DEVELOPING THE SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS: Page 66

man who has thus lived upon five ideas in one life, will command more than your Jack-of-all-trades-but-master-of-none man ever can. You must stand body and soul, for your ideas, taking up each and quietly working them out in life. This will avoid much friction and ever insure a clear and steady brain. Education, said Vivekananda, is a man-making, life-building assimilation of ideas. You must then by patient thinking build up an ideal for yourself. This done, give up all dreaming, all castle-building, and start in for the work. Then three things are necessary for effectual work. The first is earnest, ardent Desire. Your heart is knitted to things of the earth, earthy, by a myriad of tiny threads. To break up the links, a strong, all-impelling force is needed. Desire ardently, longingly, for perfect establishment of chastity in your Consciousness. This keen desire is a sine-a-qua-non. Without it you cannot go through the difficulties that bar your way. Clothe yourself in this panoply of power and the shafts of adverse fortune, shall glance off from your strong armour. If you haven't this gift, it shows that your sense of manhood is small. You lack force. The greater the sinner, the greater the saint. A man must have this force or his good intentions will die a natural death. He can neither be a saint nor a sinner. He is tamasic; is of a dull, lazy, ease-loving, insipid nature. But do not lose heart, if you belong to this class of men. You can cultivate this force. There is always a