SAMPLE PAGE : Page 160

Extract from a letter dated 2nd February 1933, to Mr. Les. Hope, Peshawar.

I was glad to learn from your letter of the spirit of submission to God and resignation to His will in which you - your entire family, young and old, took the passing away of Mrs. Hope, Nothing could have been better. It is man's duty to take full advantage of every incident good or "bad". Every incident has a hidden message for him. God's work is full of Wisdom. Man is made up of two parts, permanent and changeable. Even, change fortunate or unfortunate from your point of view, does good to the permanent part. Even tears, disappointments and shocks. temporary failures and losses, illness and death contribute their quota to the welfare of the hidden and permanent part of the man. So let tile congratulate you on the manliness with which you have treated this shock.

I was very glad to hear that in every other respect you are doing well and that the Hand of God is clearly visible in all those affairs pertaining to you and your young ones.

Extract from a letter dated 2nd March 1932, to Mr. Les. Hope, Peshawar.

From your recent letters I learnt that you have the good luck of enjoying a steady progress in your body, and soul. I am glad for all that, but I feel constrained to sound a note of warning here. A vigorous body and a powerful soul, although quite valuable in themselves, are not the objects of life. They are only means to an end. Body is merely an instrument to the soul: the soul is all agent of the “I” dwelling within: and this “I” again is an echo of the Real, Genuine, All-perfect “I” which dwells neither nor without, dwells nowhere and dwells everywhere and is the only existing reality before whom everything else dwindles into a mere shadow and sometimes not even that. You have got to find out your present self and discover in what relation it stands to the Reality. You may then receive the Proper Light and if you take care to keep to that Light in every department of your activity, you will find yourself on the right path and you will have gained the object of your life so, far as its earthly aspect is concerned. With that crowning success your health, wealth and spirituality will become sanctified, while without it even your spiritual acquisitions such as floating in the air and walking over the sea will carry you no further.

I trust my above remarks will give you sufficient food for reflection for the present. Let not your present activities and inactivites, inclinations and disinclinations, pleasures and pains come in the way of what ought to be your Real Object.