Page 34 - All India Magazine Aug-2026

submerged by the uprush of the vital waves. This is especially
so with young people who are plastic and easily caught hold of
by ideas and communicated feelings not their own—afterwards
the vital rises with its unsatisfied demands and they are swung
between two contrary forces or rapidly yield to the strong pull
of the ordinary life and action and satisfaction of desire which
is the natural bent of adolescence. Or else the unfit 1dh1ra
tends to suffer under the stress of a call for which it was not
ready, or at least not yet ready. When one has the real thing in
oneself, one goes through and finally takes the full way of sad-
hana, but it is only a minority that does so. It is better to receive
only people who come of themselves and of these only those in
whom the call is genuinely their own and persistent.
CWSA 35: 691-92
The necessities of a sadhak
The necessities of a sadhak should be as few as possible; for
there are only a very few things that are real necessities in life.
The rest are either utilities or things decorative to life or luxu-
ries. These a Yogi has a right to possess or enjoy only on one of
two conditions —
(1) if he uses them during his sadhana solely to train him-
self in possessing things without attachment or desire and
learn to use them rightly, in harmony with the Divine Will,
with a proper handling, a just organisation, arrangement and
measure — or,
(2) if he has already attained a true freedom from desire
and attachment and is not in the least moved or affected in
any way by loss or withholding or deprival. If he has any greed,
desire, demand, claim for possession or enjoyment, any anxi-
ety, grief, anger or vexation when denied or deprived, he is not
free in spirit and his use of the things he possesses is contrary
to the spirit of sadhana. Even if he is free in spirit, he will not

34 All India Magazine, August 2026