The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga · 5 of 5

Conclusion

Student, I have indicated the lines along which you are to seek the way to Spiritual Independence. I cannot run your life‑affairs, solve your life‑problems, do your work for you. I have pointed out a few principles, observe, think and complete your knowledge. You must climb the steps of the ladder of attainment and Self‑Perfection yourself.

Fear is a great stumbling‑block in the way. Fight it down. Starve it out. Be earnest. Be thorough. Live your life silently and earnestly. Give others a helping hand whenever you can without that patronising air of superiority so characteristic of the modern snobs passing for “gentlemen.” Be proud that you are an “Indian.” Follow Indian ideals of greatness. Consider it a privilege to help deserving souls. We all need help, encouragement and guidance to some extent. Co‑operation, interdependence are the basic foundations of human well‑being. Be strong. Be manly. Be courageous. Be great and good. Take your place in the world’s evolutionary progress and lend your hand in turning the wheel of life. In the same measure that you help others, shall you yourself be helped on all planes of life. Be reasonable. Be just and fair unto others. Be a source of blessing unto others. So long as you labour under the vitiating influence of negative thoughts, you cannot achieve much in any direction. I have told you “how” you are to proceed.

Insight

The Indian-pride note (be proud you are an Indian, follow Indian ideals) is dated and inseparable from its 1922 colonial context — Mukerji is writing during the Indian independence movement, twenty-five years before partition, and the reclamation of Indian dignity from British dismissal was a live cultural project. The substance underneath, stripped of its period particulars, is universal: do not patronize the people you help, take your part in the world's work, the measure you give is the measure you receive (Luke 6:38). The closing run of imperatives — be strong, be manly, be courageous, be just, be a source of blessing — is the kind of forthright moral exhortation the period valued and that has come back into fashion in twenty-first-century Stoic-revival circles.1922 Indian independence context (pre-Gandhi's salt march, post-Vivekananda); Luke 6:38; period rhetorical mode; gendered language flag.

May God bless you. May he guide, help and strengthen where I have failed.

Swami Mukerji.

Conclusion

You’ve read The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga.