Now you may ask: "In what way does one attain to spiritual knowledge by repetition? Is it by repeating the name of God that one comes to spiritual knowledge?" Not necessarily, but by repeating a certain thing you forget yourself. Forgetting yourself, you are forgetting the false self, and it is in forgetting the false self that lies the secret of spiritual attainment. Spiritual attainment apart, even the secret of the great works of musicians and poets was that they forgot themselves in their work. In order to give life to something one must make a sacrifice, and in spiritual attainment it is by the sacrifice of the false self that one comes to the real self.

There are many who are afraid and say: "If we lose ourselves, what do we gain? It is only a loss!" It is not losing the real self, but the false conception of oneself. It is like a person who is dreaming. He is so interested in the dream that, if somebody comes to wake him up, he says: "No, no, let me sleep." He forgets that awaking will be another experience; his great interest is in the dream. So it is with some people; they are afraid to lose themselves, and they forget that it is only the false conception of themselves that they lose.

At the imagination of the spiritual ideal, many people are very afraid, as someone is afraid on the top of a high mountain when looking back on the immense space. It makes them fear, because they have always seen narrow horizons. The wide horizon has an effect which gives them a shock. It is the same with those who are accustomed to the false conception of the self. The best way of losing the self is by the repetition of a certain sacred word which gradually makes one lose the conception of the false self, expressing at the same time the idea of the real self, a foundation upon which life will be built for ever and for eternity.