Sri Sai Baba`S:Charters And Sayings

2 TALKS ON " AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER "

what is written in these books. I cannot do that for
you ; I can tell you what you ought to do ; I can try
to explain ; I can illustrate in various viays, but each
person must do the actual work for himself. It is
like physical culture, like training for a race or some
effort of that sort; there may be a trainer who can
give useful hints and can tell you what to do ; but the
candidate himself must exercise his own muscles, and
nobody can by any possibility do that for him. So
with the qualifications; the requirements are clear
enough, but I think that very few people fully grasp
how real the effort must be. We are surrounded by
people, millions of people ; many of them are relig-
ious in their way, and are supposed to be living
according to the precepts of their religion. Practic-
ally, scarcely any of them do it.

I do not say for a moment, mind, that many of
them do not lead very good and holy lives, no doubt
many of them do ; but they do not live strictly
according to the precepts laid down for them. In
some cases these precepts perhaps are unnecessary ;

but in the case of the Path of occultism, no precept
given is unnecessary ; an exact adherence is required.
I ^ do not mean that we must possess all these
qualifications in absolute perfection before we^can be
received by a Master; absolute perfection wcnild
mean the instantaneous attainment of Adeptship ;

but at least we must possess these things to a reason-
able extent, and they must be real and not merely