DWELLING IN SOLITUDE (Vivikta-Sevee) — A seeker who has developed all the above-mentioned physical, mental and intellectual adjustments, must now seek a sequestered spot of loneliness. This does not mean that he must move out of a town to a jungle. The term indicates only a spot “wherein there is the least disturbance.” Even in the midst of a market there are moments when it is deserted and quiet. If the seeker is sincere, he can discover such moments of complete solitude under his own roof.

EATING BUT LITTLE — Over-indulgence and stuffing oneself with highly nutritive food is fattening the body and thickening the subtlety of one’s intellectual activities. Temperance is the law for all spiritual students (VI-17).

CONTROLLING SPEECH, BODY AND MIND — The mind cannot be subdued unless the body is brought under its command. The body is constituted of the sense-organs of perception and action. The grossest manifestation of the mind is action, and to control action is to discipline the mind. The term SPEECH used here indicates “all sense-organs-of-action and their functions”; and the term BODY represents “the organs-of-perception and all their activities of perceiving their respective objects.” Unless these two sets of organs are controlled, the mind cannot be subdued.

In fact, the mind ITSELF, at the body-level, becomes the sense-organs, and the mind projected away from the body is the great universe of sense-objects. When the mind, playing through the body, identifies itself with its own projections — the objects — it is called PERCEPTION; and when it comes in contact with the world-of-objects seeking satisfaction and entertainment, it is called ACTION. Disciplining action and regulating perception — in short, eliminating the ego-centric attitude in all our perceptions, in all our relationships with the world-of-objects, is what is advised here.

EVER ENGAGED IN MEDITATION — Controlling the actions and perceptions of the mind is not possible as long as the mind is constantly flowing out through the sense-organs towards the sense-objects. Seeking sense-gratifications, the mind is in a constant state of agitation. To quieten such a mind, it is necessary that we must give it some “point-of-contemplation” wherein, as it engages itself more and more, it shall discover consummate happiness and get sufficiently disengaged from everything else. Diverting the mind from the world of sense-objects and maintaining it in a steady flow towards contemplation of the Lord in an utter attitude of identification, is called MEDITATION. To be steadily in a state of such an all-consuming dedication unto a nobler and higher ideal is the method of cooling down the mind’s boiling lust for sense-enjoyments.

POSSESSED OF DISPASSION — Dispassion is Vairaagya. It is not a mere self-denial of any object of enchantment, but it is a state when the mind rebounds upon itself from the objects as a result of its discovery that the objects contain no glow of happiness. The essence of dispassion is not in our running away from the object; from a truly dis-passionate man, the objects run away in inexplicable despair.

When the old interests of a person die away and when he is ordered by new intellectual visions, new interests rise up in his mind; then the old world-of-objects around him suddenly retires, yielding place to the new set of things that he has willed around him by his newly developed mind. As long as I was a vicious man, sensuous friends and pleasure-seekers crowded my drawing-room; when I changed my way-of-life and took to serious social work and political activities, the group of idlers went away yielding their places to politicians and social workers. After a time I grew in my mental make-up, and so, in my spiritual interests, even these politicians with their power-politics, and the social workers with their unspeakable jealousies and rivalries retired, yielding their places to men of thought and spiritual benediction. This is a typical example of how, as a mind grows, it leaves its old toys behind and enters totally into a greater field of the nobler gains of life.

To sum up, a true seeker of the Higher Life must seek solitude, live in temperance, subdue his speech, body and mind, and must live in a spirit of dispassion, a true life of aspiration to heave himself towards the ideal.

THESE EFFORTS CAN BUILD UP A TEMPLE OF SUCCESS ONLY WHEN THE INNER PERSONALITY HAS A DEEP FOUNDATION UPON CERTAIN ENDURING VALUES OF LIFE. THESE ARE ENUMERATED IN THE FOLLOWING:

Vivikta-sevi, one who resorts to solitude, is habituated to repairing into such solitary places as a forest, bank of a river, mountain caves, etc.; laghuasi, eats sparingly, is habituated to eating a little-repairing to solitary places and eating sparingly are nentioned here since they are the causes of tranillity of mind through the elimination of defects like sleep etc.-; the person steadfast in Knowledge, yata-vak-kaya-manasah, who has speech, body and mind under control. Having all his organs withdrawn thus, dhyana-yoga-parah nityam, one to whom meditation and concentration are ever the highest (duty)-meditation is thinking of the real nature of the Self, and concentration is making the mind one-pointed with regard to the Self itself; one to whom these meditation and concentration are the highest (duty) is dhyana-yoga-parah-. Nityam, (ever) is used to indicate the absence of other duties like repetition of mantra [A formula of prayer sacred to any deity.-V.S.A.] etc. Samupasritah, one who is fully possessed, i.e. ever possessed; of vairagyam, dispassion, absence of longing for objects seen or unseen-. Further,