Sri Sai Baba`S:Charters And Sayings

FOURTH TALK 67

that there must be a Path by which they may be
reached. And the man who by sheer hard thinking
comes to that decision of course sets out to look for
that Path and find his way to the Great Ones.
Those who travel by that Path are probably few, but
the thing is a possibility.

Perhaps in some ways the most remarkable is the
fourth method, in which it is suggested that a man
may attain to the commencement of the Path by the
" practice of virtue ". That is an idea which would
quite commend itself to the average Christian,
because his idea is that all that is necessary is to be
good. But to the Theosophist it might give reason
to pause, because we know very well that, in the
early days of Christianity, that Purification—or the
Saintship, which now they set before themselves as
their goal—was only the first step. The early
Christian teachers certainly held that it was a man's
duty to become a saint; but at the same time they
insisted that it was the first stage only, and S. Cle-
ment says, quite boldly, that purity, for example,
is merely a negative virtue, valuable chiefly as a con-
dition of insight. Pure of course you must be ; good
of course you must be ; but that is only the first step.
It is tak^n for granted. It is after you have learned
to become a saint that illumination comes, and then
you can begin to learn something ; before that you
are not even in the condition to learn. You are then
fit for illumination and after that you pass into the