Page 37 - All India Magazine Jul-2026

The vast majority of men are like prisoners
In fact, the vast majority of men are like prisoners with all
the doors and windows closed, so they suffocate, which is quite
natural. But they have with them the key that opens the doors
and windows, and they do not use it.... Certainly there is a time
when they don’t know they have the key, but long after they
have come to know it, long after they have been told about it,
they hesitate to use it and doubt whether it has the power to
open the doors and windows or even that it is a good thing to
open them! And even when they feel that “after all, it might
be good”, there remains some fear: “What will happen when
these doors and windows are opened?...” and they are afraid.
They are afraid of being lost in that light and freedom. They
want to remain what they call “themselves”. They like their
falsehood and their bondage. Something in them likes it and
goes on clinging to it. They still have the impression that with-
out their limits they would no longer exist.
That is why the journey is so long, that is why it is difficult.
For if one truly consented to cease to exist, everything would
become so easy, so swift, so luminous, so joyful — but perhaps
not in the way men understand joy and ease. In truth, there
are very few people who do not enjoy fighting. There are very
few who could accept the absence of night, few can conceive
of light except as the opposite of darkness: “Without shadows
there would be no picture. Without struggle, there would be
no victory. Without suffering there would be no joy.” That is
what they think, and so long as one thinks in this way, one is
not yet born into the spirit.
CWM 9: 430-31 The Mother

All India Magazine, July 2026 37