Yours Affectionately

You say in eight weeks since your initiation you have made no progress. Sant Mat does not fix any time limit. Let us appreciate the situation. Ever since our birth, at which time we left the eye focus and came out of it and established our connections with this world, we have not gone inside of it. Sometimes, when we have a deep, intricate problem to solve, we close our eyes and try to think by holding all our attention in the eye centre. We do it for a short time, but soon run out again because we have acquired the bad habit of always remaining away from the focus.

Poets, painters, and musicians receive inspiration from this point. All great thinkers get their ideas clarified here. Whatever scientific progress the world has made, it has all been derived from this source. This focus, back of the eyes, is the fountain of all inspiration which has produced the world’s masterpieces. And whatever further progress is to be made in the future, the source of information and inspiration will still be this point. Here is where Divinity comes down to meet the struggling man.

And what holds us outside this focus? Why does not everybody in the world rush, with his utmost ability, to enter this magic fountain of inspiration and wisdom? Because our attention has always been, and is yet, attached to our bodies, to our near relations, to our homes, to our countries, and to our pleasures – sometimes to our pains and sorrows. We have so much identified ourselves with these things that we have lost our identity. Unless now we start detaching ourselves from these outside connections, begin to develop the capacity to switch our attention on and off at will, we can make but little progress on the path.

We are to re-establish our identity, to assert our supremacy over our minds and bodies. The mind must be made to work when we wish it to, and to remain motionless when we wish it to do so. We must become able to enter this body when we wish, to function in this world when necessary, and then to go out of it at will, when we wish to function in another world. It is the attention which is to go inside and see, and so long as it is running outside, who is to see inside? If the owner of a house sits always outside of his house and complains that he cannot see what is going on inside, his complaint is not justified.

This detaching the attention from the external connections is a slow affair. Habits become second nature. It takes time to form new habits. But slow and steady wins the race, and practice makes perfect. Follow your mind for a minute and see what keeps it away from its headquarters. Avoid whatever interferes, and accept what helps in reaching your objective. I have already given you the saints’ method, based on long, long experience.

If anyone is sure that he is on the right path, then if he takes but one step a day, he is still approaching his destination and is sure to get there some day, no matter how distant his destination may be. You will perhaps say, “How am I to know that I am on the right path?” I give you the means of proving it for yourself. Until you have proved it for yourself, you must, of necessity, accept something on faith.
_{Maharaj Sawan Singh, Spiritual Gems}