Off the path

You are off the path. What does it mean? Does it mean that from now on you will be helpless, hopeless and useless? No, far from it. From now on only one thing will happen and that is the fulfilment of your oneness with your vital and your vital life. Your vital has chalked out a path for you and you want to walk along that path. Previously, you were walking along the path of the soul. There the soul was your leader-friend. Now your vital will be your leader-friend.

When you walked on your soul's path, you made many promises to God, inner promises. These promises, from now on, you will be under no obligation to fulfil. God, too, made a solemn promise to you, and His promise that He would grant you conscious liberation from the meshes of ignorance, and absolute oneness with Him, is also withdrawn. You can say temporarily, you can say indefinitely; it depends on how long your friendship with your vital leader-friend lasts.

Now you have left the path of the soul and you have entered into the path of the vital. If you criticise the path of the soul, if you feel that there is nothing worthwhile to be found on the path of the soul, and that it was a terrible mistake on your part to enter into that path, then naturally you will stay indefinitely on the vital path.

Now you have decided that the path of the vital is the true path, the path where you will succeed, where you will meet with satisfaction. If this is what you feel, then not only are you mistaken, but the real in you, the soul in you, will not put up with such an absurd statement. Your soul will indefinitely withdraw. But if you feel that the path of the soul was hard, arduous and difficult for you, and if you have chosen this other path because it is a lesser path, an easier path, then your soul will forgive you and wait for you with absolute patience. The soul feels that your helplessness and hopelessness is not a thing to be encouraged or justified; far from it. But the compassion of the soul will rain on your weakness, and the soul will grant you another chance in two years or five years or ten years. But if you find fault with the soul's discrimination, if you criticise the soul's attempt to execute God's Will in and through you, then the soul will withdraw from you for quite a few years or for this entire incarnation. It may happen that this withdrawal may even last for quite a few incarnations — if you believe in reincarnation, of course.

When you go off the path, it is parting time between you and your soul. When you become one with your vital-friend, your soul will withdraw. When you leave the path, you are saying goodbye. You tell the soul, "Someday in the distant future our ways shall cross." The soul soulfully says, "I hope so."

6:45 a.m.
July 18, 1977
Jamaica High School Track
Jamaica, New York