Sri Sai Baba`S:Charters And Sayings

THIRD TALK 47

it." Now actually they have taken these words—
very beautiful and perfectly true—as meaning that <•
the majority o'f mankind will be cast into everlasting
hell, and that very few indeed will,succeed in attain-
ing heaven by superhuman exertions of some kind or
other. But it is absolutely ridiculous to attribute
that idea to the Christ. What He meant was
perfectly clear; He was answering their question,
and He said: <( Very few/' meaning that very few
would enter the stream and reach the Path of
Initiation—which is true at this stage of the world's
history, as it was at that time.

He said : st Broad is the road that leads to death,
and many there be that follow it " ; what He meant
was the road that leads to the repeated cycle of death
and birth and death and birth, over and over again.
Of course it is true that that road is broad and easy,
easy enough. There is no trouble at all about follow-
ing that line of development, and those who follow it
will attain one day and will attain easily, somewhere
about the end of the Seventh Round, I suppose. It
is very true that the road is broad and easy, but
strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to
Initiation. For it is Initiation which is meant by
u the lyngdom of heaven". Remember that when
the -Christ speaks of the kingdom of heaven He
never means the heaven-world—devachan, the state
after death—He means always the body of the saved,
of the electy that is to say, the Great Brotherhood.