by Swami Yatiswarananda

Spiritual life, if it means sublimation and purification of our feelings, means at the same time developing our will power and forcing the mind to take to the higher path.

This must be wholly directed towards the higher life. We find in the world tremendous will power and concentration but both are given a wrong direction and thus lead man into deeper and deeper darkness and ignorance. If all the will power you find in the world were directed along the right channels, this world of ours would immediately become a heaven. We must set the spiritual goal very, very clearly before ourselves.

If we are able to rouse tremendous enthusiasm in ourselves for the goal to be attained, then only shall we have the necessary energy to strive for it and do our utmost. In the world of the spirit, you very often find people with a chaotic brain. They do not care to follow any definite system and like to drift on the boundless sea of their emotions and impulses. So they attain practically nothing, or achieve just as little as the out-and-out worldly-minded people.

No person with a muddled brain can have any success in the world and much less so in the spiritual world. Settle once and for all as to what you really want. Very often we want to attain peace, but we follow a path that can only end in restlessness and trouble.