DISCOURSES Volume II - Avatar Meher Baba Trust

12 DISCOURSESTrue aspirant seeksdirect knowledge ofspiritual realitiesmomentous implications for his inner life.Hence he naturally insists upon directknowledge about them. This may beillustrated from the life of a great sage. Oneday he was discussing spiritual topics with a friend who was quiteadvanced upon the Path. While they were engaged in thisdiscussion their attention was diverted to a dead body which wasbeing carried past them. "This is the end of the body but not of thesoul," the friend remarked. "Have you seen the soul?" asked thesage. "No," the friend answered. The sage remained sceptical aboutthe soul, for he insisted upon personal knowledge.Although the aspirant cannot be content with secondhandknowledge or mere guesses, he does not close his mind to thepossibility that there could be spiritual realities which had notAspirant has anopen mindcome with in his experience. In other words, heis conscious of the limitations of his ownindividual experience and refrains from makingit the measure of all possibilities. He has an open mind towards allthings which are beyond the scope of his experience. While hedoes not accept them on hearsay, he also does not rush to denythem. The limitation of experience often tends to restrict the scopeof imagination, and thus a person comes to believe that there areno realities other than those which may have come within the kenof his past experience; but usually some incidents or happenings inhis own life will cause him to break out of his dogmatic enclosureand become really open-minded.This stage of transition may also be illustrated by a storyfrom the life of the same sage, who happened to be a prince. Somedays after the incident mentioned above, as he was riding on horsebackhe came upon