ys: "But if you LEAVE IT ALONE it will become clear of itself." That
muddy water of the mind, muddied by all the foolish little thoughts
which like a sediment infest it--but if you leave it alone it will
become clear of itself. Sometimes walking along the common road after
a shower you have seen pools of water lying here and there, dirty and
unsightly with the mud stirred up by the hoofs of men and animals. And
then returning some hours afterwards along the same road--in the evening
and after the cessation of traffic--you have looked again, and lo!
each pool has cleared itself to a perfect calm, and has become a lovely
mirror reflecting the trees and the clouds and the sunset and the stars.

So this mirror of the mind. Leave it alone. Let the ugly sediment
of tiresome thoughts and anxieties, and of fussing over one's
self-importances and duties, settle down--and presently you will look
on it, and see something there which you never knew or imagined
before--something more beautiful than you ever yet beheld--a reflection
of the real and eternal world such is only given to the mind that rests.

Do not recklessly spill the waters of your mind in this direction and in
that, lest you become like a spring lost and dissipated in the desert.

But draw them together into a little compass, and hold them still, so
still;

And let them become clear, so clear--so limpid, so mirror-like;

At last the mountains and the sky shall glass themselves in peaceful
beauty,

And the antelope shall descend to drink, and the lion to quench his
thirst,

And Love himself shall come and bend over, and catch his own likeness in
you. (1)

(1) Towards Democracy, p. 373.

Yes, there is this priceless thing within us, but hoofing along the
roads in the mud we fail to find it; there is this region of calm,
but the cyclone of the world raging around guards us from entering it.
Perhaps it is best so--best that the access to it should not be made
too easy. One day, some time ago, in the course of conversation with
Rabindranath Tagore in London, I asked him what impressed him most in
visiting the great city. He said, "The restless incessant movement of
everybody." I said, "Yes, they seem as if they were all rushing about
looking for something." He replied, "It is because each person does not
know of the great treasure he has within himself." --------

How then are we to reach this treasure and make it our own? How are we
to attain to this S