And now coming to renunciation. Very often a person sees renunciation in a wrong light. A person thinks that he is not willing to make the sacrifice, therefore he renounces the object of attainment. It is a wrong conception of renunciation. Many renounce an object very often in their lives, only because they are unwilling to make enough sacrifices. They value themselves or they value the sacrifice that it asks, more than the object they wish to attain. And because they cannot attain it, they say, "I renounce it." It is very easy to renounce.

The great heroes and the souls who have really done something worthwhile in the world have begun their life with sacrifices. Sacrifice of comfort, sacrifice of convenience, sacrifice of pleasure, of merriment, of joy. There is hardly one among them that you find who did not have to pay a great price to have arrived to that attainment. The higher the attainment the greater the sacrifice it asks. But the one who understands keeps his object always higher than the sacrifice he makes.

The one who does not understand wishes to see the object of attainment much less than the sacrifice it asks for. And in it he thinks that it is practical. It is a common sense. No doubt it is practical, and it is a common sense when the object is material to only pay the price of the object.

But the high-minded person who has ideal in him will show that [idyllic] tendency; even if you called him unpractical he does not mind, even in material things. The diamond ring that he likes, he will pay any price for it. Others will mock at him, call him unpractical, but he does not mind. The pleasure he gets out of the thing that he has bought is greater than the money if he had it in the bank. After all, life is but "four days" [an Eastern imagery].

As Sa'adi, the great poet, says, "Who has earned and who has spent, and who has lived is greater than the one who has earned and who has collected at the sacrifice of joy that one gains by sacrifice."

But when it comes to higher things, such as friendship, such as love, such as kindness, there you can never make enough sacrifice. He who had the ideal in his heart, for him always sacrifice is small. What sacrifice he does is always small. It is the one who has no ideal who will weigh and measure and see if it is even or uneven. "What I give is even with what I take, or there is no balance in it." There is his practicality; he calls it wisdom. It is not wisdom, it is cleverness. Wisdom stands higher, above it all. Wisdom does not come by practicality. When a person says, "I will guard my interest against every attempt made by others," he is a different person. That person is greater who trusts, who risks, and who can make sacrifices.

When we come to the spiritual path, it needs a greater sacrifice than anything else. It asks one for one's time, for one's thought; when you are concentrating even it does not allow you to think of anything else. You must think on the object you concentrate on. The further you go, the greater sacrifice is wanted. And the difference between those who go quicker in this path or who go slower is in the capability of sacrifice. Sacrifice teaches renunciation. And there is no other way of self-effacement than sacrifice. The one who knows the path of friendship, the one who knows what real friendship means, he need not be told what sacrifice means; he knows it. For friendship does not mean a good time, a pastime. Friendship means sacrifice. And when once by friendship sacrifice is learned, then one begins to know what sacrifice is necessary on the path of spiritual attainment.

God Bless You.