What is dogma?

Dogma is an idea with a rigid boundary line, which won’t allow you to go beyond the periphery of that boundary line. Thus dogma goes against the fundamental spirit of the human mind. The human mind won’t tolerate anything rigid. It wants movement – not only movement, but accelerated movement. Humans want unbarred psychic progress, intellectual progress, without obstacles.

There are three categories of human beings. The first category comprises those who thoughts, words and deeds are the same – which means that whatever they think, they speak, and whatever they speak, they do. Such people are A-class people.

The second category comprises those whose thoughts and words are different, but whatever they speak, they do – which means they think one thing and speak another, but they do whatever they speak. Such people are B-class people.

The third category comprises those whose thoughts, words and deeds are different from each other and never the same. Such people think one thing, speak another, and do something altogether different. Such people are C-class people Most of the leaders of the present-day world fall into this category.

You should try to become A-class people. You should speak what you think, and you should do what you speak.

Now what is devotion? Leaving all the relative things, when the mind moves toward the Absolute, that alone is known as Devotion. When the mind moves toward the Supreme Soul, the nearer it comes to Him, there is an unknowing change in it. The caterpillar does not know when it becomes a butterfly.

The mind does not know how changes occur in it. Thus, one day it sees that it is no longer an individual being and hence the individualistic feeling disappears. When the mind is free from individualistic feelings, that alone is the Supreme State.

To attain complete success in life, one must have mental equipose, mental balance. There must not be any complex in the mind – neither superiority nor inferiority complex.

Now, to bring about mental balance, you should behave with every human being in such a way that this superiority complex or inferiority complex develops neither in you nor in those with whom you behave.

Complex of any sort – superiority or inferiority – is a psychic malady, a mental disease. You must maintain a psychic balance. That balanced mind will be able to move towards the Supreme Consciousness. That’s why it has been said, “One should be humbler than the grass.” Usually superiority is found more in humans than inferiority complex. Even those who possess mere knowledge of the alphabet, feel themselves quite superior to those who are totally illiterate.

From the inanimate to the animate goes the process of evolution.

Consider a piece of stone for instance. It has neither the power of action nor the sensation of mind. What is the reason? It is because hitherto there has been no manifestation of mind in the stone at all.

Consider the trees and plants that are more animate than the stone. There is activity in them. They grow, draw the vital juice from the earth, maintain their species by creating seeds in their own bodies, and enjoy and suffer pleasure and pain when taken care of or hurt. We see in them the manifestation of consciousness, for mind has awakened in them.

Thus progressing on the path of mental development, we see in humanity its greatest manifestation. Just as evolution takes place from the subtle to the crude, similarly the unit entity reverts step by step from the crude to the subtle, towards the same Absolute Consciousness from whence it came. It is just like the waves of the sea, rippling back from whence they have come.

When a spiritual aspirant tries to enlarge his mind, naturally debasing forces become very active. The aspirant is to enlarge his mind and spirit by fighting at each and every step, each and every stage of life.

In his mind there will be those two belligerent forces. That is, the spiritual force and the debasing material force will start fighting amongst each other in the mind. One force will try to exalt you towards the Supreme Self, another force will want to degrade you, goad you towards crude materialism.

He who wants to keep himself away from fight is unknowingly committing suicide, mental and spiritual suicide. Each and every man should be ready for fight – fight in the mental stratum, fight in each and every stratum of life. This is Tantra.

There is one moon, but its reflections, falling in countless puddles of water, appear as countless moons. No new moon is born. The same moon is being reflected in many receptacles. Similarly, the one and the same Supreme Consciousness is being manifested as limitless individual entities, in countless mental receptacles, in countless minds.