I don’t know to whom I was mentioning this today (I think it was for a Birthday) … No, I don’t know now. It was to someone who told me he was 18 years old. I said that between the ages of 18 and 20, I had attained a constant and conscious union with the Divine Presence and that I had done this ALL ALONE, without ANYONE’S help, not even books. When a little later I chanced upon Vivekananda’s Raja Yoga, it really seemed so wonderful to me that someone could explain something to me! And it helped me realize in only a few months what would have otherwise taken years.

I met a man (I was perhaps 20 or 21 at the time), an Indian who had come to Europe and who told me of the Gita. There was a French translation of it (a rather poor one, I must say) which he advised me to read, and then he gave me the key (HIS key, it was his key). He said, ‘Read the Gita …‘ (this translation of the Gita which really wasn’t worth much but it was the only one available at the time – in those days I wouldn’t have understood anything in other languages; and besides, the English translations were just as bad and … well, Sri Aurobindo hadn’t done his yet!). He said, ‘Read the Gita knowing that krishna is the symbol of the immanent God, the God within.’ That was all. ‘Read it with THAT knowledge – with the knowledge that krishna represents the immanent God, the God within you.’ Well, within a month, the whole thing was done!

So some of you people have been here since the time you were toddlers – everything has been explained to you, the whole thing has been served to you on a silver platter (not only with words, but through psychic aid and in every possible way), you have been put on the path of this inner discovery … and then you just go on drifting along: ‘When it comes, it will come.’ – If you even spare it that much thought!

But I’m not at all discouraged, I just find it rather laughable. Only there are other far more serious things; for example, when you try to deceive yourselves – that is not so pretty. One should not mix up cats and kings. You should call a cat a cat and a king a king – and human instinct, human instinct – and not speak about things divine when they are utterly human, nor pretend to have supramental experiences when you are living in a blatantly ordinary consciousness.

If you look at yourselves straight in the face and you see what you are, then if by chance you should resolve to … But what really astounds me is that you don’t even seem to feel an intense NEED to do this! ‘But how can we know?’ Because you DO know, you have been told over and over again, it has been drummed into your heads. You KNOW that you have a divine consciousness within you. And yet you can go on sleeping night after night, playing day after day, doing your lessons ad infinitum and still not be … not have a BURNING desire and will to come into contact with yourselves! – With yourselves, yes, the you just there, inside (motion towards the center of the chest) … Really, it’s beyond me!

As soon as I found out – and no one told me, I found out through an experience – as soon as I found out that there was a discovery to be made within myself, well, it became THE MOST IMPORTANT thing in the world. It took precedence over everything else!

And when, as I told you, I chanced upon a book or an individual that could give me just a little clue and tell me, ‘Here. If you do such and such, you will find your path’ – well I charged into it like a cyclone … and nothing could have stopped me.

And how many years have you all been here, half-asleep? Naturally, you’re happy to think about it now and then – especially when I speak to you about it or sometimes when you read. But THAT – that fire, that will which plows through all barriers, that concentration which can triumph over EVERYTHING …

Now who was it that asked me what you should do?

(The child:) Me!

Well, that’s what you have to do, my child. I have just told you.