Divine life,

How will the mind be purified
unless you work for the benefit of others?
Does the mind become calm and peaceful
before it is purified?
And if the mind is not still,
is it easy to concentrate it?
Taking up karma yoga, the path of work or service to humanity
is more practical than trying to realise unity
by following the path of meditation and yoga day and night.
Through karma yoga we get a true test and measure of ourself,
discover the limitations of our powers and abilities,
come to know the many defects and weaknesses in the mind,
the strength of our attractions and attachments,
the extent of our selfishness and egotism,
and patience and forbearance,
and whether these are gradually increasing or decreasing.

It is through the performance of karma yoga - work and service-
that the easiest and surest remedy for our weaknesses and struggles
is to be found.
Work can be a cause of bondage;
but transformed into worship,
work without attachment becomes a means of liberation.
By cultivating the habit of discrimination between the real and unreal,
self-introspection and self-analysis
the mind gradually becomes pure and desireless,
egoistic feelings sublimate
and the heart becomes filled with divine Love.
This is Bhakti yoga.

The feeling of identity or oneness
between the Supreme Self
and the animate and inanimate worlds
as well as the inner-self,
is itself Supreme Love, Bhakti yoga
and Supreme Knowledge, Jnana yoga.

I offer you all blessings for your spiritual deepening,
and so that you experience your perfection.

lovingly… your own… Shantiji