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204 SPIRIT AND THE MIND
And then he got up and stomped out. Another miraculous dematerialization.
This early stage of transition is a vulnerable one, and without the protection of the Lord Himself, we would surely perish. And slowly, through the ups and downs, the mistakes and triumphs, confidence in the higher self is attained and satisfaction in experiencing the higher self deepens this confidence. Then we are ready for the next stage: self-sacrifice.
SELF-SACRIFICE
We have to pay attention to the outside world too. We must be careful not to turn our spiritual path into a narcissistic and self- centered act, and we must be ready to sacrifice our own desires and pleasures for a higher purpose. We must balance our inner world with the outer, and be sensible. After a certain honeymoon period, with its feelings of great closeness with the divine and in which we may be allowed to withdraw from the outer world, we are thrust back, now remade in the spirit. For only a short time in this present age, are we allowed to retreat—and then we must move back into the outside world and spiritualize our work there.
Being moral, spiritual people in the outer world may entail a sacrifice. Sai Baba says that he can transform sky into earth and earth into sky. It seems to me his greatest miracle is that he has transformed sky (superconsciousness, himself) into earth in the form of Sathya Sai Baba, in order to transform us (earth) into sky (him, superconsciousness). It is our task to transmute our vision of him (sky) into our work on earth so that it becomes sky. What a glorious transformation!
And so from the first stage where we withdraw inside ourselves to develop increasing confidence in the higher self, there comes a day when we must move back into the outer world, remade in the image of his teachings, to develop the skills to operate in the outer world and transform this outer world into sky. This moving back into the outer world, after being so satisfied with the inner, can be difficult and in the last analysis is really a sacrifice. Because being in the outer world means being subject to temptation and the pull of lower elements, and it takes a constant remembering of the higher life to escape being caught. The trick now is to be in the outer world but not


































































































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