complain, either openly or mentally. Something is always lacking in our life. Just ask yourself this question: Are we really happy? It is not that we have to give up our external life, our material life. It is not that we have to eliminate all these things completely from our life. No. But we have to know where we stand, and we have to understand the purpose and the meaning of our external life, or outer consciousness. We must know why we have to go through life’s duties. We must know why we have to perform so many activities. What is the purpose? What is the idea back of it? Why are those condemned who neglect their duties, who shirk their responsibilities, who do not try to perform their functions, their duties properly? The idea is this: First of all, we are ignorant of the meaning and purpose of life. We cannot explain definitely the reason for all these activities. We do not know why we live in the midst of sense perceptions. Why are we experiencing these things? We have certain desires, we have certain tendencies, certain emotions, certain passions. We are regulated by them; we are carried away by them against our will. We are, as it were, enslaved by certain things, and we go on, not knowing whence we have come or whither we are going, or what is the mission of our life. That is why the question was asked in ancient times by the Vedic sages:

“What is that, knowing which, everything else will be known?” What is that fountainhead, knowing which, we shall understand the meaning and purpose of life—knowing which, everything would be explained? Everything appears to be detached, purposeless, meaningless. What is that, knowing which, everything would be illumined? That is the question. That is the desire, in reality, in every human heart. We may not be able to explain it; we may not know it properly at times; but it is there, and only the sages have put the question definitely. That is why we must try to get into that realm of pure consciousness, as I explained. There are different grades of inner consciousness. The deeper we search, the more we understand, the more will that pure consciousness be unfolded which alone holds the key. To illuminate, to unfold, to explain everything in our life, we must come to that.

There is another reason why we must try to go beyond the outer and enter into the inner consciousness, and that is this: There is always reaction in our life—that is, when we live in the external consciousness, there is always reaction. Suffering is caused by reaction. Our miseries, our pains, our complaints, our doubts, our troubles, our disillusionments, our despair, have always been caused by the outer consciousness. For instance, when we live in the midst of sense perceptions we want to possess certain objects which we have perceived, impressions of which have been gathered through the senses. First of all, the senses come in touch with external things. It may be a little food, a little form; it may be a little object; but it is there. That impression gets hold of us, and what do we want to do? We want to get that object; we want to possess it; we want to own it. When we cannot own it, there is suffering, there is heart-burning.

Suppose I love some object. I try my best to possess it. I cannot do it. Something stands in the way and takes it away from me—snatches it away. There is suffering. There is misery. In this way we are constantly becoming dependent on external things. These outer things, these external things, these objects of the senses get hold of us. They enter our lives and completely hold sway over us, and we are carried away by them. Then we are thrown back, as it were, into ourselves; because nature’s laws work relentlessly—and there are changes—there are separations.

You may say such ideas bring gloominess, pessimism into our lives. What difference does it