Letter to Brihaspati⁷

You are an intellectual giant and I am an intellectual pygmy; therefore, to evaluate your progress from the mental or intellectual point of view will be ridiculous. I shall try to evaluate your progress purely from the spiritual point of view, and I am sure that is what you precisely want from me. You teach your students how to learn, and I am teaching you inwardly how to unlearn most of the things that your mind has taught you or you have taught your mind under the unconscious guidance of your physical body and your vital being. You have also taught your mind under the illumined and illumining guidance of your psychic being. The things that you have taught your mind under the guidance of your psychic being must always expand and increase. They must be revealed and manifested — naturally in God’s own way. And the things that your mind has taught you or the things that you have taught your mind must be examined to see if they are of any true value. To your wide surprise your mutual examination will prove that except one thing, everything is useless. And what is that thing? The mind’s conscious and continuous acceptance of the soul’s earth-transforming and Heaven-manifesting light. This light of the soul is the only thing real in us, real in God, real in God’s Vision, real in God’s Reality.

You give marks to your students in order to show them where they stand with regard to their knowledge-height. Here the height of the goal is fixed. In the spiritual life the goal constantly transcends itself. In the mental or intellectual life ascendance to a certain height is the goal. In the spiritual life continuous self-transcendence is the goal. When you ascend, you come to know what you can eventually become. When you transcend, you know what you eternally are. We ascend with what we have or what claims us as its own: ignorance. We transcend with what we are and the thing that we call our own: aspiration.

Have you made any progress since you have accepted our path? The answer is in the strongest affirmative. Your most significant progress lies in your heart’s implicit surrender to God’s Will, your mind’s conscious awareness of the true truth that the mind is not all, in your vital’s considerable and glorious God-receptivity and your body’s soulful eagerness to place itself unconditionally at the Feet of your Inner Pilot, your Eternity’s Beloved Supreme.

Doubt you had. Doubt you have. Doubt is something which you will not have in the future, even if you want to. There was a time when the doubt-dancer danced inside your mind-forest. Now you see that an unfamiliar traveller by the name of doubt has somehow made friends with you and wants to travel with you, but once the doubt-traveller discovers that you are walking along Eternity’s road it will give up, for the patience of the doubt-traveller is not and cannot be unlimited, whereas the burning cry inside you to reach the ever-transcending Reality is ceaseless. In the future, an old familiar face will present itself before you, an old friend of yours will come and show its identity, its previous oneness with you. This new, yet eternally old friend of yours is confidence: confidence in what you have to give to God; confidence in what He is to you. You will give to God what you have bound for yourself and what you have bound in God, in God’s creation. What He is to you is what you are to Him: an exact prototype of the self-same reality. Your confidence-friend will accompany you to the uncharted land of divinity’s Immortality and Immortality’s life.

You wanted to know about your friends: purity, sincerity and aspiration. How are they doing? I wish to tell you that these three friends of yours are not three separate friends. They are just one. The name of that friend is aspiration. When we look at the body of aspiration, we call it sincerity. When we look at the heart of aspiration, we call it purity. Sincerity tells you what you can become. Purity tells you what you can give. Aspiration tells you what you are. Sincerity tells you you can become God-love. Purity tells you you can give God-love. Aspiration tells you you are God’s Light-life and Life-light. God’s Light-life has created the visible universe. God’s Life-light embodies the invisible universe. The visible universe is God’s reality-filled Vision, and the invisible universe is God’s vision-filled Reality. Has your purity increased since you have accepted our path? Your physical purity marches like a dauntless soldier of truth. Your vital purity at times marches like a soldier, at times walks like an old Indian lady, at times runs like the fastest sprinter. Your mental purity does not crawl any more. On the contrary, when your vital runs the fastest it wants to run and compete with the vital’s fastest speed.

There was a time when your sincerity was an infant plant. Now it has become an adolescent plant, only to grow in the near future into a huge tree. Your aspiration: when I saw you first at Harvard, I saw an unforgettable wrestling between your heart’s light and your mind’s life. Your heart’s light has indisputably and triumphantly won. You may recall after the Harvard meeting, I met you in a small room at a disciple’s place. When you told me your name was Peter, I said to you, “So, you have the key?” Then you immediately told me, “Yes, I have. Take it.” The key opens the door, and now the door is wide open. You as the key have opened the door. You as the door have revealed the treasure. You as the seeker are enjoying and will be enjoying your own Eternity’s treasure.