is at hand, and this state is accomplished when thy senses whose slave so long thou wast, are in their turn brought under subjection.

The next point upon which thou cannot be warned too much is the paramount importance to Humanity of that Law of Nature which no aspirant can safely over-rule, and which requires him to be at one with her methods in all his longings after the Divine. This means that thou, in wishing thy Bliss, must not only do thy utmost for the removal of that mass of evil under which thy brethren groan, but must ever study without the least thought of self, to seek their salvation in thine own. A real Savior thou, if but a single vice fall to thy moral sword.

This Space which thou seest as vacant has within it that Ineffable Principle of the ONE which is to Space what that is to thy physical eye. This inscrutable Principle is Space permeable through Space. It is both Within-without and Without-within. From time immemorial man's thoughts have been brooding in Space. Humanities after humanities have come and gone, and they have left therein undying shadows of their thoughts.

In this Earth man is a Farmer sowing seeds of his deeds after the plough of his Thoughts. Pilgrim in mortal coils! know that nought is the beginning and end of this world. Tenuous as Tenuity itself, this wielder of the fate of worlds and their contents gives birth to all Upadhis that ever spring up in the passing phantasmagoria. Therefore, to free thy back from its heavy load, O thou self in search of Self, try to attune thy thoughts with Nature's Harmony. TO THINK IS TO BE. Thou art now in sad trouble because of the mad crowd of past thoughts that deceived thee like so many mirages on the horizon of Maya. Misdirected thoughts and a thirst after things as perishable as the hands that made them, are at the bottom of all thy irksome pilgrimages.

Thought is the father of deeds; hence, every day, every hour, every minute, need I say every second, sit thou in judgment over thyself, and concentrate thy mind upon the one POINT from which thou hast wandered. By evil thoughts came the troubles of Life. With the Single Thought of the Highest their end is near at hand. If the mind is to be retrieved from its wild and aimless rush after short-lived emotions, it should be made to center upon its Pivot, by a process akin to that by which a school-boy flying his kite winds up its thread upon the reel.

The owner of a mind absorbed in useless passing concerns of the world, finds himself in the same state as the wealthy man who, having staked his all in great speculations, is unable, notwithstanding all his riches, to meet an unexpected heavy call. Like the burning-glass, all the movements of the mind should be focussed upon the Primordial Law, so that its love of vanities may be consumed by its spiritual rays.

The Universe from one end to the other is a chained whole, and the Waves of Life which pulsate through its length and breadth from the Sun, the central source of mortal life, the faint reflection of the spiritual one which energizes it, are fraught with psychic power, the vehicle of human thoughts which do good or evil as the varied circumstances of daily existence may dictate, producing births which end in death as soon as their mission of Life is accomplished.

Now imagine such waves circling round each Upadhi, and think that Life as such is from the Eternal Fount whence proceeds everything that to mankind is Absolute Truth and Absolute Knowledge, which latter means that CALM SERENE in which the knower, knowledge, and the thing known are unified. This is Tripti, the supreme Bliss gained by the seeker after many processes of purification.

If the slightest effort is made by one Upadhi either in thought, word or deed to upset its neighbor -- for the all are in ONE, and the ONE is in all -- the whole organization of the Man is thrown into confusion. Thus, if the Upadhi A runs counter to the psychic and life-giving currents undulating round H, the necessary result is that these two will not only throw themselves into confusion, but even the union prevailing between the intermediate ones will be equally disturbed.

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Nature and Nature's laws sweep along with these Upadhis in Space, and when one of them aids her original Design, which is constant upward Progress -- on psychic and spiritual planes -- it is no longer subject to limitations, and feels the Essence within, which had first quickened it into Life. On this basis, those great readers of Nature, Souls sublime, who in past lives have gained all human experiences and make it their felicity to work for men, as undying oracles of God, proclaim the everlasting truth that the mischief done to one is mischief done to all, and that the good of one is the good of all. A stone thrown into still water with its ever increasing circles will show thee the force of what I mean. The Wise Ones of Earth send forth their good wishes to Humanity by their all-powerful magnetic will. Beware of evil thoughts, for their record is everlasting in Heaven. No man while pursuing his own way of life should by his thoughts do wrong to another. A fervent thought sent round for the well-being of Humanity is worth more than kingdoms. The Great Souls rule the world by their holy thoughts and aspirations, while the edicts of kings are in force but for a day. In all ages and in all climes the keynote of the Sage has been: "Do good and be good."

Remember that the Universe exists in two planes, the physical and the spiritual, both being strictly complementary; the one to the other, as fire produces heat, and heat, fire. What tongue can tell the smallest Secret of Physical Nature? There is Soul in a blade of grass, and even in a dumb stone. Listen to what Pushpadanta the Hindu poet, said of God, in his Mahimna [Stava]:

The immovable rock, the everflowing river, the busy ant are the dwelling adyta of the Holy One. Everything that exists has its own spiritual hiding-place to which it retires day and night. If this be the physical view of the Universe, its spiritual is past human speech. Here the Universe is an equilateral triangle, one of its sides being Universal Justice, another Universal Love, joined together with the basic line of Universal Harmony. The equipoise of the scales of Nature's justice makes manifest the millionth part of a grain of unrighteousness. Far from having favorites, her loyal sons are chastened with the same impartiality as those who disobey her. Justice is the axis upon which unceasingly turns the spiritual Universe, governed by the sun benign of Universal Love.

In Justice, Love, and Harmony there is a Life that knows no Death; in injustice, hatred and discord there is that which induces Death in Life. There is no sin greater than that of ill-will toward others, and no virtue higher than good-will toward all. These are the watchwords of Salvation by self, a Salvation which says as long as there is a single soul writhing in pain, the wise man's mind shall strive to relieve it.

True Salvation is collective, it is never for one. It covers humanity with its blissful folds. The Salvation which is for one is but an inn, a momentary resting-place before the journey is resumed. Pray therefore, nay, ardently desire that thou mayest rise with all, and that Humanity's rise may be thine own.

Aspire! Aspire! Aspire! Thy message is Peace, and as such I give it thee. So help thee thy Higher Self. Thine be the Deathless Joy. AUM.

Blessed be Humanity, doubly blessed those who bless it by noble deeds. SANTI.

As the Voice ceased, the heavy load fell from the Pilgrim's back to the ground. A sudden flash, and the Eternal Pilgrim knew that the Voice he had heard had come to him from the HOLY OF THE HOLIES of his own Heart -- the lotus throne of Narayana, wherein Being, Thought, and Bliss are indissolubly one.