Agni Yoga (1929) - 40: 40. A blind man dreams of material reward. But, if he were to gain sight, he would be astonished to see that he creates his own reward. Ascending in consciousness, a man progresses filled with joy, and the thought of reward would return him into slavery. In fact, there are many slaves, precisely those who try to conceal the servility of their spirit beneath an icy impenetrability and a seeming renunciation of that which they do not even possess. Each one wanting reward is already a slave. Only by a free consciousness, lacking both self-aggrandizement and self-disparagement, can evolution be constructed. Agni Yoga (1929) - 136: 136. Often people entrust themselves to a fiery steed, not realizing that even a mere gnat can throw the animal into a rage. Often people try to navigate in a frail canoe when every stone is a peril. Often people sit beneath the beams of a house which the slightest tremor of earth can cause to collapse. All this is of course known; nevertheless people think they can evade danger as though danger were not a constant companion to existence on Earth. People traverse life, blindly happy, unaware of the adjacent precipice. But if the inner sight is sufficiently developed, the voyager of life will see each cosmic irregularity. He will be painfully tormented by the seeming impenetrability of the path. But how will he gain the courage and strength to cross all chasms of what he now sees as a crumbling stronghold? Certainly, only by realizing the relation of the present transitory hour to an inevitable future.
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