Question: How can an individual truly know what God's Will is for him?

Sri Chinmoy: God’s Will in an individual is progressive, like a muscle developing — strong, stronger, strongest. God’s Will is to make an individual feel that there is something abiding, lasting, everlasting. When an individual reaches that stage, he will know God’s Ultimate Will. God’s Will we can know from the sense of abiding satisfaction it gives us. Anything that is eternal, anything that is immortal, anything that is divine, is God’s Will. Even though God deals with Eternity, He is not indifferent even for one second. For it is from one second, two seconds, three seconds that we enter into Infinity and Eternity. Let us try to feel God’s Will in us at every second.

There is a very simple way to know what God’s Will is for us as individuals. Every day when we start our day we build our own world. We make decisions. We feel that things have to be done in a certain way. I have to deal with this man in this way. I have to say this; I have to do this; I have to give this. Everything is I, I, I. We all do this. If, instead of all this planning, we can make our minds absolutely calm and silent, we can know God’s Will. This silence is not the silence of a dead body; it is the dynamic, progressive silence of receptivity. Through total silence and the ever-increasing receptivity of the mind, God’s Will can be known. When the human mind works powerfully, the Divine Will cannot work. God’s Will works only when the human mind does not work. When the mind becomes a pure vessel, the Supreme can pour into it His infinite Peace, Light and Bliss.

We are constantly building and breaking our mental house. But instead of making and breaking the house at our sweet will, if we can empty our mind, make it calm and quiet, then God can build His Temple or His Palace in us in His own Way. And when He has built His Abode within us, He will say, “I have built this for you and Me to reside in together. I have built it, but it is not Mine alone. It is also yours. Come in.”

So the easiest way for us to know God’s Will is to become the instrument and not the doer. If we become only the instrument for carrying out God’s plans, God’s Will will act in and through us. God does the acting and He is the action. He is everything. We only observe.