Sri Sai Baba`S:Charters And Sayings

FIRST TALK 3

polite fictions. That ought not to be a new idea ;

but really it does seem as though it ha'5 to be em-
phasised over^nd over again. People apparently do
not grasp the fact that in occultism we mean exactly
what we say. It is like science. If a scientific
professor tells you to do certain things, to compound
certain chemicals, and so on, to get certain results,
you know that, if you follow his directions, you must
obtain these results. If you vary the proportions,
you will not only not get the results, but you may
produce something undesirable—an explosion or
something of that sort. In religious matters people
seem to think a kind of vague approximation to the
directions given is quite sufficient. Occultism must
be taken not as religion, but as science, and although
you all have heard so often about these qualifica-
tions, I yet hope that if we go through them carefully
and really try to understand what is required, and to
do it, we may after all achieve the result.

These inner things are not far away and uncertain.
They are realities. They are facts like the facts
of science and, that being so, why should not some of
us take up the task and succeed ?

Let us see how far it is possible to carry the thing
through- If we have not yet succeeded, it is because
there is in each of us some obstacle that is holding
us back. In some this takes one shape ; in others
it is something quite different ; but, if there were not
something lacking which we should have, then we