Continuing . . .

The beginnings of spiritual life are marked and helped by general meditation, which does not exclusively concern itself with selected specific items of experience, but which, in its comprehensive scope, seeks to have an understanding and assimilation of the Divine Truths concerning life and the universe. When the aspirant is interested in the wider problems of the ultimate nature of life and the universe and begins to them about them, he may be said to have launched himself upon such meditation. Much of what is included under philosophy is a result of thus trying to have an intellectual grasp of the ultimate nature of life and the universe. But the purely intellectual grasp of the Divine Truths remains feeble, incomplete and indecisive, owing to the limitations of the experience which may be available as the foundation of the structures of speculation. The philosophical meditation of free and unaided thought does not lead to conclusive results; it often leads to diverse conflicting systems or views; but philosophical meditation is not without value, because, besides leading him to a certain extent in the realm of knowledge, it gives to the aspirant an intellectual discipline of mind, which enables him to receive and grasp the Divine Truths when he happens to come upon them through those who know.

The more fruitful mode of general meditation consists in studying the revealed Truths concerning life and the universe. This mode of understanding and assimilating the Divine Truths can take its start from the hearing or reading of those expositions of the Divine Truths which have their source in the Masters of Wisdom. The discourses of living Perfect Masters or the writings of the Perfect Masters of the past are a suitable object for this mode of general meditation, because the assimilation of the Divine Truths, revealed through them, enables the aspirant to bring his life into line with God's purpose in the universe.

The Divine Truths are most easily grasped and assimilated when they are directly passed on to the aspirant by a living Master. Such personal communications of the Master have in them a power of efficacy which can never belong to the information received by the aspirant through other sources. The word becomes alive and potent because of the life and

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