SKIN
The skin is the obscurity of physical nature.
You
write as if the moment one had any kind of spiritual experience or realisation, one must at once become a perfect
person without defects or weaknesses. That is to make a demand which it is impossible to satisfy and it is to ignore
the fact that spiritual life is a growth and not a sudden and inexplicable miracle. No sadhak can be judged as
if he were already a siddha yogi, least of all those who have only travelled a quarter or less of a very long path.
Even great yogis do not claim perfection and you cannot say that because they are not absolutely perfect, therefore
their spirituality is false or of no use to the world. There are, besides, all kinds of spiritual men: some who
are content with spiritual experience and do not seek after an outward perfection or progress, some who are saints,
others who do not seek after sainthood, others who are content to live in the cosmic consciousness in touch or
union with the All but allowing all kinds of forces to fly through them, e. g., in the typical description of the
Paramhansa. The ideal I put before our yoga is one thing but it does not bind all spiritual life and endeavour.
The spiritual life is not a thing that can be formulated in a rigid definition or bound by a fixed mental rule;
it is a vast field of evolution, an immense kingdom potentially larger than the other kingdoms below it, with a
hundred provinces, a thousand types, stages, forms, paths, variations of the spiritual ideal, degrees of spiritual
advancement. It is from the basis of this truth that things regarding spirituality and its seekers must be judged
with knowledge.