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THE METHOD AND THE MEANS. 93
ably weak attempt any of the Yogas, they are likely to get some incurable malady; and get their minds weakened by it; and to weaken the body voluntarily is really no prescription for spiritual enlightenment.
The mentally weak also cannot succeed in attaining the Atman. The person who aspires to be a bhakta must be cheerful. With many, the ideal of a religious man isthat he never smiles, that a dark cloud must always hang over his face, which, again, must be long-drawn with the jaws almost collapsed. In my opinion such people with emaciated bodies and long faces are fit subjects for the physician. They can never be Yogins. It is the cheerful mind that is persevering. It is the strong mind that hews its way through a thousand difficulties. And this, the hardest task of all, the cutting of our way out of the net of Maya, is the work reserved only for giant wills.
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Yet at the same time excessive mirth
