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a madcap, for the eyes never ask you to be greedy, nor do they want you to be passionate; they don't command you to do anything of the sort. They are ever ready to carry out your bidding in the manner you deem fit to make use of them. As for the physical body, it is your slave, a whole time follower. Wherever you wish to take it, it is ever ready to follow you. Should you say, "Go to hell", it is ready to go to hell; should you say, "Go to heaven" you will find it ready to go to heaven. The question, then, is not of the physical body, but of your volition. Let it not be forgotten that the physical body reels along behind the will. We will be committing a great blunder if, instead of modifying the will, we were to torture the body, victimize it or even destroy it. Subjecting the body to harassment and suffering is another form of violence, and I never approve of violence to the self or to the physical body. I advocate self-love, and it appears to me that there cannot be anything more foolish than self-violence. But what I call self-love has nothing to do with ego-centred individuality. An ego-centred individual never loves himself, for should he love himself he would have been free from egotism, for there is nothing more diabolical and dispiriting than egotism. It is the ego-centred-individual who indulges in activities of self-violence in the garb of a holy man, for the ego does not attain as much satisfaction and nourishment in any other manner as in this. That is why a kind of haughtiness is visible in the so-called abstainers, ascetics and semifledged sages. They are egotistical because they are saints; and they are saints because they are egotistical.
AVOID HOSTILITY
In the vast universe created by God there cannot be anything unfriendly or inimical to you. It is a different matter, however, if you do not make use of it or misuse it. Men of wit and understanding convert a stone Lying on the ground into a stepping-stone, while men devoid of common sense, turn even a stepping stone into a stumbling-block on their way. In life, it is the way of looking at things that matters. If the vision is distorted, it makes a lot of difference. We need not be
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