Q. In regarding the activity in life of the Shiva side of the deity, ....? A. It is a subject which is very vast, and it is difficult to explain that subject in two words. But that aspect of destruction and knowing about destruction can be understood more easily again by something which we see in the modern science, by the medium of what they call inoculation. By putting that destructive element in one's body one makes one's body disease-proof. That that particular disease is no longer a disease, but the nature of that person. That is the method of the mystic from a spiritual point of view. That death is a death so long as man is unacquainted with it. When man eats it up, then he has eaten death; death cannot eat him. Then he knows the life eternal. That is the mystery of the Message of Jesus Christ. To seek eternal life from the beginning to the end. The mystery of eternal life is past once a person has eaten death; then he is eternal.

In little things of life: one person says: "I do not like to touch vinegar, it hurts my health;" one person says: "I cannot bear to eat cream, I cannot digest it;" another person says: "I cannot stand to have sugar in the tea, I do not like it." For him sugar is a poison. If he took the poison once, the same would become sugar for him. All things that one thinks are foreign to his nature, by this he makes his nature exclusive. And by becoming exclusive he makes himself subject to them in a way. There comes a time when they rule him, a situation when he is under them.

A person says: "Bitter onion, it is too bitter, I cannot stand it." He is in a fever; the doctor says he must have it. He dreads having it; at the same time he cannot help it. Therefore the way of Shiva was always to work against one's weaknesses. He counted them as weaknesses, not as nature. "Nature, all is my nature. But what I cannot have, that I make foreign to my nature; if I have separated it, there comes a time perhaps which I become so weak that I cannot help having it." Would you believe that the snake charmers, I have found some of them, who have gradually, by making the snakes bite them time after time, developed so that poison does not hurt them. That when they go, they just catch the snake in their hand. If the snake bites them, it does not hurt them. Shiva is pictured with a cobra round his neck; out of death he has made a necklace; it is no more a death to him.

One can go to extremes. But still it is a law that must be studied and known. The only mystery it teaches is not to consider anything in nature as foreign to one's nature. If it was not in us one would not know it. By this one overcomes all the destruction which is the source of fear and pain and disappointment.

Q. Does it mean that if there is no poison there is no moral? There is no good and no bad, if there is no poison? A. No, it does not mean that. Good is good, and bad is bad. But at the same time one can rise above bad, or one can be submitted to badness. One can become weak before evil, or become strong. The idea is to become strong before evil instead of weak. A. One should be sorry for having begun it too quickly, and one should try to regulate the rhythm .... As in the beginning there is a need of patience, so also in the end. Patience should be all along. Patience is the secret of the whole thing. There are many virtues, but no virtue can be compared with patience. For it is not only a virtue, it is a power within itself.

Q. Is it perhaps God's way of making us immune to sorrow, when He sends us troubles and difficulties? A. Every way is God's way. When He sends us troubles and difficulties, that is God's way; neither is it the law of God to send only sorrow and trouble, nor to send us only joy and happiness. But if we are thankful, and see the Hand of God in all, we would certainly be grateful - and even after sorrow - to see in both the way of God.

Very often there are people more impressed by the doctrine of karma, who say if illness has come, "Well, now it is our karma, that we have to pay the due. Then we must take it patiently." I think there is a virtue in it also, to see that it is from karma. But it is not sufficient. We must know that happiness is our birthright. In our happiness there is the happiness of God. In our sorrow there is not the pleasure of God. Therefore we must do everything in our power to get out of that illness, instead of thinking that karma had thrown that illness and that we must lie patiently with it like a rock over us and not try to push it off, because it is karma.

Q. Is it bad to be too impatient, even for spiritual development? A. "Too" is always bad. If a person asked me, "Is it right to be too good?" It is enough to be good. Impatience of every kind is to be avoided. One loses one's equilibrium. There is no gain out of impatience.

Q. ------? A. Patience does not necessarily mean sloth, negligence, and laziness.

Q. Is in our sorrow not reflected the sorrow of God? A. Certainly. As in our happiness God's happiness is reflected, so in our sorrow God's sorrow is reflected. If God would not sorrow man would be greater than God. For man is capable of two things, and God would only be capable of one. Q. Why did you then say that God is not pleased in our sorrow? A. I did not mean to say that in our sorrow there is not God's sorrow, but I meant to say that God is not pleased, as man is sometimes pleased in causing sorrow to another man. It is impossible to have no sorrow, but we want balance in sorrow and joy. When there is too much joy and no sorrow then life becomes monotonous.

Q. After all is it not a good plan for one to look for the cause of their sorrow or gladness in their own thought and action? A. Sometimes it so happens that it is not conditions which make sorrow. We allow them to make us sorrow. It is not only on their part that it depends, it depends upon both: a part of the sorrow comes from life, and a part one makes oneself. Therefore, if there is a response, one helps life to give a little joy, then life will give one a little joy also. But if one prevents life from giving a little joy then life becomes helpless.