Sacrifice

I wish to give a short talk on sacrifice. There are two types of sacrifice: earthly sacrifice and heavenly sacrifice, material sacrifice and spiritual sacrifice. Material sacrifice we all know very well: we give money, or we give material objects to others. But spiritual sacrifice is something else. In spiritual sacrifice we give Peace, Bliss, inner Power and other divine qualities. Undoubtedly, spiritual sacrifice is far more important than material sacrifice. Material sacrifice does not demand much concentration. If you don't like something you have, such as a piece of furniture, then you can give it away. But if you want to offer Peace to somebody else, then you have to pray and meditate for a long, long time so that you can acquire this peace within you.

Human sacrifice ascends. Divine sacrifice descends. When God or the cosmic gods sacrifice something for us, they have to descend. When we want to sacrifice something for them, we ascend. We ascend with our aspiration and God descends with His Compassion. But when we sacrifice something to God, we have to feel that whatever we sacrifice has already been sacrificed by God Himself to us and for us. On our behalf, the spiritual Masters give to God what He has already given us.

When we make a sacrifice, what do we actually do? We invite the vast in our earthly existence to come to the fore. Always sacrifice means the invocation of the vast in our human nature. When we invoke the infinite vast, it will enter into us. At that time we have to give up our imperfections, limitations and bondage. After we make a sacrifice, what do we see, what do we feel? We feel only one thing: love. If we have divine love, then we also have the capacity to express it. There are many things that we have, but we do not or cannot express them. But in the case of divine love, if we really have it, then we have to express it. The expression is always spontaneous. If we have money, then it is up to us whether or not we shall give it to others. If we have any material objects, it is up to us whether to give or not to give them. We can hold them back if we want to. But the very nature of divine love is expression. If we really have divine love, we cannot hide it; we cannot keep it for ourselves. Always it has to flow from within.

If we, as human beings, want to be transformed into divine beings, we have to see and feel the necessity of divine sacrifice on earth. Now, how are we going to know if this sacrifice of ours is complete? We can know that it is complete the moment we feel that by giving we are not only getting more, but becoming complete. Sacrifice takes the form of love, and this love is oneness. The mother gives to her child all that she has, wholeheartedly. When we give a little peace or joy to others and we feel that we still have more inside us, then we have to feel that we have not made the other person complete, and at the same time we have not made ourselves complete. When we offer our peace, love and bliss to another person fully and wholeheartedly, then only can our vessel be filled to the brim. God Himself will fill it for us.

We can start with material sacrifice, and we can end with spiritual sacrifice. If we cannot make material sacrifice, which is infinitely easier than spiritual sacrifice, then it is simply absurd to say that we have made the complete spiritual sacrifice. In the material sacrifice we are involved with earthly time, which means working for ten minutes or an hour. When somebody is asked to do dedicated service for the spiritual Centre, for the Mission, if he says that he cannot do it because he is busy doing this or that, then naturally he is not making a sacrifice. If this same person is asked by his spiritual Master to make a spiritual sacrifice by meditating for two hours, three hours or twelve hours at a time for God's sake, he will never be able to do it. He could not even do the easiest thing, which is to offer a few minutes or a few hours to do something on the physical plane. Others also could have done this devoted service, but only one particular disciple was given the opportunity. This opportunity is a real blessing. If at that time the person refuses or is not co-operative, then the opportunity is taken away and we have to feel that the Master's concern for the disciple has also gone away. When this concern goes away, then everything is gone. We start with opportunity. Then, when we go a little farther, it becomes concern. When concern is refused, nothing remains. Then the disciple has to take the responsibility for what he wants to do.

Each individual seeker gets the golden opportunity to make a spiritual sacrifice. This spiritual sacrifice is his aspiration for one minute, two minutes, five minutes or ten minutes. For a human being, aspiration-sacrifice is greater than material sacrifice. What a human being has is a bundle of desires. If he can minimise his desires, then aspiration is bound to loom large in him. When aspiration starts functioning in a human being, then he is really making a sacrifice of his limited being to the unlimited Supreme Being. We have to feel that it is in sacrifice that we can get joy. We get satisfaction not by possessing, but by becoming one. When we possess, we can never become one. We have the sense of separativity. But when we offer ourselves to others, then we really become one with them.

When an individual offers himself to the earth-consciousness, he does not retain his individuality any longer. He becomes the collective possession of humanity. At that moment God can be proud of His entire creation. Each human being has the capacity to make God proud of His creation. At the same time, we also have the capacity to make God suffer because of our ignorance, imperfections, limitations and bondage. God is our divine Father. He can never be indifferent to our activities. He is infinitely sweeter and dearer than our human father. God's concern is His sacrifice for us and our concern is our sacrifice for humanity and divinity.

Here we are all sincere seekers. We all have the capacity to make God happy in our daily actions, and for that we need first of all one divine sacrifice: our early morning meditation. We can meditate at two o'clock, five o'clock, six o'clock or ten o'clock, but we have to feel the necessity of meditation. Your meditation is your inner discovery. If we meditate well daily, then we can feel that it is not only a discovery, but an invention. We discover things which already exist and we can also invent things, for God is constantly creating Himself in His infinite plenitude. So we also have the capacity on the strength of our oneness, inseparable oneness with God, to create divine qualities with our sacrifice.