What is the nature of victory? When man gains something from another, unless in that process he has gained strength, he has gained nothing. The things that he momentarily seizes he cannot keep when he leaves this world; the strength that comes to him either on the battlefield or in controversy or in love or in friendliness or in any situation -- if it is strength -- can be taken with him out of this world. This shows that strength is something that can be gained, and a victorious person can gain strength.

Now suppose one is an athlete. It has been found by people we regard as ordinary that the well-trained athlete, be he ball player or runner or wrestler or pugilist, must keep a fairly strict regimen especially in regard to rhythm and self-control. No matter how great his physical prowess, without this rhythm and self-control he cannot consistently and continually win. His whole life, be it ever so mundane and material, depends upon his self-control. From this we can see that the nature of deliverance is not apart from the finite existence, that Nirvana and Samsara are of the same essence.

And what is the sage? The sage is nothing but that athlete, that pugilist, who has carried that regimen over into the mental sphere from the physical. And what is the saint? One who has gone still further and carried this discipline into the heart, in other words into the whole of life.

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