A person with the tendency to respond will succeed in all walks of life; a person who is not responsive will become disappointed in all affairs of life. Responsiveness comes by interest, also by concentration, also by power over one’s mind. A person who responds to the advice that is given to him, who takes instructions with responsiveness, will carry out his instructions and will accomplish all affairs perfectly. The artist who responds to nature, who responds to all beauty, certainly can produce wonders. The person who sympathetically responds to the needs to the sufferings of others certainly lives a fuller life. A person without this quality, whatever be his interest in life, will never be able to accomplish anything worthwhile in life. All people who do something worthwhile in life are the responsive ones; those who do not respond are failures.

Responsiveness may be explained as faith, trust, concentration, single-mindedness, a living interest, contemplation, and love. To respond means to give full attention, and not divided attention but single attention. Responsiveness is focusing one’s whole being on something of interest. When a person has developed this faculty even in his interest in worldly affairs, if he has so developed his faculty of responsiveness then it becomes easy for him to respond to the call of the spirit. It is therefore that in the spiritual path responsiveness is of the greatest importance.

The mystery of responsiveness is that the responsive one must forget himself in order to respond; and the same mystery may be called the path of perfection. A person who is not capable of forgetting himself, however good, pious, or spiritual he may be, will always prove imperfect in his life. All misery comes from the consciousness of the self. The one who does not forget is constantly called by his own limited life, which enslaves him constantly. The one who forgets himself receives the call of God, if he were able to respond to God.