toil for wealth, and, when they become multi-millionaires, they ask:  “How shall we spend this wealth?” I read of a millionaire in America, who was walking on foot from city to city, in order to distribute the vast wealth which he accumulated.  He learned his lesson.  Never in another life will that man be induced to put forth efforts for the toy of wealth.  Love of fame, love of power, stimulate men to most strenuous effort.  But when they are grasped and held in the hand, weariness is the result.  The mighty statesman, the leader of the nation, the man idolised by millions—­follow him home, and there you will see the weariness of power, the satiety that cloys passion.  Does then God mock us with all the objects?  No.  The object has been to bring out the power of the Self to develop the capacity latent in man, and in the development of human faculty, the result of the great lila may be seen.  That is the way in which we learn to unfold the God within us; that is the result of the play of the divine Father with His children.

But sometimes the desire for objects is lost too early, and the lesson is but half learned.  That is one of the difficulties in the India of today.  You have a mighty spiritual philosophy, which was the natural expression for the souls who were born centuries ago.  They were ready to throw away the fruit of action and to work for the Supreme to carry out His Will.

But the lesson for India at the present time is to wake up the desire.  It may look like going back, but it is really a going forward.  The philosophy is true, but it belonged to those older souls who were ready for it, and the younger souls now being born into the people are not ready for that philosophy.  They repeat it by rote, they are hypnotised by it, and they sink down into inertia, because there is nothing they desire enough to force them to exertion.  The consequence is that the nation as a whole is going downhill.  The old lesson of putting different objects before souls of different ages, is forgotten, and every one is now nominally aiming at ideal perfection, which can only be reached when the preliminary steps have been successfully mounted.  It is the same as with the “Sermon on the Mount” in Christian countries, but there the practical common sense of the people bows to it and—­ignores it.  No nation tries to live by the “Sermon on the Mount " It is not meant for ordinary men and women, but for the saint.  For all those who are on the Path of Forthgoing, desire is necessary for progress.

What is the Path of Nivritti?  It is the Path of Return.  There desire must cease; and the Self-determined will must take its place.  The last object of desire in a person commencing the Path of Return is the desire to work with the Will of the Supreme; he harmonises his will with the Supreme Will, renounces all separate desires, and thus works to turn the wheel of life as long as such turning is needed by the law of Life.  Desire on the Path of Forthgoing becomes