HE FIRST STEP IS TO CONSERVE THE LIFE FORCE, to begin to take care of our bodies in a more sacred way, not allowing our lives to be ruled by desires. “Much wants more” is a mental as well as physical occupation. We are avoiding the real issue: our real Self, our true existence. When we come back to ourselves we begin to know the movements within the body and mind, the mental caricatures and games, the subconscious mind with its storehouse of instinctive, uncultured, uncivilized thoughts. We begin to know our mental processes through self-knowledge.
      After consolidating and focusing your life and energy, the next step is to begin thinking of higher things. You begin to question things you previously took for granted or accepted as taught. You begin to probe deeper into the unknown, to think about the mysteries of the universe and its hidden laws. From tamas (inertia) and rajas (restlessness, ambition, the overactive mind) you come to sattva (tranquility).
      The contemplative mind is born. You begin to explore the mysteries within you. Why do I get angry? Why am I attached? Why do I desire? Why do I shun some people and hug others? You question the meaning of life. You discover a higher, contemplative life that becomes your satisfaction and enjoyment of Being. You become conscious in whatever you do. Dressing, eating and living hold less importance. This does not imply carelessness or negligence; it is a gradual ascendance. If efforts are there and the mind is focused in the right direction, you begin to develop.
 

      If you use the contemplative faculty on lower things, naturally it ends there, you are no longer unfolding from within. Unless this faculty is focused on a higher goal, the time comes when it begins to degrade. That is why, as you may have seen, certain qualities or talents develop in you or others and then gradually subside; that God-given faculty which was in you had no upward pull. Nevertheless, the contemplative faculty is found among many high thinkers, especially given today’s focus on rationality. Often, though, they end up only with scholarship, oratory capacity and intellectual assertion, the dry intellectuality of mere thinking.
      Contemplation does not only mean sitting under a tree or retiring to a cave or hermitage; it occurs in whatever pattern your life may be, whether in a family or as a renunciate. It awakens and activates the astral body. The mental and emotional bodies, both being astral, begin to awaken. Previously you were living an instinctive, unconscious, machinelike existence, led by the force of desire. The astral body was sleeping, dreaming—dreams are our unconscious behavior patterns. Once we enter upon the contemplative life, we become more conscious. Our thoughts and feelings are less erratic. This brings us to a higher consciousness.