Page:Personality (Lectures delivered in America).djvu/154

134 strive and live in this world if the sky were not filled with love?" Thus when I turned back from the struggle to achieve results, from the ambition of doing benefit to others, and came to my own innermost need; when I felt that living one's own life in truth is living the life of all the world, then the unquiet atmosphere of the outward struggle cleared up and the power of spontaneous creation found its way through the centre of all things. Even now whatever is superficial and futile in the working of our institution is owing to distrust of the spirit, lurking in our mind, to the ineradicable consciousness of our self-importance, to the habit of looking for the cause of our failures outside us, and the endeavour to repair all looseness in our work by tightening the screws of organization. From my experience I know that where the eagerness to teach others is too strong, especially in the matter of spiritual life, the result becomes meagre and mixed with untruth. All the hypocrisy and self-delusion in our religious convictions and practices are the outcome of the goadings of over-zealous activities of mentorship. In our spiritual attainment gaining and giving are the same thing; as in a lamp, to light itself is the same as to impart