Page 12 - All India Magazine Apr-2026

DIFFICULTIES AND THE SUNLIT PATH

A cheerful and sunlit heart
I don't believe much in this Divine Darkness. It is a Chris-
tian idea. For us the Divine is Peace, Purity, Wideness, Light,
Ananda. I spoke of strange ideas in connection with what you
said about peace and cheerfulness being obstacles in the Yoga
because they are incompatible with an ardent longing for reali-
sation.

Suffering and struggle
The dark path is there and there are many who make like
the Christians a gospel of spiritual suffering; many hold it to
be the unavoidable price of victory. It may be so under certain
circumstances, as it has been in so many lives at least at the
beginning, or one may choose to make it so. But then the price
has to be paid with resignation, fortitude or a tenacious resil-
ience. I admit that if borne in that way the attacks of the Dark
Forces or the ordeals they impose have a meaning. After each
victory gained over them, there is then a sensible advance; of-
ten they seem to show us the difficulties in ourselves which we
have to overcome and to say, "Here you must conquer us and
here." But all the same it is a too dark and difficult way which
nobody should follow on whom the necessity does not lie.

Formations of the dark forces
In any case one thing can never help and that is to despond
always and say, "I am unfit; I am not meant for the Yoga." And
worse still are these perilous mental formations such as you
are always accepting that you must fare like X (one whose dif-
ficulty of exaggerated ambition was quite different from yours)
and that you have only six years etc. These are clear formations
of the Dark Forces seeking not only to sterilise your aspiration

12 All India Magazine, April 2026