NO GAME FOR THE WEAK AND FAINTHEARTED

 
As the aspirant advances on the spiritual path, he acquires, through his contact with a Perfect Master, an increasingly deeper understanding of true love. This makes him painfully sensitive to the impact from outside actions that not only do not taste of love but actually bring him into contact with cold contempt, cynical callousness, agonizing antipathy, and unabating hatred. All these encounters try his forbearance to the utmost.

Even the worldly person suffers in a world he occasionally finds indifferent or hostile, but he is more thick-skinned and his suffering is less acute. He does not expect anything much better from human nature and thinks that these things are inevitable and incurable. The aspirant, who has tasted a deeper love, knows the hidden possibilities in every soul. Thus his suffering is more acute because he feels the gulf between that which is and that which might have been, if only the world had even faintly appreciated the love he has begun to understand and cherish.

The task of forbearance would be easy if the aspirant could become reconciled to the ways of the world and accept them without challenge. Having seen the higher truths, however, it becomes his imperative duty to stand by them, even if the whole world opposes him. Loyalty to the higher truths of his own perception demands unshakable moral courage and readiness to face the criticism, the scorn, and even the hatred of those who have not yet begun to open up to these truths.

Although in this uneven struggle he does get unfailing help from the Master and other aspirants, he has to develop the capacity to fight for these truths single-handedly, without relying upon external help all the time. This supreme moral courage can only come with supreme confidence in oneself and in the Master. To love the world and serve it in the ways of the Masters is no game for the weak and fainthearted.