Qualifications of the Aspirant: Some Divine Qualities — Patience and persistence

Every person is a rightful heir to the Truth. But he who would inherit it must be spiritually prepared for it, and this spiritual […]

Qualifications of the Aspirant: Some Divine Qualities — Qualities necessary for spiritual life interconnected

If the inner life of an aspirant is to be harmonious and enlightened, he has to develop and express many divine qualities while he […]

Qualifications of the Aspirant: Entering into the Realities of Inner Life — Critical and creative thinking balances mind and heart

The transition from external conformity (shariat, or karmakanda) to the life of inner realities (tariqat, or adhyatma-marga) involves two steps:

(1) freeing the mind […]

Qualifications of the Aspirant: Entering into the Realities of Inner Life — Need for putting theory into practice

When a person gives up uncritically accepted dogmas and creeds in favor of views and doctrines to which he has devoted thought, there is […]

Qualifications of the Aspirant: Entering into the Realities of Inner Life — Dogmas and creeds often harmful

Dogmas and creeds generally, however, are as much a source of evil as of good, because in them the guiding vision is clouded owing […]

Qualifications of the Aspirant: Entering into the Realities of Inner Life — Dogmas and creeds

Sometimes even a wrong view, which is held with fervor, may indirectly invite an experience that opens the gates to spiritual life. Even at […]

Qualifications of the Aspirant: Entering into the Realities of Inner Life — Bankruptcy of barren beliefs

For the spiritual aspirant, however, it is not enough to exercise merely intellectual discrimination between the false and the true. Though intellectual discrimination is […]

Qualifications of the Aspirant: Entering into the Realities of Inner Life — Discrimination between true and false

The rise from shariat (karma-kanda) to tariqat (adhyatma-marga) is not to be interpreted, therefore, as being merely a departure from external conformity. It is […]

Qualifications of the Aspirant: Entering into the Realities of Inner Life — Freedom from convention due to critical thought

Sometimes people stick to unconventional things for no other reason than that they are out of the ordinary. The unusual nature of their pursuits […]

Qualifications of the Aspirant: Entering into the Realities of Inner Life — Limitations of conventions

From the standpoint of the realities of inner life, the life of external conformity may often be spiritually barren; and a life that deviates […]