Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 3.djvu/76

31 'concentration’ and 'devotion’—the first illustration of ‘renunciation.' As a consequence, the human mind establishes direct contact with the realities of life. Its fruit is clear thinking, penetrating insight, balanced judgment, and, therefore, sure ground under the foot and an open view before the eye. Man is thus enabled to stand erect and to look ahead—to think clear and to see straight. Thereby he enlarges the sphere of his interest and the field of his influence. Like a widening river, he receives affluents from all sides into himself and expands. This process of self-expansion inevitably sheds the old shell of narrow self-interest. The self is drawn out of its little cell into the broad light. The bead and the heart are alike illumined. Aims and considerations with a circuit ampler than individual life become the decisive factors of plan and action. The thinking man matures into the considerate man. Altruism is engendered. Knowledge, vidya, is widened and deepened into wisdom— that X ray of the spirit which pierces through forms and appearances to the reality of existence. This is viveka—the