Our path is the path of simplicity. We feel that one who has love, devotion and surrender can be simple. A child is simple; he loves his mother. He does not have to love anybody else: his mother is his whole world. He listens to his mother. He devotes himself to his mother. If his mother asks him to do something, he feels that his mother knows everything better than he does, so he surrenders to his mother’s will. A child is so simple that he tries to do everything to please his mother; and in his simplicity, he is reaching his highest goal.
In the ordinary life, if someone loves another individual, then he spends most of his time with that particular person. He devotes his precious time to that person. If it is real human love — not divine love, but human love — then he sometimes surrenders to the other’s whims even if they are absurd. He surrenders because the two of them have formed an inner and outer bond on the strength of their love. So if one loves another person, then one is ready even to sacrifice one’s precious wisdom.
In the spiritual life it is totally different. We come to realise that divine love never binds us. On the contrary, it expands us and liberates us. Then, when we see and feel that we are being liberated, we feel inwardly a divine obligation to do something for our inner Pilot. How can we remain aloof from the One who has given us everything, who has brought us the message of divine Love and Compassion? Will it be possible for us not to offer Him something in return? If we remain in the physical, we only try to grab and possess everything, even when it belongs to others. But if we live in the soul, we try to constantly give all that we have and all that we are to the inner Pilot. Divine love means self -giving.
Then we feel that just giving something, just offering something, is not enough. It has to be done with enthusiasm and an intense inner urge. We give to the Inner Pilot in ourselves and in others. While we are giving to someone else, we have to feel that we are giving to the divine in the other person, to the Supreme within him who now needs this help from us. When we offer divine love to someone, we must do it gladly and soulfully; but while giving we must not have the feeling that we are doing him a great favour, that because we are in a position to help him, we are superior. No! We have to feel that God has given us a great opportunity to be of service to Him and we should be grateful to the person who has put us in a position to help or serve the Supreme. We feel grateful that we have become His chosen instruments, when He could just as well have chosen others. We have to show constant gratitude for the very fact that He has employed us. This kind of devotion is our dedicated service.
Then comes surrender. This surrender is not the surrender of a slave to a master. An ordinary master will find fault with the slave, while feeling that he himself is always perfect. But in the case of the Supreme, it is not like that. When He deals with us, He feels that our imperfections are His imperfections. When He finds mistakes in our nature, He feels that these are all His mistakes. Unless and until we are perfect, God never feels that He is perfect. God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, it is true. But when it is a matter of perfection manifested on earth, God feels that He is still imperfect in me, in you, in everybody. The message of perfect perfection has not yet dawned on earth. We surrender to God wholeheartedly, knowing perfectly well that what we have is next to nothing and what we are is next to nothing. If we give our nothingness to Him, we become a chosen instrument of the Supreme and permit His Perfection to grow in us.
What kind of commitment is necessary to follow this path? On the one hand, an inner commitment is very clear and definite; on the other hand, it is very vague. But when I speak about commitment, it is not the kind of commitment that you have to make in other spiritual or cultural organizations. For these organizations, you may have to give a regular fee. But when I ask you to make a commitment, it is different. I say that if you see something in me, if you see or feel Light inside me, then if you want to follow our path, you can. There will be no monetary demands. You do not have to give me five dollars or ten dollars or anything like that. No! Here it is a matter of your own aspiration, how sincere and regular you can be in your spiritual life. If you are not sincere, then you will not be able to run fast. But if you are sincere and dedicated, then you will run very fast. The commitment I ask for in our path is regularity in your meditation and aspiration, your sincere inner cry. One needs regularity in order to have aspiration. These two things you can offer to God; I demand nothing else from any disciple.
Since all of you are sincerely interested in the spiritual life, without the least hesitation I can say that you have aspiration. If you also have the capacity to come here regularly once a week, then you are most welcome. But if you come here one day and then for a couple of months you do not come, it will not be possible for you to run the fastest in your spiritual life and you will also start to create a wrong vibration here at the Centre.
If you want to follow this path, then please go deep within and see what this path can offer you. If you feel that our path will bring you Light, Peace and Bliss, then naturally you will be more inspired to lead a life of dedication, a life of devotion, a life of inner surrender to God’s Will. Otherwise, if you are not inspired to lead this kind of life, you will not like it. Again, after accepting our path if you decide you are unhappy with it, you can leave. Today you accept our path, tomorrow you may leave but the day after tomorrow you will not be allowed to come back. Nobody can come today, go tomorrow and come back the next day at his sweet will.
This is not the only path and I am not the only teacher. Other paths are equally significant, but I am not competent to teach you how to follow other paths. If you feel that you want to know more about our path and if you want to have spiritual help from me or more inner contact with me, then you are welcome to follow our path.
You need not be my disciple, but you are going to be somebody’s disciple when you feel the necessity of having a spiritual Master. Those who say they don’t need a spiritual Master are simply fooling themselves. I am not asking you to be my disciple. Far from it! But I am asking you to be under the guidance of some spiritual Master. Those who are advocating the idea that you don’t need a Master are deceiving you and nothing else. I don’t want you to be deceived. Make a selection. Choose whomever you want to have as your spiritual Master. If you don’t get the right Master, God will eventually bring the right one for you. Just because one Master has failed you, that doesn’t mean you should not go to any other spiritual Master. Ten Masters may deceive you, but the eleventh one will fulfil you.
The ignorance-sea has to be crossed and without a boat nobody can cross it. Even if there is a boat, without a boatman, who will row? Who will sail the boat? He who has a boatman will naturally have a boat. When he thinks of the boat, it is not just his imagination. It is a reality that he is in the boat just like all of his Master’s other disciples. And then he feels safe.
First you have to cross the vast ignorance-sea, which is threatening, damaging and destructive. Then comes the sea of Light and Delight, where there is also a destined goal, the Goal of the Beyond.From:Sri Chinmoy,Two divine instruments: Master and disciple, Agni Press, 1976
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