Page 18 - All India Magazine Apr-2026

mental activity and refuse to go inside and allow the psychic
vision and the feelings of the inner heart to become its guides,
though it is by this vision and this feeling that bhakti grows and
conquers. So too the passions and desires of the vital being
and its ego may block the way and prevent the self-giving of
the mind and heart to the Divine. The inertia, ignorance and in-
conscience of one's physical consciousness, its attachment to
fixed habits of thought and feeling and action, its persistence
in the old grooves may come badly in the way of the needed
change. In such circumstances the Divine may have to bide his
time; but if there is real hunger in the heart, all that cannot
prevent the final realisation; still, it may have to wait till the
obstructions are removed or at least so much cleared out as
to admit an unimpeded working of the Divine Power on the
surface nature. Till then, there may be periods of inner ease and
some light in the mind, periods also of the feeling of bhakti or
of peace, periods of the joy of self-consecration in works and
service; for these will take long to stay permanently and there
will be much struggle and unrest and suffering. In the end the
Divine's working will appear and one will be able to live in his
presence.
*
Mixture of the light and darkness
I have described the difficulties of Yoga at their worst, as they
may hamper and afflict even those predestined to the realisa-
tion but as often there is an alternation or a mixture of the light
and the darkness, initial attainment perhaps and heavy subse-
quent difficulties, progress and attacks and retardations, strong
movements forward and a floundering in the bogs of the Igno-
rance. Even great realisations may come and high splendours of
light and spiritual experience and yet the goal is not attained;
for in the phrase of the Rig Veda, "As one climbs from peak to

18 All India Magazine, April 2026