Heredity and Affinity

I feel a great exhaustion and void after talking with X. Why is it so?

Well, you drew a big part of your lower nature from him — so it is quite natural talking with him should affect you in that way.

I still cannot understand why merely speaking with X should create such a reaction in me. I hope I am no longer drawing anything from him or from anybody else. Y and Z are as much connected with him as I am — but they are not complaining about exhaustion and voidness.

It was drawn at birth, that is quite enough. There is always a hereditary part of the nature which is a large portion of the outward nature — there is also the educational influence of the father which has put a stamp on you — as also on Y and Z. It is quite natural therefore that your lower nature should become more active by the touch of his lower nature. Y and Z are not inwardly conscious of these impacts and nothing in them resists, so there is no feeling of exhaustion or consciousness of any interchange.

What kind of educational stamp has X put on me?

Not at all a desirable one.

Now I understand the hereditary part drawn from X. But does my lower nature still keep contact with his? Is not what was to be drawn already drawn in and finished with?

Consciousness is not a mechanical dead thing to act in that way. Hereditary influence creates an affinity and affinity is a living thing. It is only when the hereditary part is changed that the affinity ceases.

Does not reading newspapers bring diffusion of mind?

It is only the attachment and diffusion of mind that are objectionable. One can read if there is no attachment and no diffusion.

Why does not the will in me become active? Whenever it is pulled out of the passivity I feel a strain and it falls back into inertia after a few seconds.

That is the nature of the physical inertia. You have to separate yourself from the physical inertia and become separately conscious within of something that is not at all identified with the physical.

The whole day my mind remains too active. Even during the general meditation it is no better.

It depends on what it is active with. Are you wrestling with your physical mind to quiet it? If so, that won’t succeed. You must quietly let it fall quiet.