The Bowl of Saki Commentary

The one who is absorbed in self makes a load of every experience by relating it to the ego. The world has moved and will move without this ego, and events will take place, and no personality is ever so powerful that, without divine help, can cause the world to change its course.

We only feel pain when we think of self; we feel no pain when we think of God, especially when we praise God. Praise of God leads to bliss, and when there is bliss there is no pain. There is a spiritual anesthetic in praise which can cure all suffering. There is nobody who will appear harmonious before everyone. When one possesses the thoughts and feelings another has toward their person, one grasps these disharmonies, and these impressions cause all manner of disease within the mind and within the body. But one does not have to possess those feelings; one does not have to accept all those thought vibrations others are sending out. One may refuse to accept them, whereupon the karmic effect goes back upon the cause, whether for good or ill.

Spiritual travelers therefore endeavor to remove the ego, so that there can be no collation of such vibrations, and so no opportunity for disease or suffering of any kind.