from his determination. The Master rarely gives a disciple an order to give up everything and follow him. He does so where the disciple happens to be a member of his Circle, owing to his long connection with him through past lives. Even if such a member of his Circle happens to be at the other end of the globe, the Master has his eye on him.

Other friends of such a disciple might want to drag him back to the material life of self and desires. But the Master draws him to the freedom of the Truth, sometimes apparently against his very wishes and quite regardless of whether he happens at that time to be a great sinner.

In such cases, the fact often is that the Higher Self of the disciple has already made its decision to attain the Truth, though the temporary surging up of desires sometimes makes him feel that he is not keen about it. His having been accepted by his Master at his own request, and on his voluntarily surrendering, imposes upon the Master an inescapable duty to save him from a further life of enslavement and ultimately to give him spiritual perfection.

But this is the privilege only of those who, through their past connections, have entered the circle of the Master. With regard to the masses, who constitute millions, the attitude of the Master is exactly the reverse. They often judge themselves to be ready for the highest spiritual attainment. They come to the Master with sincere prayers to be taken up and relieved of their worldly responsibilities and sufferings. They want to take to the spiritual line of renunciation and advance in it. Yet in spite of their loud clamoring and pressing requests, the Master makes them live in the world and stand the hardest of test for years and sometimes for several lives. Though they are thus made to stand and wait, they acquire little by little the right to enter the circle of the Master, if they faithfully carry out his directions in the midst of their worldly contexts in which their past karma happens to have placed them.

The masses are given guidance and are then left to work out their own destiny by stages until they really earn the right of being accepted into the circle of the Master. But the members of the Circle, on the other hand, are actually dragged out of their limiting contexts and, even in the face of their apparent unpreparedness for spiritual life they are taken through the Path. Of course the Master never draws any one by physical or mental force. But he simply adjusts his inner working in such a manner that the disciple gets drawn to the Path of Truth.

When the disciple is thus drawn on the Path, he has to stand firmly by the Truth and his Master instead of allowing himself to waver and change like a weathercock. He must not leave the Path of his choice even against great odds. He must be like a rock, unaffected by the raining of hardships of physical, financial, mental or emotional difficulties.