110. Swamiji, of late I am not able to read my class books. Immediately I take up my class books, I feel that they are not worth studying, since they do not contain the element that would satisfy my hungering soul.

Beloved child! It is too early for you to renounce the world. Besides, you have got your parents. You should serve them nicely. Earn your livelihood by honest means. Work hard. At the same time, adopt the Nimitta Bhav: work as an instrument in His hands. Cultivate this. Carry on your studies also. No doubt, knowledge of this phenomenal world would not confer Moksha on you. Yet, it has got its own uses. Nothing is bad in itself; it is the use to which a particular branch of knowledge is put that matters.

Try to carry on your personal Sadhana also side by side. Practice my Twenty Important Spiritual Instructions to the best of your ability. Maintain the spiritual diary. Always keep the goal in view. When the time comes, God Himself will facilitate your renunciation.

111. How are life and meditation intermingled?

There is no man in the world who is not divine by nature. The divinity in man differs only in degree, but not in kind. Even the so-called atheist has got a ray of divinity in him. No man is devoid of the three Gunas—Sattva, Rajas and Tamas—in varying proportions. Whether one is a skeptic or an atheist or a nihilist or some other, that portion of Sattva that abides in man helps him do some virtuous actions, which result in further actions of like nature, either in this birth or in some future births. While he does actions of Rajas and Tamas, he also does Sattvic actions according to the degree of purity and Sattva in him. No man in the world¾ be he a robber, a thief, a pirate or some other— commits vicious actions alone. Every man commits both virtuous actions and vicious actions in life. That is, he is prone to do mixed actions so long as he is under the grip of Prakriti. When virtuous actions are done, his mind naturally turns towards the divine, however slightly it be. A sense of inner joy he experiences, though he may not be able to express why. Meditation is essentially the quality of Sattva. When life is made ennobling, sure is the man to think of God.

In this connection, the point worthy of remembrance is that Sattvic actions themselves are to be considered as worship or meditation. Meditation need not necessarily mean sitting in a lonely corner or sequestered spot and thinking over Rama or Krishna or Jesus or Mohammed or pouring forth verbal or mental prayers. Actions that tend to purify the grossness of the individual are to be collectively treated as meditation. Life is thus meditation coupled with Ajnana to an immeasurable degree in the case of an ordinary individual. If meditation is deliberately taken up on the instructions of a Guru who ought necessarily to be a more evolved soul, man cannot but perform good and selfless actions with Akartritva (non-doership) and Abhoktritva (non-enjoyership) Bhavas to make and feel his life more and more cheerful, more and more enlightening, more and more attractive. In the latter course which is but a deliberate step, man evolves more quickly with the speed of lightning, while in the former course man moves forward with the pace of a snail.

Thus, life and meditation are intertwined.