Why is it meaningless to seek spiritual maturity only through solitude?
Shutting yourself in a room and offering incense and flowers to a picture or image of the Divine, singing or reciting His glory are very poor substitutes for the discipline that will liberate you from ignorance.
All beings are images of Him; all men are His pictures; then, why shut yourselves in?
All creation is marching on a pilgrimage to Him; why then behave as if you are trekking it alone?
You believe that the time spent in church or temple or the domestic shrine, in adoration and in ritual worship is devoted to Him and the rest is spent for other purposes.
But, you cannot demarcate and delimit the realms of His and man like that. The Divine is ever with you everywhere.
Society is the school where this lesson is taught to those who earnestly seek.
- Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol 12, Ch 15.
Hands in the society, head in the forest.
Source: radiosai.org