The life of the Burhai is very surprising, very strange, and is a great puzzle to those who meet him. You would be quite afraid of a man who was lying down with ashes rubbed all over his face and body, perhaps sitting almost in a fire. His very appearance looks so strange. He may be living in a grave-yard outside the city, and he goes into the city only to obtain food for himself or his friends, who are Burhais like himself. At other times he goes off into the wilderness and lives there. He spends most of his time in meditation and also gives a great deal of time to the mastery of self. The paths which the Hindus follow are the yogas, of which there are four kinds. There is the path of abstinence, and in this the Burhai strives to develop his spiritual life by abstinence. In following this path, practices may be carried out which seem hideous, or at least very strange to those who do not understand the philosophy or the idea. Whatever it is he does, the object is to reach the spirit by killing everything that hides that spirit from his sight.

One might say that he considers he is the enemy of himself; so he crushes everything that is not spirit, everything that interferes with his spiritual progress. He seeks to kill everything that is mortal within him, realizing that in this way he can attain to a higher and more powerful life. No words can ever describe the experiences which he gains. No one else but himself can possibly understand the experience. It is like asking a child who has never eaten sugar "what does the word 'sweet' mean?" Only those can understand the idea of 'sweet' who have experienced sweetness. So a Burhai is very powerful, as everyone knows. To perform a 'wonder,' all he has to do is to make a flick with his left hand.

His whole life seems to stand before him as his obedient servant; he who sees the Burhai knows he is the master of life. Once one is master of self, one is master of life. The self is what makes our life limited, so when we master it, we master life, all life, in proportion to the extent to which we have attained mastery. Such a one is master even of plants, and trees, and any living being. He has mastered everything. We cannot appreciate this because it is quite unintelligible until one has oneself developed that mastery in one's own life. Then it is possible to see how life seems to be obedient in all manner of relations.

Do we not see, even in our own little experience, how things go wrong when we have become weak in will, or mind, in one affair or another? It is not possible to master the conditions of life until we have learnt to control ourselves. Once we have mastery over self, everything will go right. It is just the same as when a rider has no strength in his fingers, so that he cannot hold the horse's reins. His fingers must obey his mind before the horse will obey. This is true for all circumstances of life with the various conditions around us, our relations, our friends. We may complain that no one listens; that one's servant does not do what we wish him to do; that one's assistants do not carry out our wishes. One may blame them when all the time it is ourselves who are to be blamed, because we have not mastered ourselves first. After that, they would obey.

The Burhai learns this lesson mainly by abstinence. Why is this? Because things go wrong just because of our own weakness; we do not do what we wish to do; we consider ourselves so little that we cannot achieve our own wishes. There are many 'wonder-workers' among sages of the Burhai group. But do not think that they will step out onto a platform and 'perform.' Anyone who gets on a stage to show off 'wonders' is false, not real. The real Burhai aims at his own mastery, and is not concerned with doing 'tricks' for the world to see; so no one sees them. The Burhai's whole life is a 'wonder' in himself, but the whole world is a wonder to him. His vision, his power, his inspiration is so great. But the life is a very hard one. It is a great renunciation.