The purpose of life is to attain to mastery; this is the motive of the spirit, and it is through this motive at the back of it that the whole universe is created. The different stages from mineral to vegetable and from vegetable to the animal kingdom, and from animal to man, are the awakening of the spirit towards mastery. By using the mineral and the vegetable kingdoms and controlling the animal kingdom for his service, man shows in the first place that in him is awakened that spirit by which the whole universe was created.

His power of knowing, of understanding, of utilizing to the best advantage, is the sign of mastery. But at the same time there is one enemy that man has, and that enemy is limitation; and the spirit of limitation is always a hindrance to realizing the spirit of mastery and practicing it. Those who at some time or other in their lives have realized this principal object for which man is born, have then tried to develop that spirit of mastery in order to defend themselves.

The process of going from limitation to perfection is called mysticism. Mysticism means developing from limitation to perfection. All pain and failure belong to limitation; all pleasure and success belong to perfection. In one's own surroundings, one wilt find that those who are unhappy and dissatisfied with life and who make others unhappy, are those who are more limited; those who can help themselves and help others, who are happy and bring pleasure into the lives of others, are nearer to perfection.

What is meant by limitation and what by perfection? These are only conditions of the consciousness. When one is conscious of limitation, one is limited; when one is conscious of perfection, one is perfect. Because he who is limited in the limited consciousness is the same as he who is perfect in the perfect consciousness.

To give an example: there was a son of a rich man who had plenty of money put in his name in the bank. But he did not know this; and when he wished to spend some money he found very little in his pocket. This made him limited. In reality his father had put a large sum in the bank, but he was not conscious of it. It is exactly the same with every soul.

Every soul is conscious of what it possesses and is unconscious of what is put in its name. What is within one's reach, one feels to be one's own, but what does not seem to be within one's reach one considers to be outside. This is natural. But wisdom opens a door to look out and see if that which seems outside is not meant to be known too.

Sometimes the mastery of life is known to a person; he may not be a mystic, but if his time comes, he knows it.

One day I was interested when a man, who had done nothing but business all his life and made himself so rich that he was perhaps one of the richest men in the country, wanted to show me his park, a beautiful park he had around his house. While I was his guest we were taking a walk. He said, "It is wonderful to come here into my park in the morning and evening." I asked him, "How far does your park extend?" And he said, "Do you want to know? Do you see the horizon from here?" I said, "Yes." He told me, "All this land is mine and the sea besides. All that you can see."

It was a wonderful answer, and an example of the theory I have mentioned; he was not only conscious of what he possessed, but of all that was there. He did not make a dividing line between what was his own and what was beyond. It is a mystery, and it is difficult for anyone to look at life in this way. But this man who was in business, this man who never even thought of mysticism, could also arrive at that conception which the mystic discovers after years of meditation. It was a purely mystical conception.

When dervishes, who sometimes have patched sleeves or are scantily clad, who sometimes have food and sometimes not, address one another, they say, "O King of Kings, O Emperor of Emperors." It is the consciousness of what is king or emperor which is before them. The boundary of their kingdom is not limited. The whole universe is their kingdom.

It is in this way that a soul proceeds towards perfection, by opening the consciousness and raising it higher. When the soul evolves spiritually, it rises to a height where it sees a wider horizon; therefore its possession becomes greater. You might say, "By looking at the horizon it does not become our possession; what we possess is what we call our own." But Columbus first saw America. He did not possess it first. The possession came afterwards. The first thing is to see, afterwards we possess; but if we do not see how can we possess? And without seeing our possession it is not our possession.

There are two different ways, two different angles from which one should look at perfection. One way is likened to a perpendicular line and the other to a horizontal line.

Vertical 1. Concentration

The way which is likened to a perpendicular line is the reaching of the knowledge within. How does one reach this knowledge?

First of all by concentration one reaches the knowledge within, which means one is able to see concretely and to be conscious of something which is apart from one's physical body. A person may be conscious of a poem, a word, a picture, an idea or something, and if he can be so conscious of it that he can lose the consciousness of his limited body for a moment, that is the first step.

Although it seems very easy, it is not so easy. When a person begins to do it, no sooner does he close his eyes in order to concentrate than a thousand things come before him. Also his physical body becomes restive. It says, "This person is not conscious of me! " And then he gets nervous and twists and turns in order to be conscious of the body. The body does not like a person to be unconscious of it. It is like a dog or a cat; it likes one to take notice of it. Then a kind of nervous action arises in the body. It feels like moving, turning, scratching, or something. As soon as one wants to discipline the body, the body does not want to accept discipline.

Vertical 2. Conscious of a Feeling

The second stage is that instead of being conscious of a thought, one is conscious of a feeling, which is wider still; because thought is a form, and the mind even sees the form. But feeling has no form, therefore to fix one's mind on a feeling and to keep it with the intention of keeping it, is not an easy thing. If once a person has done it and has not given in to the restiveness of mind, then he certainly feels uplifted.

Vertical 3. Meditation

This is the boundary of human progress and further than that is divine progress. What is divine progress? When one goes further still, then instead of being active one becomes passive. It is a state of consciousness, to be passive. There one does not need concentration, what one needs there is meditation. There one gets in touch with that power which is audible and visible within one and of which one is yet ignorant; that power which is busy moving towards the materialization of its intended object.

Once one comes into contact with this experience, one can no longer say in later life that there is such a thing as an accident. Then one will see that all that happens is destined and prepared, when one catches it in its preparatory condition before it has manifested on the earthly plane.

Vertical 4. Pure Intelligence

And if one goes further, there is consciousness in its aspect of pure intelligence. It is knowing and yet knowing nothing. And knowing nothing means knowing all things. Because it is the knowing of things that blunts the faculty of knowledge. In other words, when a person is looking in a mirror, his reflection covers the mirror and in that mirror nothing else can be reflected. Therefore when the consciousness is conscious of anything, it is blunted; at that moment it is blunted, or in other words it is covered by something that it is conscious of. The moment that cover is taken away, it is its own self, it is pure intelligence, it is pure spirit. In that condition its power, life, magnetism, force, its capacity, are much greater, incomparably greater than one can imagine. What it is cannot be explained except that by the help of meditation one reaches that condition.

Vertical 5. Omniscience

And if one goes higher still, it is not even consciousness, it is a kind of omniscient condition which is the sign of inner perfection.

Horiz. 1. Developing Sympathy

[Edited from 26 Feb 1926]

This is one direction of progress I have explained. There is another direction of progress, that is to see oneself reflected in another. When you are friends with another person, naturally your sympathy, love, friendship, makes you see in another yourself, and this gives a person the inclination to sacrifice. No one will make sacrifice for another except when he is oneself.

If this feeling develops, it extends further, not only with friend, with neighbour, but with stranger, with anyone, with the little beast and bird and insect, as Buddha has said that harmlessness is the essence of religion, [you can] not help being harmless, once in atonement with all living beings. And it gives you insight into another as much as the other person knows about himself. You know about him as much as he knows, or even more. This is the simplest phenomena of this consciousness, not to work wonders. It brings you a quick proof that about another person one knows as much as he knows himself.

But then there is another moral proof, that you become friends with the wise and foolish, with the virtuous and wicked more and more, like you attract them to you. You cannot help it. Sympathy is so powerful that even enemies sooner or later become melted.

It is not only a story when they say that Daniel was sent to the cave of the lions and the lions were calmed. But in order to see this phenomena, one need not go to the mountains; in this world there are worse than lions: good natures and bad natures, possible and impossible people, and if you can tame them, you have accomplished something;
for it required a greater power than calming lions.

One can think of the different ideas, agitated ones, antagonized ones, blunted ones, ignorant ones, drunken with falsehood or with jealousy, all sorts of poisons; there are many in this world. And it is only one power, the power of your sympathy, that assimilates all poisonous influences. It assimilates them; it takes away their poison, and it does not hurt you.
You sooner or later purify them, revivify them, melt them, mould them, and direct them toward their purpose of life.

The world seeks for complexity. If I were to give a lecture [about] how to get this magnetism in order how to make people listen to you, tamed by their piety, and in order to draw them to you, if I were to give twenty exercises to do these things, there can be a great success for me. But if I told you simple things like this, that is, the deepening of your sympathy, the wakening of that sympathetic spirit in you, which is every power and magnetism there is, and the expansion of which means spiritual unfoldment, then there will be few to understand. For human beings, they do not want simple teaching, they want complexity.

Horiz. 2. Take Another's Point-of-View

[Edited from 26 Feb 1926]

And then there is another stage of expansion, and that is trying to look at everything from another's point of view also, trying to think also as the other person thinks. This is not an easy thing because from one's childhood one learns to think so that one stands upon one's own thought. One does not move to another's thought. The very fact that one has a thought oneself, keeps one to it. It is therefore a sign of expansion to be able to see from the child's point of view, or from the point of view of the foolish person, how he looks at things.

And the most interesting thing there is only needs one to be tolerant in order to see from [the] point-of-view of another and to be patient. In that way one extends one's knowledge to such a degree that no reading can give that knowledge. Then you begin to get from all sources; from every plane you will attract knowledge as soon as the mind becomes so pliable that it not only sticks to its own point of view. In my books I have called it "unlearning".

In my books I have called it "unlearning". If you say, "This is a very nice person," and another person comes and says, "This is not a nice person, you are quite wrong," the general tendency is to stick to that idea. But the greater evolution is to see from his point-of-view also. He has a reason for it; maybe he is too unevolved to see, or he is more evolved, or less interested in the other person, or something. But by seeing from his point-of-view you do not lose your own; your own point-of-view is there. But the other point-of-view is added to yours. Therefore, your knowledge becomes greater.

It wants a great tolerance and it wants a greater stretching of the heart, and sometimes it pains when you stretch it. But by stretching the heart and by making it larger and larger, you turn out of your heart the sacred book.

Horiz. 3. Feel Another Person

And the third aspect is to feel another person. A man is very often different from what he appears and from what he thinks. Sometimes he acts and speaks quite differently from his feelings; and if your feelings can know the feeling of another, this is a high aspect. You become a highly evolved personality when the feelings of another can tell you much more than his words and actions can; and sometimes they can give you quite a different opinion of a person from what you would have had if you had only seen him and heard him speak. When one has arrived at this point, human evolution ends and divine evolution begins. Then no doubt one gets insight into what happens in the spirit of man; if he is going to succeed or not, if he is going to be happy or not, or what he is going to accomplish; because there is something going on within that person, preparing his plan of tomorrow. You begin to touch it and begin to get the impression of it, and that impression is as clear sometimes as anything visible and audible could be.

Horiz. 4. Unite at a Distance

If you go further then you unite with everything. In this consciousness distance is no longer distance; if you can extend your consciousness so that your consciousness touches the consciousness of another, then not only the thoughts of that person but his whole spirit is reflected in your spirit. Space does not matter; your consciousness can touch every part of the world and every person, at whatever distance he may be.

Horiz. 5. Unite with All Beings

And if you go still further, then you can only realize that you are connected with all beings. That there is nothing and no one who is divided or separate from you, and that you are not only connected by chains with those you love, but with all those you have known and do not know -- connected by a consciousness which binds you faster than any chains.

Naturally one then begins to see the law working in nature; one begins to see that the whole universe is a mechanism working towards a certain purpose. Therefore the right one and the wrong one, the good and the bad, are all bringing about one desired result, by wrong power and by right power, a result meant to be, which is the purpose of life.

Then naturally one holds oneself back from that dogmatic spirit: "you are wrong" and "you are right", and one comes to the spirit of the sage: saying nothing, knowing all, doing all, suffering all things. This makes one the friend of all and the servant of all. And with all the realizations of mystical truth and spiritual attainment, what one realizes is one thing, the only thing worth while, and that is to be of some little use to one's fellow-men.