What is sadhana (spiritual practice)?
Sadhana means an effort.

Effort for what?
It is an endless effort to become one with the Supreme Nucleus.
It is a ceaseless effort to obtain perfection from imperfection.

A prayer to the supreme consciousness…

Do whatever you think fit and best for me.
I do not know in which way lies my good.
You know.

That which makes the mind soft and strong and strenuous, so it may keep itself in a balanced state even in the condition of pain – that which perpetually creates a pleasant feeling within, is called love.

Devotion is identical with love. The moment devotion is aroused, the love of the Supreme Consciousness comes.

It is unnecessary to leave the world, to leave service to humanity and to go to the Himalayas to attain the Supreme Consciousness. This universe itself is the Supreme Consciousness – where will you go by leaving it?

In the world a person thinks that they are not able to concentrate their mind because of the din and bustle; but in the cave of the Himalayas they think that they cannot get sweet fruit in a particular jungle, and hence tomorrow they will go and pick ripe plums two or three miles away in a different forest. In either place they are not free.

Devotion is that bridge which connects the individual with the Cosmic Consciousness.
Before crossing the bridge of devotion, one feels, “You are that Supreme Consciousness”.
But while crossing the bridge, one feels, “I am That”.

Devotion means longing for the Supreme. Now the question arises, is devotion natural or unnatural for living beings?

All the conscious or crude things we see in the manifested universe bear attraction for one another, and as a consequence, the continuity of the thought-projection of the Cosmic Mind is maintained. It is on account of the mutual attraction of myriads of heavenly bodies oscillating in the infinite space that balance is maintained in the firmament.

You may be an ordinary creature – you may have to pass your days in the ups and downs of your worldly existence – still do not forget the Divine.

Keep all your desires inclined towards the Divine. Always keep yourselves merged thusly. Go deep into the mood of that Infinite Love.

The world is a changing phenomenon. Therefore, it is unwise to be attached to any object in the ever-changing world. The very name and form will undergo changes with the change in time and place. The child changes into youth, the youth into the old, and the old into the corpse.

But if wise people take every object of the world as the expression of the one and single Cosmic Consciousness, then on seeing the changes in the name and form of any particular object, they will not be affected by pain or pleasure.

Be one with Him and know everything.
If you want to know all, try to know One.
If you try to know all,
you won’t be able to know anything.

In this cosmic cycle, everyone has their individual and particular desire, and everyone is running after it. Those who have several desires run after all of them and become exhausted; and in the long run they receive none. If one desires to drink milk and smoke at the same time, it cannot be done. A person can do only one or the other.

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.

In this universe there is nothing beyond the Supreme Consciousness. You always remain within His circle.

Imagine that a cow is tied to a peg with a rope. The rope may be short or long, but the cow has to move around the peg. Similarly, human beings are moving around the Cosmic Nucleus.

They go round without knowing that they are tied to a peg, without knowing who is at the centre. They think that they are everything, and that they know so much. They think they are not ordinary creatures. This creates pride in them.

Then, while moving, suddenly a question comes in their minds. They ask where they are going, from where is the inspiration to move coming? When this realisation, this question arises in their minds, then they know that they are moving around a peg, and that they have to go towards the centre, towards the Supreme Nucleus.

The day this realisation comes they become spiritual aspirants and the radius starts decreasing. When the radius becomes nil, then they merge into the Supreme Consciousness.

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.

If one could visualise the original form of the Supreme Entity, all the apparent external differences would vanish into nothingness. In fact, the fundamental spirit of intuitional practice is to realize the Supreme Unity in the midst of diversity.