Just as for every illness there is a remedy, so for every disaster there is a reconstruction. Any effort, in whatever form and however small, made towards reconstruction or towards the betterment of conditions is worthwhile, but what we need most is the understanding of that religion of religions and that philosophy of philosophies which is self-knowledge. We shall not understand the outer life if we do not understand ourselves. It is the knowledge of the self that gives the knowledge of the world.
I once asked a very great Murshid, which was best suited for psychic and occult powers, strength or weakness of the body. No doubt there are people who, when they are sick and weak, found themselves able to see things which, being well, they could not see. But this kind of psychic power has no scope for development, because there is no strength. We sometimes think that in order to have psychic powers we should become ethereal, delicate and weak, but physical strength is needed. If it were not so, God would not have manifested Himself as man. If this physical world were not needed it would never have been created.
There are two tendencies: the tendency towards activity, which has brought man from the unconscious to the manifestation, and the tendency towards inactivity, which takes him back there. It is a mistake, often made by ascetics, to give all attention to the inactive tendency and to neglect the physical altogether. Our physical body is our means of experiencing this world, and it is necessary to keep it in good order. To do this three things are needful: one is to keep the circulation in good order by physical practices, another is purification, and the third is development of the muscles.
A person’s body usually goes quite out of control. If he wishes to hold up one foot, his foot will not obey him. For one moment it will go up, but after that it will not obey him any more. If he goes to the photographer who says, "steady," he begins to move at once. The word "steady" alone makes him shake because it reminds him of his helplessness. Without the word "steady" he was all right, but his word brought his weakness before him and weakness of the body expresses weakness of the mind.
When looking at the world with the eyes of the seer, we shall see that people who are called wise and people who are called foolish are much nearer to each other than they are ordinarily thought to be: because of their unbalanced state their different occupations are much nearer to each other than they usually appear. The person who sees the good in others will see more and more good. The person with a fault finding tendency will see so many faults that at last even the good seems bad in his eyes; the eyes themselves are bad.
All the prophets, all the great ones have sought solitude. Christ was in solitude for a long time in the caves of the mountains. Moses was in solitude on Mount Sinai. Buddha had to have solitude for a long, long time before he could give his message to the world. The Prophet Mohammad was for a long time in solitude on Mount Hira. Why this solitude?
One way of being great is to take all we can. The more we take the greater we become, and all the world will call us great. Another way is to give all we can. In the Bible we read, "If a man takes away your coat, give him your cloak as well." The question arises: how much can we give? The more we give the more will be taken from us. When Shams-e-Tabriz had given his skin, the worms and germs also took his flesh and blood. They did not say, "This man has given his skin, let him have the comfort that he may still have;" they took all.