For those who tread the path of mastery a battery of power is necessary. This battery of power, no doubt, is created by three things: sympathy wakened, self-discipline and self-confidence. This power, just like a plant, needs sun and water. The water for it is purity of life; the sun for it is wisdom. A person, however intelligent and good-willed, is incapable of possessing this power unless he observes the above-said conditions. In order to maintain this power, one thing must be observed in everyday life: to have control upon the desire of outgoing*; because for the time, for a moment one feels satisfaction out of the passion of outgoing, but in the end one finds that one has lost more than one has gained. What use of that generous one who possesses no wealth? One must have a sufficient fund of power to use in one’s tendency of outgoing. If not, you will always find that most good and kind and sympathetic persons, by their nature of outgoing, they become physical wrecks. What is magnetism? Magnetism is this reserved power. And the phenomenon that it shows and the wonders that are performed by this power are too great for words to express. Nothing there is that this power cannot conquer, sooner or later. And it is of very great importance for those who walk in the path of meditation to preserve their magnetism.
Q.: Do you think that we should consciously preserve that magnetism?
A.: Yes, constantly, because what happens is that one is apt to lose even that power which protects one from catching illnesses. If magnetism is not preserved, any cold or cough is attracted, merely by the reason that you have given out too much, and now you have no power to prevent things from coming. A loving and giving person always goes out to everyone, and this outgoing person, sometimes he does not know how much he has given out, and therefore he finds lacking this energy which must support him against grosser magnetism, against disturbing influences.
Q.: Is the best way to meditate about it every day for some time?
A.: It is a good thing to think about it every day for some minutes, to reserve your forces in order to stand the life of everyday life. But do we not see most sympathetic persons in everyday life, they are the ones who seem to be losing the power, because owing to their sympathy and goodness they pour themselves out and then become weak. The best way of reserving energy is to have a silence, that picks one up. Whenever one thinks that one has given away too much, just take half an hour’s silence to relax.
Q.: Also by deep breathing?
A.: Just rhythmic breathing. Because if a person is full, he cannot take in. But if he relaxes he can take in. Relaxing makes empty, by relaxing one is open. As soon as you relax, it is just like being a vessel which is covered on the top. There may be nothing in, but it is covered on the top. But when you relax and take away the cover and then put water in it, it will fill. The relaxing is really emptying oneself, making no resistance. Relaxing is the best way of concentration. Prana is always taken from the spheres, the essence, if we allow it to.
Q.: What thought to hold during the relaxation?
A.: I am emptied to be refilled, that magnetism is to be filled.
*Hazrat Inayat’s use of this word, outgoing, can be taken both in a social sense, meaning to be actively and positively engaged with others, and also in the sense of involvement in any activity or sensory experience: talking, taking part in sports, watching a film, and so on.