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hours. Specially after taking a vow to observe silence, to keep on communicating with others through gestures is not at all useful. Speaking through gestures involves a greater expenditure of energy than speaking with the tongue. Therefore, a sadhak, if he cannot observe complete silence, must at least practise temperance in speech. The criterion of frugal speech is that a man should consider for a moment or two before speaking, as to how much speech is required. And after he has spoken, he should try to find out if it would have made much difference, if he had not spoken at all. Similarly, to speak with deliberation, to consider what kind of language to use, or whether to speak aloud or low, are other aspects of temperance in speech. By his sense of discrimination, a sadhak can avoid unnecessary speech.
The third rule of initiation is friendship. The plant of goodwill can only flower on the ground of equanimity; it is capable of identifying itself with the soul of the world. The more a sadhak is swayed by like and dislike, the more feeble his meditation is likely to be. Both attachment and aversion hinder friendship. For an individual attached to a particular person or thing, it is natural to be malevolent to another person or thing. Even if the vibrations of malice are not clearly perceptible, we have no reason to deny their existence. Similarly, parallel to disenchantment with things and persons, run the vibrations of attachment. In these circumstances, compassion is a state of mind which, transcending both attachment and aversion, takes an individual to veetaragta (total freedom from passions). He who practises preksha meditation, must be suffused with compassion, otherwise his meditation cannot be self-revelatory.
The fourth rule of initiation is freedom from reaction. It has become man's second nature to react all the
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