Part II — The vital, mind, heart and soul

The vital, mind, heart and soul

When you live in the vital, you are always frustrated. And you have to know that this frustration will never be satisfied unless and until it destroys the person or thing that has caused the frustration. But even if you see the person who is responsible for your frustration right in front of you, you cannot destroy him. You cannot stab him or strangle him. You will be arrested. So there comes a time when your frustration tries to destroy a vital being inside you instead. When this happens, the vital being tries to escape and while trying to escape, very often, it is caught by a giant force which we call a lower vital force. This force adds to the power of frustration and then real destruction starts.

We have three kinds of vital: the lower vital, the human vital and the divine vital. First your frustration enters into the simple human or ordinary vital, and then if you are not fully illumined, the lower vital forces come forward. When the lower vital comes forward and adds to the strength of the human vital, you begin destroying yourself. Because of frustration in the ordinary vital caused by your day-to-day activities, the evil force of the lower vital comes to the human vital.

When you live in the mind, two things happen. One is that doubt comes and the other is that you have a feeling of inferiority. Now, if you doubt God, no harm. If you doubt me as a spiritual Master, no harm. If you doubt your husband or your wife, no harm. But if you doubt yourself, you are digging your own grave. What does God do if you doubt Him? He immediately smiles and says, "All right, I have My Eternity for My son or daughter. I shall use my Eternity-weapon and conquer My child's doubt." And if you doubt me, I say I am helpless. But when you doubt yourself or your spiritual life, no matter how much God or I tell you not to doubt yourself, at that time you think you don't have any capacity. So please don't doubt yourself. If you do, there is no salvation.

Once in six months, if you doubt your spiritual life, it is not very serious. But some disciples doubt their spiritual life consciously and constantly, so they can never make spiritual progress. True, there were great spiritual Masters and very advanced souls like Vivekananda and others who doubted their spiritual life. But again, they were giants. In general, if ordinary human beings cherish doubt for a few days or a month or so, they immediately drop from their previous level of spiritual development.

If you have come to a certain standard and if you want to take rest, you are mistaken if you think that after five or ten years you can go forward from the same point. In the spiritual life, once you begin doubting, you immediately come to a standstill. The next day, you won't even be able to stay at this point and the following day you will be compelled to go back to your starting point, or actually even further. There is a kind of inner retribution. You got the opportunity, but after getting it, you misused it by doubting your spiritual life. Before you accept the spiritual life, you can doubt your spiritual life. But if you doubt your spiritual life after you get inner, divine assistance, then you cannot remain in the same place. If you doubt the Master or God, compassion will be able to be of some help to you. But if you doubt yourself, since you don't have the same kind of compassion for yourself, realisation becomes a very long process. If you are about to take five steps, and you doubt yourself, then you go back twenty-five steps. So I ask the disciples not to cherish doubt. To stay in the mind means to doubt, and each time you doubt you will go backwards. Why do this if you know there is a way to shorten your journey instead? The shortest path is the path of the heart. So please live in the heart, and not in the vital or the mind.