It is not the moment of their forming but in the moment of their producing motor effects, that resolves and aspirations communicate the new 'set' to the brain.
The actual presence of the practical opportunity alone furnishes the fulcrum upon which the lever can rest, by means of which the moral will may multiply its strength and raise itself aloft. He who had no solid ground to press against will never get beyond the stage of empty gesture making.
When a resolve or a fine glow of feeling is allowed to evaporate without bearing practical fruit, it is a waste and a chance lost; it works so as positively to hinder future resolutions and emotions from taking the normal path of discharge.
If we let our emotions evaporate, they get in a way of evaporating.
WORSHIP OF THE TERRIBLE.
The attitude of the soul which is not to be baffled by the lower nature or the "Personal Self" should be to seek Death and not life, to hurl oneself upon the sword's point and become one with the terrible. Those who are commissioned by the Lord to bear aloft the torch of spirit are fated to see every joy of the senses turn to ashes and crushing blows upon their eyes to the unsubstantially of the relative life of Maya.
The lion when stricken to the heart gives out his loudest roar,
When smitten on the head the cobra lifts its hood
And the majesty of the Soul comes out only when a man is wounded to his
depths.
The Western ideal is to be doing: the Eastern to be suffering. The perfect life would be a harmony between (selfless or non-attached) doing and suffering. Worship the terrible. Worship Death, for its own sake; despair for its own sake; pain for its own sake. Yet this is not the coward's or the suicide's or the weakling's morbid love of Death, but it is the cry of the philosopher who has sounded everything to its depths and knows intensely the vanity of the desire for happiness on the relative plane of limitations. Remember the triumphant cry of St. Francis of Assisi: "WELCOME, SISTER DEATH!" "Be witness"—of all that goes on but be not entangled. Reserve to yourself the power to remain unattached at all times. Accept nothing however pleasant, if it conceals a fetter into thy Soul. At a word stand ready to sever any connection that gives a hint of soul-bondage. Keep thy mind clear. Keep thy will pure. Attain the Impersonal Standpoint, O you man! there alone canst thou quench thy thirst for happiness never on the plane of personal. Who and what dies and is reborn?—Your lower self, your personality.
"Sometimes naked, sometimes mad,
Now as a scholar, again as a fool
Here a rebel, there a saint,
Thus they appear on the earth
—the Perfect Ones. Paramhamsas"—Viveka Chudamani.
If you accept the report of the senses as final, you will say "soul for nature"—but if you can gain the spiritual point of view, you will say "no-nature for soul." Evolution, devolution and involution are all in nature and will go on cyclically and eternally. All this is merely due to the wish of the soul to manifest itself. But such expression can come only when the soul lives on its plane. Say "Money is my slave, not I." Say "Nature is my slave, not I". Give up life, give up body, give up all desire for enjoyment on the relative plane. So shall you transcend all limitation. Your real nature is Infinite and Absolute. Only when you lower your nature by limiting it to the "particular self," do you become bound and unhappy. On the relative plane, you are a slave to the pair of opposites—life and death, pleasure and pain, and so on. Here is limitation. Here you are a slave to competition, and "Survival of the Fittest" is the law. Be not blinded by the flashing light of the glare of modern civilization. Every morsel you eat is ground out of your brother's blood. Slave to a breath of air, slave to food, slave to life, slave to Death, slave to a word of praise, slave to a word of blame—"Slave—Slave—Slave"—that is your condition. The Soul cannot stoop to any compromise. It refuses to conquer nature by obedience. It will conquer nature by renouncing the body and by knowing itself. Find thyself bodiless. Power felt within is soul; without, nature. "We must crush Law (nature) and become outlaws."