150 SKETCHES OF GREAT TRUTHS

way to Self-dedication, nothing can be shirked.
Everything must be faced. You do not unbind
yourself by shirking ; but only by taking hold
of the cord and untying the knot. If ill-health
is your karma and prevents what you feel is
complete self-dedication, it is no use kicking
against it. Be sure that it comes as a reaction
from your past action, and its lesson has to be
learnt. How often in life has illness been a
great blessing, a time of rest, a time to rebuild,
a time of silence, a time of solitude; for illness
means a death, and each death of any sort
means necessarily a rebirth and follows as the
night the day.

Self-dedication is a process built up bit by bit
slowly, gradually, not complete until it is absolute
self-surrender which is another word for self*
liberation,, and that means a man made perfect^
deification. It is a hard process, this severing
of chains, this cutting of moorings, for if yon
have your boat safely tied up even though it
be in a stagnant pool and you want to get out
of the pool, you do not like to cut the painter, for
the boat will then drift into the stream, and
where will the stream carry you ? In life, we
must cut ourselves adrift and drift for a while
alone, unhelped, and watch the stream. While
we are drifting, we do not know what we want>