Inspiration from Yogananda
Driving the Rebel-King, Ignorance

“Driving the Rebel-King, Ignorance”
“O mighty, mystic Judge of Life, I asked Thee in my hall of soul-stillness: ‘What is sin?’

Thy whispers of silence, dim at first, grew into bright articulations of thought: I heard and understood Thy meaning: ‘Sin is a rebel-king. His name is Ignorance. Ignorance is the perpetrator of all evil, the main root of the tree of ill-health, the primal cause of all error and soul-blindness.’

King Ignorance and his army of bacteria – physical disease, mental desires, dullness, and false ambition, spiritual indifference to high truths – have been devastating the nourishing harvest-fields of spirituality.

That harvest of countless fulfillments was ripe for reaping when the harsh tread of error trampled it to the ground. I wanted to weep with despair, when I heard Thy voice whispering to me in my soul: ‘the sun of My protection shines on thee always – equally on thy sunny days and on thy coal-black, nocturnal hours. Thou shouldst always have faith in Me, and smile, for the greatest of all sins against Me is not to be happy. Let the ripples of unceasing smiles play over thy face. Through their transparency My light will come to thine assistance. By smiling with determined happiness, thou wilt always please Me.’

From Whispers from Eternity by Paramhansa Yogananda
Beautifully edited by his disciple Swami Kriyananda.