Very often people make the mistake of thinking that by the help of meditation or silence they can bring about success in activity. If it brings about a successful result, it is only because balance in meditation makes one capable of maintaining the balance necessary for activity. The outer life depends upon the individual's inner condition. Success or failure, progress or standstill, whatever one's state of being, it all comes from the condition that a person is experiencing within himself. A man of common sense will say: for this reason or for that reason you have met with success or failure. A person who is clairvoyant will say that because a spirit or a ghost has said this or that the conditions will be worse or better. The astrologer will say that because this star is in its house or not in its house we are experiencing such and such conditions. But according to the Sufi the condition of the life around one depends absolutely on the condition of one's inner self; so what is needed to change the conditions in the outer life or to tune oneself, is to work on one's inner self to bring about the necessary balance. Once the balance is lost, it is brought back only with great difficulty. In the first place it is often difficult to keep balance in one's everyday life; and once the balance is lost, there is little hope of success, happiness, or progress. It is just like a clock getting out of order; it cannot go until it is put in proper balance again.