Hugh Ripman & Shivapuri Baba

"Why is it", I asked, "that some men seek God and others do not?"

 "Men do not seek God," he answered, "because they are drawn by pleasure."

"What is it", I asked, "that is called the soul of man?"

"The soul of man", he replied, "is the real "I". This cannot be explained, it can only be experienced."

I spoke to him about the way in which a man's face might change as one regarded it steadily and asked him whether he could explain this.

"These other faces come from the past," he said, and there is layer under layer. But this is not of any great significance."

"There are many people," he continued after a while, "who seek to achieve special powers and special experiences. This kind of search leads men aside from the straight road to God. Once a man knows God, all powers and all knowledge are given to him, and he has no needs to seek anything else".

"In many scriptures", I said, "the possibility of man having a second body is spoken of, a body made of finer, subtle material. Can you tell me what this is?"

"You know how in dreams you have a body," he answered. "There is the subtle body to which these scriptures refer. But this must go, like the first body. It is only pure consciousness that one must seek". "He was silent for a while. "There are three states of consciousness-deep, sleep with dreams, and the waking states in which we are. It is necessary to go beyond all these states of consciousness".