appear distasteful to the aspirant; and he is disinclined to take to them. The help and advice of the Master are indispensable on this point. The insight which the Master has into the deeper and real spiritual needs of the aspirant is infinitely greater than the insight which the aspirant can hope to have into himself. And, the specific instructions from the Master supply the necessary corrective for the neglected aspects of personality.

Although the aspirant may start with an initial aversion to the type of meditation which he needs, he gets interested in it when he comes to see its real value and purpose. He can come to appreciate the real value and purpose of a particular type of meditation only when he has tried it. It is not possible to discover the value and possibilities of any type of meditation by purely theoretical speculation about that mode of meditation. Such purely theoretical guesswork may have some superficial results; but it fails to fathom the real utility of meditation. Like many other things of spiritual importance, meditation yields its full significance after the person has got into it and not when he is trying to understand it by envisaging it from outside.

In order to have real success in any mode of meditation, the aspirant must launch upon it with the determination to explore its full possibilities. He must not start with any limiting reservations but should be prepared to encounter unexpected states of consciousness; and he should be willing to go where that line of meditation leads him, without making any rigid demands of preformed expectations. The very essence of meditation is one-pointedness and the exclusion of all other considerations, even when these considerations happen to be enticing.

However, if the aspirant takes to any type of meditation on his own initiative and without having the benefit of the guidance and supervision of the Master, he may get into it so far that he loses his perspective and is unable to recover himself. It may be impossible for him to change over to some other complementary mode of meditation, even when it is absolutely necessary. This risk is avoided if the aspirant has taken to a line of meditation on the orders of his Master. When he is under the guidance and supervision of the Master, the Master can not only ask the aspirant to halt at the right time, but he can actually help him to get out of the grooves cut by his previous meditation.

In this connection, there is an illustrative story of a man who was highly intelligent and who wanted to know from personal experience what it felt