Gangotri
Tehri-Garhwal (UP)
1-4-1951

It is several days since your letter arrived at Uttarkashi and was duly received. My custom is to spend the chaturmasya period at Gangotri. Perhaps you know Gangotri is the source of the Ganga, quite close to the Tibetan border. It is some days since I arrived at Gangotri from Uttarkashi. The remoteness of the region from the humdrum plains, my natural indifference to external activities such as writing letters, if for such and similar reasons, letters from here are delayed, don’t get worried; don’t feel surprised. Be assured it is not for lack of love.

The liking for spiritual practices and exercises therein should show steady progress. The ways of the mind should be watched and tested from time to time. One must check up and see every year, every month, every day how far one’s exercises are fructifying, how far passions like love and hate and vain thoughts are subsiding and how much the mind delights in the thought of God. The main use of japa, dhyana and other modes of worship is to win God’s grace and the resulting purity of mind, purity of mind means the cleanness and peace of the mind on the cessation of its mischievous activities arising out of the attachment to the sensuous life. The more the mind gets purified, the more it delights in japa, dhyana etc. the more one’s spiritual exercises progress the more purified one’s mind gets. So, spiritual effort and mental purity should advance steadily hand in hand.

When, as a result of long periods of sadhana, mind becomes clean, be sure realization of Self is not far.

I am not writing at length. In my previous letter I have already dealt with the spiritual exercises to be attempted.

Never forget God, that is, even in the giddy whirl of daily duties remember Him without a break.

Writing to Smt. And Sri with affectionate good wishes,

Swami Tapovanam