Fifty Freedom-Boats to One Golden Shore, part 4

Part I

Service¹

My service has to be unconditional. My unconditional service is my transcendental Freedom. My transcendental Freedom is my eternal satisfaction. And my eternal satisfaction is God’s universal manifestation, the manifestation of Divinity’s Perfection and Reality’s Immortality.

Service is love and love is service. When I love God, humanity cheerfully loves me and God blessingfully serves me. When God serves me, He serves me with His boundless Concern, and when humanity loves me, it loves me with its dedicated, immortalised oneness.

As a seeker, I serve both earth and Heaven. I serve earth with my inspiration-race. I serve Heaven with my aspiration-face. My inspiration-race and my aspiration-face have a common source: God's Grace, His infinite and unconditional Grace. God's Grace enables me to have a free access to my soul.

I frequently go to my soul’s realm, for my soul has given me permission to take anything that I want from there. Such being the case, I take my soul’s purity and offer it to my body. In this way I serve my body. I take my soul’s dynamism and offer it to my vital. In this way I serve my vital. I take my soul’s light and offer it to my mind. In this way I serve my mind. And then I take my soul’s delight and offer it to my heart. In this way I serve my heart.

I serve my inner existence with faith, love, devotion and surrender. Faith is my reality. Love brings me the message of universal Oneness. Devotion makes my existence on earth sweet. Surrender to God’s Will makes my life constantly meaningful and fruitful. I serve my outer existence with concentration, meditation and contemplation. Concentration means the one-pointed focus of attention on an object. First we concentrate on an object, and then we grow into it. Meditation means the invocation of vastness within our hearts. Contemplation means the absolute, inseparable union of the seeker and the Sought, the lover and the Beloved.

I serve the desiring man with my renunciation-light. This renunciation-light I get from my prayer, my meditation and my love of Light and Truth. I serve the aspiring man with my Realisation-height. This Realisation-height is my oneness with the Source, which is all Light and Delight. This oneness I discover only in and through my self-giving. I serve the liberated man, the man who is freed from the meshes of ignorance, with my earth-bound cry and my Heaven-free smile.

I serve the unknown with my imagination. Today my capacity is imagination; tomorrow my capacity will be aspiration. Aspiration is the inner flame within us that climbs up to the Highest and then comes down to offer its divine wealth to the world at large. Today imagination is my capacity; tomorrow aspiration will be my capacity; the day after tomorrow realisation will be my capacity. And in realisation, God-revelation and God-manifestation can take place.

The state motto of Arkansas is “The people rule.” Here we see the importance of collectivity. In the spiritual life, we have to go together in a collective, unified way. Individual assertiveness has to be totally negated; collectivity has to be constantly embraced. And what is collectivity, but the song of oneness. It is our oneness, our inseparable oneness with the vast, that rules. If we are seekers, then we will feel in our inner life a connection with the entire universe. We will feel that we exist not for ourselves alone, but for all. I give to you what I have; you give to me what you have. It is through reciprocal self-giving that we exist. Oneness is the flowering of our reciprocal self-giving. What we call self-giving today, tomorrow that same thing we call God-becoming. God is the root of the tree and He is also the branches, leaves, flowers and fruits. By collectivity we mean the leaves, flowers, fruits, branches, trunk, root, everything. Inside this collectivity is the divine Harmony, the all-loving, all-illumining, all-fulfilling Harmony of the Supreme.

Renunciation²

What do we renounce? We renounce our ego. We renounce ego precisely because our ego is limited and blind. What else do we renounce? We renounce our doubt. We renounce doubt because doubt is slow poison which will eventually kill us. We renounce our ignorance. We renounce ignorance because ignorance binds us and makes us feel that we are forever doomed to the earth-bound consciousness. Ignorance makes us feel that we are weak and impotent, and that a life of Infinity, Eternity and Immortality is a far cry.

Renunciation cannot be achieved overnight. Nor can we get it by accident. For renunciation, we have to go deep within and pray and meditate. Also, we have to know the necessity of self-conquest. This self-conquest is nothing but our self-discovery, nothing short of God-realisation. Self-discovery and God-realisation are one and the same, the obverse and the reverse of the same divine, spiritual, immortal coin.

India’s greatest poet, Tagore, once remarked that he would renounce, but not in an austere manner. There are people who want to renounce everything and embrace the life of austerity, but austerity is not real renunciation. Real renunciation says we must enjoy the freedom of liberation here amidst our multifarious activities; we must achieve liberation through the purification, illumination and transformation of our limitations, imperfections and bondage. We must lead a normal, natural life but be constantly aware of the things that must be inwardly renounced for a higher, better, more fulfilling life.

The motto of the state of Oklahoma is most significant: “Labour conquers all things.” Renunciation is dedicated labour, dedicated service. When we soulfully offer our dedicated service, we conquer everything and achieve everything. What is the thing that houses everything? God’s Smile. When we offer our dedicated labour to God, God’s Smile dawns in our life of dedication. A sincere, dedicated worker knows that his life is like a tree. A tree works very hard to offer us flowers and fruits, to offer us shade and shelter. From its root to its topmost bough, everything a tree has is a selfless offering. From the beginning to the end, the life of a tree is sacrifice. Even when we cut off a branch of the tree, the tree continues to offer us shelter and protection with its remaining branches. Similarly, when our dedicated service is misunderstood, we shall not stop serving or offering our Light. We shall go on with our dedicated service, for we know we came into the world for self-giving. A man of dedicated service gets constant and abiding satisfaction from his labour regardless of whether or not the world accepts it.

This is the prayer of a sincere, genuine server of mankind, a divine labourer:

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O man, I wish to be a tree of dedicated service.

O Heaven, I wish to be a tree of constant aspiration, climbing up high, higher, highest.

Conscious renunciation is the manifestation of peace. An ordinary person is satisfied with the kind of peace which spiritual seekers see as mere compromise. It is a compromise between husband and wife, between nation and nation, between one adversary and another. This world needs real peace, but the moment some temporary agreement, some compromise, is reached, the world thinks it has achieved peace. But real peace is something infinitely more meaningful and fruitful than this. Real peace is our heart’s infinite ecstasy and our soul’s eternal satisfaction.

Renunciation is the manifestation of our awakened consciousness. An awakened consciousness is the bridge between Heaven and earth. In consciousness, man becomes; in consciousness, God is. Man becomes his highest Reality, which he once upon a time was. God is His all-pervading, transcendental and universal Consciousness, which He eternally has been.

A man of renunciation raises the consciousness of others who are aspiring or who are about to aspire. This selfless act of his is the greatest gift that he can offer to humanity. The world is fascinated by miracles, but the greatest, the most fulfilling of all, is to raise the consciousness of others. An ordinary miracle lasts for a fleeting second, and when it ends we find ourselves in the same consciousness that we were in before. But when the true miracle takes place, our consciousness is elevated and illumined. As the man of renunciation marches forward towards the farthest Beyond, he climbs up an evolving ladder of transforming, divinised consciousness. By his very act of self-transcendence, the man of renunciation inspires and elevates the consciousness of his brothers and sisters who want to climb up the same ladder.

An ordinary person is afraid of transcendence. He feels that transcendence is something unknown, and perhaps unknowable. He feels that the moment he enters into the unknown, he will be thrown into the very jaws of a devouring tiger. But for true seekers, the unknown is not a ferocious animal. The unknown is something or someone whom we have not yet seen, but whose friendship we shall one day cherish and treasure. We are not afraid of the unknown because we pray and meditate. Our prayer and meditation is like a searchlight that lets us see far ahead. If we do not use this searchlight of prayer and meditation, we will not be able to see anything ahead of us. The unaspiring person feels that the only light is where he now stands, and that one step ahead of him is all unknown darkness. But in us, us seekers, there is a constantly burning lamp which illumines our path until we see that it has become sunlit and quite safe. And what is this lamp? It is our faith — our faith in God and our faith in ourselves.

For the beginner, for one who has just started walking along the path, renunciation is necessary and obligatory. But for an advanced seeker, renunciation is not necessary. If someone is on the verge of realisation or has made tremendous progress in the inner life, renunciation takes a different form for him. He does not actually renounce any more, but he tries to transform. If he feels fear in the world or in himself, he does not renounce fear, but with his inner light and wisdom he transforms it into courage. If he sees the world’s doubt or his own doubt, with his inner light he transforms it into faith. When he transforms fear into courage, this courage is nothing short of divine manifestation. And when he transforms doubt into faith, this faith is the eternally sunlit path towards the ultimate Beyond. At this point, renunciation is the transformation of our earth-bound consciousness into the Heaven-free consciousness. Earth’s pangs and privations are transformed into Heaven’s boundless yet ever-increasing Delight. Ignorance is transformed into divine Wisdom, darkness into Light, imperfection into Perfection, and human bondage into transcendental Liberation.

> Love

> Human love is the gambol of sufferings and limitations.

Friendship<sup>3</sup>

Here on earth we try to establish friendship with our fellow human beings. Sometimes we are successful, sometimes we are not. But even when we are successful, this friendship does not satisfy us completely. Then we go deep within and discover our Eternal Friend, God, the Inner Pilot. God and each individual on earth are eternal friends. But only when we begin to aspire do we come to realise this truth.

There are three types of friendship: animal friendship, human friendship and divine friendship. The friendship that exploits us is animal friendship. The friendship that mutually helps two persons is human friendship. The friendship that unconditionally gives, that gives with no expectation whatsoever, is divine friendship.

Friendship can arise out of necessity and also out of generosity. If two human beings are in the desiring world, their friendship is founded upon necessity. But if one is in the desiring world and the other is in the aspiring world, then we have to know that the friendship of the aspirant is founded upon generosity, while the friendship of the desiring person is based upon necessity.

Desire makes unending demands; its hunger can never be appeased. No matter how much experience or possession is accumulated, still satisfaction does not dawn in the heart of a desiring individual. Aspiration also has an eternal hunger, but when aspiration achieves an iota of Peace, Light and Bliss, it feels a kind of satisfaction. Although an aspirant aims to reach the Highest, the Absolute Pinnacle, although he longs for infinite Peace, Light and Bliss, an iota of Peace, Light and Bliss satisfies his grateful heart. But he knows that today's achievement is not complete. If he looks forward, or dives deep within, or climbs high, higher, highest, he knows he is bound to be inundated with Peace, Light and Bliss in boundless measure. At God's choice Hour, God will give the aspirant infinite Peace, Light and Bliss.

In our ordinary human life we have two friends: fear and doubt. Fear tells us, "Stay inside your body-cage, where you are safe. If you come out, the ferocious world-tiger will devour you, so don't come out of the cage of your body." Doubt tells us that our real friend is our physical mind, the mind that cautions us, that warns us, that tells us that the outer world is a real stranger. Doubt says, "If you allow the outer world to enter into you, it is like dealing with a stranger. At any moment you may be exploited, deserted and destroyed for good. Have no faith in anybody on earth. Expect nothing good from anyone on earth. You are your own saviour, you are your own salvation — you and nobody else. Exist for yourself."

Here we are all seekers, so we shall have faith in God. If it is impossible for us to establish divine faith today, we can start with faith in ourselves. In spite of knowing that we are limited and bound, let us have faith in ourselves. Then this limitation and bondage of ours can be transcended on the strength of our inner cry. But if we have faith in an undivine force, a force that destroys, then in addition to destroying others, we will ourselves be destroyed. A similar thing happens when we have faith only in ourselves. We try to possess others, but before we can actually possess them, we are ourselves possessed. It is only in divine faith that we do not possess. There we just expand — expand our consciousness, expand our reality, expand what we have and what we are. But let us start, if necessary, with faith in ourselves, and then go beyond and attain divine faith. In divine faith we see that there is no end to our journey and achievement. We are in the flow of an ever-transcending, ever-illumining Reality, which is perfection.

Friendship is harmony, friendship is peace, friendship is bliss. Friendship is harmony. Mutual harmony removes all dark conflicts. Each individual has opinions of his own, but when friendship becomes the connecting link between two persons, all conflicts are removed and they become one.

Friendship is peace. Here, peace means confidence. I have confidence in you and you have confidence in me; our mutual confidence is peace. I shall not speak ill of you or try to ruin you; you will not speak ill of me or try to ruin me. On the contrary, I shall give you what I have: my love, my sympathy, my concern, my compassion, my total support of your cause, and you will do the same for me.

Friendship is bliss. When friendship lasts, it offers bliss. The Kingdom of Heaven is established when love inundates our beings, when the feeling of oneness reigns supreme and there is no sense of separativity. At that time illumining, fulfilling and perfect Perfection dawns in our life of aspiration. Thousands of years ago the Vedic seers offered us the message of bliss.

Anandadd hy eva khalv imani bhutani jayante...

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In Delight we grow.

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Friendship is sweet when it is all harmony.

Friendship is sweetest when it is all bliss.

Now, the moment we are awakened, the moment our inner light comes to the fore and awakens us from our ignorance-sleep of millennia, we discover that fear and doubt are not our friends at all. Our true friends are courage, indomitable courage, and faith, boundless faith. Our inner courage tells us, "Go out, look around the rest of the world; all of earth's inhabitants are your friends, your brothers and sisters. If you stay in your physical consciousness, you are binding yourself, you are limiting your possibilities and potentialities. Go out. The world is eagerly awaiting your arrival." Our dear friend, faith, tells us, "We are all of the same Source and for the same Source, so how can we be afraid of others? The Source is one, but the One wanted to play the game of many. The tree is the Source, and the branches, flowers, leaves and fruits are the many. From the same root we all came into existence, so let us consciously establish our inseparable oneness with all human beings. Let us sing together, dance together and play together. In this way we will please and fulfil the Absolute Supreme with our universal oneness."

Each individual has faith in something or in someone. We cannot say that someone has no faith at all. This moment he has faith in God, another moment he may have faith in himself and a third moment he may have faith in somebody or in something else. Now, when an individual has faith in God, he is in the world of aspiration and vastness, in the world of Infinity, Eternity and Immortality. When he has faith in himself, he is in the world of desire, in the world of possession, limitation, bondage and death. When he has faith in neither God nor himself, then he has faith in destruction — in world-destruction or in self-destruction. But he always has faith either in God or in himself or in some undivine force.

Friendship is service, the dedicated service we offer to Mother Earth and Father Heaven. When we want to offer our dedicated service to Mother Earth, we pray to the Lord Supreme to grant us a life of ceaseless duration. When we want to offer our dedicated service to Father Heaven, we pray to the Lord Supreme to grant us a life of selfless contribution. With our service, Heaven gets the opportunity to manifest itself here on earth, and earth gets the opportunity to realise the Highest, the Absolute.

In the spiritual life friendship is founded on inner acceptance. A spiritual teacher and a seeker become one on the strength of their inner friendship. The seeker goes to a Master and says, "Master, I love you, I trust you, I give you my life." The Master immediately says, "My son, I love you, I trust you and I give you my life and also God's Life." The disciple says, "Master, I offer you my solemn promise that I shall serve the Supreme in you." The Master says, "Son, I offer you my solemn promise that unless and until I have taken you to our Father, the Absolute Supreme, I shall not rest. Your promise is just to me, but my promise is to two persons. Here on earth I am promising you that I shall carry you and guide you to the Golden Shores of the Beyond, and the same promise I am making to the Inner Pilot, who is your Master, my Master, the Eternal Master; to Him I am giving the same promise. With your friendship you will give me what you have: ignorance. With my friendship I will give you what I have and what I am: Wisdom-Light. This Wisdom-Light the Supreme has granted me out of His infinite Bounty, and this I offer to you. If you think that you are a beggar, then you must know that I am more of a beggar than you. You have to go begging only to one place, but my condition is more deplorable; I have to go to two places. I go to you with folded hands and beg you to give me your ignorance. Then I go to God with folded hands and beg Him to give me His Compassion-Light for you. I am the messenger between you and God. This is the friendship that I have established with earth and Heaven. Earth's pangs and penuries I take to Heaven, to the Eternal Father in Heaven, and from Heaven I bring down Peace, Light and Bliss in abundant measure for sincere seekers." This is the eternal friendship between the Master and the disciple.

The Master also says something else to his disciples. He says, "Your Master is not and can never be myself. The real Master is somebody else — the Supreme, the Absolute Supreme." A spiritual teacher is only an elder brother to humanity. When seekers are aspiring for the Highest, the teacher shows them where the Father is. Once he leads them to the Father, his role is over. And the seeker of today becomes the leader, the teacher of mankind tomorrow. When his time comes, he shows aspiring humanity, his younger brothers and sisters, the same God, the same eternal Friend, the same transcendental Supreme, that his own teacher once showed him.

> Intuition

The practical reality<sup>4</sup>

Practical reality is the conquest of our teeming earth-bound desires. This conquest has another name: Freedom-light. Freedom-light liberates the seeker from the hunger of the finite. Freedom-light liberates the seeker from the darkness of bondage-night. Freedom-light does not permit ignorance to lord it over the heart of the sincere, loving, devoted and surrendered seeker. Freedom-light is the inner necessity of one who seeks the highest transcendental Truth, which is the perennial Source. Freedom-light is the outer necessity of one who seeks the Ultimate Truth, which is the transcendental Goal.

When we approach reality with our earth-bound consciousness, we feel that reality is not at all practical. But when we approach reality with our Heaven-free consciousness, we realise that reality is always practical. Reality is the ideal in human life. Reality is the natural beauty of the life divine. The animal in us does not know or feel the existence of reality. The human in us at times knows and feels the value of reality, but it does not strive for reality's breath. The divine in us always wants to grow in the heart of reality. The Supreme in us is all-Reality in us, with us and for us.

What is practical reality? Practical reality is silence. Silence does not date from any particular point in time. Silence owes its origin to no particular being. Silence is eternal. Silence is universal. For its validity, silence does not depend on our world-wide proclamation or on our genuine and implicit acceptance. Silence transcendental has God; Silence transcendental is God. God's transcendental Silence wants total and perfect manifestation here on earth. Why do we need silence? We need silence precisely because we need abiding satisfaction. Why do we need satisfaction? We need satisfaction because of our inner divinity's Immortality. How do we achieve satisfaction? We achieve satisfaction by purifying our mind, illumining our heart and liberating our life.

Practical reality is also sound. Silence prepares the life of aspiration. Sound reveals the life of aspiration. Love fulfils the life of aspiration. Silence immortalises the life of aspiration. A life without silence is a goalless life. A life without sound is a meaningless life. A life without love is a helpless life.

The man who knows that God is within him feels his goal within and without. The man who knows that he is for God is bound to feel that his life is meaningful. He who has discovered the truth that he is of God is bound to feel that his life can never be hopeless. On the contrary, his is the life of adamantine will; his is the life of all-energising, all-fulfilling, all-pervading reality. When a seeker feels God's Presence within him, he smiles the smile of God-transcendence. When he feels that he is for God, he sings the song of God-compassion. When he feels that he is eternally of God, he dances the dance of God-perfection.

Practical reality is Delight. Delight is God's Eye of Compassion and Liberation. When God's flood of Delight enters the very breath of the seeker's aspiring life, God's Reality-dream looms large and God's inner Promise comes to the fore. The seeker feels that his life of imperfection will be transformed before long into a life of perfect Perfection. When the seeker's heart is liberated from the meshes of ignorance, God's unfulfilled Dream gets the opportunity to expedite its earth-bound journey and ultimately to fulfil its Dream-Reality in and through the loving and unconditionally surrendered divine warrior-seeker.

Practical reality is the seeker's attainment of perfection — perfection within, perfection without. The seeker achieves perfection in the outer life by disciplining his life, by acquiring mastery over his outgoing energy. The seeker achieves perfection in the inner life through constant and unconditional surrender to the Will of his Inner Pilot.

Practical reality is the attainment of supernal peace. The state motto of Nevada is "All for our country". The undivine critic may find this lofty message sentimental or emotional. But the sincere seeker of the Highest Truth, from the spiritual point of view, will observe this message in a divine way. From the spiritual point of view, “country” signifies the “abode of peace”. In the motto, "All for our country", “all” signifies simplicity, sincerity, purity and humility. These qualities are to be found in the abode of peace. When we live in the abode of peace, impossibility cannot knock at our heart's door. Nothing is impossible. Everything is not only possible, practical and practicable, but also inevitable.

Earth has glowing aspiration. Heaven has descending illumination. When earth's aspiration and Heaven's illumination meet together, the dream-boat of the seeker reaches the Reality-Shore of the Beyond. Earth aspires; Heaven inspires. Earth aspires for the Heaven-soul; Heaven inspires the heart, the reality of earth. Because earth aspires, earth is supremely great; because Heaven inspires, Heaven is divinely good. Each individual seeker has the golden opportunity to knock at his own heart's door at God's choice Hour, not only to see the face of Reality, but also to grow into the Reality itself, provided his life is a life of constant dedication to the Inner Pilot.

What has life taught me?<sup>5</sup>

Reality unveils, reveals and fulfils.

Reality expands and transcends.

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Life has taught me how to live and learn, how to learn and live, how to live and live, how to learn and learn. When I live and learn, I try to jump up onto the topmost bough of the tree instead of climbing up right from the foot. When I learn and live, I do the first thing first — I walk and then I run. When I live and live without first learning the inner lesson and discovering the real essence of my life, I deliberately deceive the divine within me and the divine in others. When I learn and learn, I constantly expand my earth-bound consciousness and transcend my earth-bound reality.

Life has taught me how to learn, unlearn and relearn. I learn. I learn the song of divine duty. By performing the duty divine, I know that I fulfil the divine within me, the Supreme within me. I learn the song of the childlike heart, for I know that if I have a childlike heart, I will always have the eagerness and inner urge to fulfil the divine by learning and discovering the Reality itself.

Each time I learn something, I march forward towards my destined Goal, my transcendental Goal. When I learn that my life is God-Light, then during my soulful prayer and meditation I feel God the Infinite Peace, God the Eternal Light, God the Immortal Life claim me in the inmost recesses of my heart as His very own. At that time, I claim God’s Infinity as my length, God’s Eternity as my height and God’s Immortality as my depth — the depth of my silent being. At that time I consciously become one, inseparably, eternally one, with the Inner Pilot, the Absolute Supreme.

I unlearn. I unlearn the song of self-importance and self-aggrandisement. As a seeker, I have to unlearn many other things, as well. My mind is full of information and empty of illumination. If my mind is filled with information, then I feel that I am a donkey carrying a heavy load on my back. What I need is not world-information, but world-illumination. So first I have to unlearn this world-information, for in order to get world-illumination I need a mind of clarity, a mind of luminosity. Also, I have to unlearn the capacity of the physical mind. The physical mind teaches me how to doubt, how to suspect, how to belittle and how to bind myself and others. When I doubt others with my physical mind, I do not gain anything; at the same time, they do not lose anything. And when I doubt myself, I immediately dig my own grave.

I relearn. I relearn the song of God-union, of conscious God-union. When I am in Heaven, I am the soul. There God and I are one, inseparably one. But when I, as a soul, enter into the world arena and take on a physical frame, then I enter into the world of bondage, limitation, darkness and ignorance. There I become the body-consciousness. If I take the body-consciousness as my reality, then I cannot learn anything from life, for the body-consciousness is limited, unlit, obscure, impure, undivine. But when I think of myself as the Soul-Reality, I get the opportunity to relearn the truth that God and I are eternally one.

Life has taught me how to examine the essence of God's Silence and God's Sound. When I use my human eyes to examine God's Reality, I am totally lost. But when I use my heart to examine God's Reality, my heart immediately sees the true Reality, on the strength of its total identification with Reality. The physical eyes are very often misled, but the inner heart cannot be misled. The inner heart is the direct representative of the illumining soul, which is one with the Source. As long as I use the physical mind, I see others as others; but when I use the aspiring heart there is no you, no he, no she, only I — the Universal I, and not the limited ego. So when I use my heart, I become the Reality. But when I use my mind or my physical eyes, I am quite often deceived, and I remain unfulfilled.

When I do not aspire, my life teaches me frustration, and I push and pull. I push my life towards something, but eventually I come to realise that this something is a goalless nothing. I pull myself towards the little, puny ego-consciousness, and I see that I have pulled myself towards an empty reality. But when I neither push nor pull, just offer my existence in its totality to the Inner Pilot, I consciously become what I eternally am: God-consciousness.

As a seeker, I know that my life has taught me how to love and whom to love. How to love? Devotedly, soulfully and unconditionally. Whom to love? God in man and man in God. When I love God in man devotedly, soulfully and unconditionally, I become one with God the Unity. When I love man in God, I become one with God the Multiplicity. One is the Source; many are the manifestations of the One. The tree needs branches; the branches need the tree. By loving God, the seeker in me becomes the tree itself, and by loving man, he becomes the branches.

Life has taught the seeker in me how to devote myself to my higher part and to my lower part. When the lower part in me devotes itself to the higher part, the higher part gets additional strength for its manifestation. When the higher part devotes itself to the lower part of my being, the lower part gets the opportunity for transformation.

Life has taught the seeker in me how to surrender. I surrender soulfully, devotedly and unconditionally to my own higher reality. This higher reality encompasses and embodies everything as its very own, so when I divinely surrender, I feel that the unillumined part of me is surrendering to the fully illumined part of me. When God’s Hour strikes and the unillumined becomes fully illumined, and the illumined becomes fully manifested, then my entire being becomes totally divine and perfect.

When I live the animal life, I see darkness all around and feel that this darkness is my only reality. When I live the human life, I see an iota of light and feel that one day I will be able to bathe in an infinite sea of Light. When I try to lead the divine life, I feel that my Inner Pilot has already paved the way for me to walk along the path to His ultimate Reality. At that time, I feel that God’s Dream-Boat is carrying me to His Reality-Shore — the Golden Shore of the ever-transcending Beyond.

The soul tells me that life is perfection. We are not travelling from imperfection towards perfection, but from less perfection to greater perfection, to the greatest perfection. In the process of evolution, life is continuous progress. This progress is perfection aiming at the highest Absolute Perfection. When life began from the mineral world, it was the beginning of life’s perfection. But there is no end to our progress. Today’s perfection is the starting point for tomorrow’s higher, deeper, more illumining and more fulfilling perfection.

Life has taught me something sublime: that I am not indispensable; only the Supreme in me is indispensable. Life wants to offer me happiness, and real happiness lies only in this discovery. When someone feels that only the Supreme in him is indispensable, then his life is all happiness.

Finally, life has taught me the most important thing: that God and I need each other. I need God for my perfect perfection, and God needs me for His total Manifestation on earth. This is the supreme lesson that life has to teach, and I am offering it to each seeker present here.

Kindness

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Today I see how beautiful and soulful I am.

Today I see how meaningful and fruitful humanity is.

Transformation, liberation, revelation, manifestation<sup>6</sup>

The animal in us needs immediate transformation. The human in us needs conscious liberation. The divine in us needs perfect revelation. The Supreme in us needs complete manifestation. To see God we need transformation. To be invited by God we need liberation. To be loved by God we need revelation. To be immortalised by God we need manifestation.

Transformation of the body shows us how pure we can be. Liberation of the vital shows us how dynamic we can be. Revelation of the mind shows us how vast we can be. Manifestation of the heart shows us how divine we can be. We can be as pure as the dawn. We can be as dynamic as a divine warrior. We can be as vast as the sky. We can be as divine as the soul. Transformation is walking along the road of Infinity. Liberation is marching along the road of Immortality. Revelation is running along the road of Eternity. Manifestation is flying the fastest towards the ever-transcending Reality.

When we are freed from the binding past and transformed, we do not remain in the body-cage; we start living in the soul-palace. When we are transformed we change our friendships. Ignorance-night no longer remains our friend. Instead, knowledge-light becomes our true and dear friend. When we are transformed we sing a different song. We cease to sing the song of the finite. We sing the song of the Eternal in order to become the Infinite.

When we are liberated from the meshes of ignorance, we come to realise what we eternally are: God the dreamer, God the lover and God the fulfiller. At that time, we want to reveal ourselves. Unless and until we have revealed our divinity, we cannot prove God’s existence on earth. The world may think that all our sublime experiences are mental hallucinations, chimerical mists and acts of self-deception unless we can reveal God’s Divinity within ourselves. But when we can reveal our inner divinity to others, they will see that our dream-boat has touched the Reality-Shore. And when we manifest our inner divinity, at that time the Golden Shore of the Beyond becomes firmly established in the here-and-now.

Transformation. In the hoary past, the seekers of the Highest did not care so much for nature’s transformation, for physical, vital, emotional transformation. They cared only for their own realisation. They realised the Highest, but in spite of that, their physical nature remained unlit, obscure, imperfect.

Liberation. In the hoary past, many liberated souls cared only for their own liberation. They did not care for the liberation of the world at large. They felt that because it was so hard for them to get liberation, everybody else should also have to work hard. Also, they felt that everybody would realise God, everybody would be liberated at God’s choice Hour, and that it was not their business to expedite this Hour.

Revelation. In the hoary past, the seekers of the highest magnitude did not care for revelation. They thought that if they revealed what they had realised, then there was every possibility that the world’s ignorance would capture their knowledge-light and wisdom-height. They were afraid of revealing their inner divinity. They realised the highest Truth, but they did not want to share it with the rest of the world because fear, fear of the unknown, tortured their inner existence.

Manifestation. In the hoary past, seekers of the highest magnitude, liberated souls, great Yogis, did not care for manifestation. They felt that here on earth nothing is worth manifesting, because nothing can last for good. They felt that this planet is the abode of sorrow, of suffering, so why try to establish something divine here permanently? They felt that there was no assurance, no guarantee that this world would be transformed into divinity’s flood; therefore, they did not care for manifestation.

But the present-day seeker wants perfection within, perfection without. Unless and until the body is perfect, the vital is perfect, the mind is perfect and the heart is perfect, we feel that perfect Perfection is a far cry. The process is long and arduous, but once we succeed in this sublimely significant task, we reach the Golden Shore of the Beyond.

The motto of the state of Oregon is "The Union". Here we are all seekers. A seeker is he who practices spirituality. Now, spirituality has a secret and sacred word to offer: the word is Yoga. Yoga means conscious union with God. I am truly happy that the motto of this state encompasses the same ideal as the breath of spirituality, which is Yoga. Union has to be established between the finite and the Infinite, between today's imperfect man and tomorrow's perfect God.

How do we establish our conscious union with God? There are various ways to do this. First, we can minimise our earthly needs and thus establish ourselves to increase our Heavenly needs. Then, we have to cry for God inwardly, as a child cries for his mother. The Lord Supreme will fulfil our inner cry of aspiration. Two concepts govern the length and breadth of the world: desire and aspiration. Desire binds us; aspiration liberates us. Desire makes us feel that we are of the finite and we are compelled to be for the finite. Aspiration tells us that we are of the Eternal and for the Infinite. Infinity, Eternity and Immortality are not vague terms, but divine realities that are trying to come to the fore so that we can become tomorrow's God.

Besides crying inwardly, we also have to feel consciously that God needs us as much as we need God. As ordinary human beings we need God to fulfil our teeming desires. When we become spiritual seekers we need God for only one thing: to discover our highest transcendental Height, our deepest transcendental Depth. And we do discover these when we realise God. Now, just as we need God for our realisation, so God needs us for His own Manifestation. He has to manifest Himself in and through us. He was one; that was His Silence-realisation. He wanted to become many; that was His Sound-manifestation. When we achieve His Realisation and He achieves in and through us His Manifestation, perfect Perfection dawns. When we feel that we are of God and for God, we see that we are of the all-pervading Silence and for the all-fulfilling cosmic Sound. At that time we are totally liberated, revealed and transformed.

Each seeker represents a promise to God. The promise is his own physical transformation. He wants to free his earth-bound life and he does free his earthbound life on the strength of the boundless Compassion of the highest Absolute Supreme. Each seeker's promise to God is to manifest God on earth in God's own Way. The seeker fulfils his promise only when he gladly, cheerfully and unconditionally gives to God what he has and what he is. What he has is inner cry, and what he is is ignorance. When he gives to God devotedly, soulfully and unconditionally his achievement: inner cry, and his present reality: ignorance, then the seeker is transformed, liberated, revealed and manifested in God's own Way.

Just for today<sup>7</sup>

Just for today, I shall meditate on God. I know that when I meditate on God, I empty my heart. When my heart is empty, my Eternal Friend, my Eternal Divine Guest comes in and sits on His Throne inside the very depths of my heart. In the inmost recesses of my heart His Life of infinite Concern, Compassion, Love and Blessings abides.

When I pray, my Eternal Friend listens to my prayer and fulfils my prayer. When I meditate, my Eternal Friend comes in and fulfils my inner need. When I pray, I talk and He listens to me. When I meditate, He talks and I listen to Him. This is how we converse. My prayer and my meditation are of paramount importance in my life of aspiration, dedication and surrender to the Will of my Inner Pilot.

Just for today, I shall love my God, my Supreme. I shall not love anybody else, not even my own existence. I shall love only God, God alone. Has He not loved me from time immemorial? Will He not love me throughout Eternity? Since He is all love for me, it is my bounden duty to love Him, at least for this day. I shall love Him, and my love for Him will immortalise my earthly reality and my heavenly dream.

Just for today, I shall become the divine lover and call my Lord the Supreme Beloved. In human love there is constant demand, constant expectation and constant disappointment. In love divine there is no demand, no expectation and no frustration; there is only self-giving. This self-giving is eventually transformed into God-becoming.

Just for today, I shall love God unconditionally. I shall feel His infinite Compassion, His blessingful Love in and through my life of aspiration. I shall feel that God loves me infinitely more than I love myself. When fear, doubt, anxiety and jealousy assail my life of aspiration, when I cherish and treasure limitation, bondage, ignorance and death, at that time, I hate my life. But my Eternal Friend, my Pilot Supreme, loves me still.

Just for today, I shall serve God. I have come to realise that there is nothing and there can be nothing as sweet and as fulfilling as service. When I serve God, I feel that my life of frustration is transformed into a life of illumination. My service to God makes me feel that my existence on earth is meaningful and fruitful. When I serve God I feel that I have expanded my earth-bound consciousness into the Heaven-free consciousness.

Just for today, I shall surrender my will to God’s Will, His all-loving, all-pervading, universal Will. Yesterday God surrendered compassionately and unconditionally to my animal greed. Today God surrenders lovingly and compassionately to my human wants. Tomorrow God shall surrender joyfully and proudly to my divine needs. Just because He has surrendered to my animal greed, just because He surrenders to my human wants, just because He will surrender to my divine needs, I feel it is obligatory on my part to surrender my earthly life just for a day to His Will, so that His Will can be done on earth in and through my life of aspiration and dedication.

Just for today, I wish to share my supreme secret with my Supreme Pilot. My secret is this: that I shall no longer call ignorance my friend. My friendship with ignorance terminates today. From today on I shall have God as my only friend, my sempiternal Friend. I shall have Him not only as my Friend, but also as my All.

Just for today, I wish to have peace of mind. In order to have peace of mind I must feel that I am not indispensable at all. I must end my song of self-importance and realise that the world does not need me. The world existed before I was born; the world shall exist long after I pass behind the curtain of Eternity. Who is needed? Only the Supreme Pilot in me is needed. When I feel that I am not indispensable I receive an iota of light and achieve peace of mind.

Just for today, I shall be the all-loving child to the Supreme Pilot. Just for today, I shall be the hero-warrior walking along the path of Eternity. Just for today, I shall feel that I need God and God needs me, and ultimately I have to feel that God needs me more than I need Him. At times, because of my ignorance, I feel that I do not need Him. But God, being perfect, sees me always with His all-illumining Light. He knows that I am destined to be His seeker, His lover, His instrument for manifestation. He knows my potentiality and my capacity. He knows that I am an exact prototype of His ultimate transcendental Reality; therefore, He needs me more than I need Him.

I need myself this moment to fulfil my countless, teeming desires. But when my desires are not fulfilled and when I realise that I do not have the capacity to fulfil them, I feel that I do not need this earthly existence. I want to discard this body-consciousness, for this body-consciousness does not give me an iota of satisfaction. Since I am a failure, I feel that this life is of no avail. But God knows that there is no such thing as failure. There is only experience. We work, we serve, we pray, we meditate each moment in conscious dedication, and the result of this dedication takes the outer form of either success or failure. But when we go deep within, we feel that there is no such thing as success or failure. We see everything as an experience that has come to us in the march of evolution. Finally, we realise that even this experience is not our possession. It is actually God’s experience, for He is the doer, He is the action and He is the fruit thereof.

Just for today, I wish to be a conscious garland of gratitude to be placed at the Feet of my Inner Pilot.

Just for today...

The existence of God<sup>8</sup>

The motto of the state of Idaho is "Let It Live Forever". We know that the human body does not live forever. It exists only for sixty, seventy, or eighty years, and then its role is over. But there is something within us that does exist forever, and that is the soul. Just because we are seekers, we do believe in the soul.

How is it that the soul exists forever and not the body? The soul exists forever precisely because the soul is the direct representative of God on earth. The soul, from its very beginning, has embodied the message of Divinity, Eternity, Infinity and Immortality, whereas the body has not. The soul exists forever because the soul is an immortal part of its ultimate Source: God, the Eternal Pilot.

Our next question is: does God exist? The atheist in us says, “No, God does not exist. God does not and cannot exist; therefore, I don’t need Him.” The agnostic in us says, “I doubt it, I doubt it. And since I am not even sure of God’s existence, why should I pay attention to God?” The desiring man in us immediately says, “Yes, God exists. I can see Him; I can feel Him. When? When my desires are fulfilled! At that time, I imagine God according to my sweet fancy. But when my desires are not fulfilled, then God does not exist for me. And if I see that others’ desires are being fulfilled and not mine, then I may say that God exists for them but not for me.”

Now, the aspiring man in us also has something to say with regard to God’s existence. The aspiring man in us says, “God exists even though I cannot prove it to the world at large. I see and feel His Presence, and I know a day will come when I will be able to bring Him to the fore and show Him to the world at large.” When we become one with the aspiring man, something within us tells us that God exists, and this something is our inner urge, our inner cry.

As a human being, one moment I can be an atheist, the next moment an agnostic, the next a desiring man or an aspiring man. I can also be a dreamer and can dream all the time. Now, when I dream of God, I feel that although God exists, He is far away — very, very far. I see a yawning gulf between my dream-boat and my reality-shore. I can also be a lover. When I become a lover of God, I see God as nearer than my eyes and dearer than my heart. Or I can become a server. When I serve God, it is because I get the utmost joy in serving God. There are many things I have done, many things I have said, many things I have offered in my life, but nothing has given me real and lasting joy. Only my service to God has given me everlasting joy; therefore, the server in me feels that God’s existence is for my own happiness.

As a seeker, I have three friends: concentration, meditation and contemplation. I ask them, “Friends, have you seen God?” They immediately say, “Yes, we have seen God. Not only have we seen God, but also we can make you see God.” When I ask them how, my friends tell me that they work together, one after the other, in a successive manner. They say that they are like three rungs of a ladder. My concentration friend tells me, “Just take any object and concentrate on it. Don’t allow any wave of thought to enter into your mind, whether good or bad, divine or undivine. Make your mind absolutely thoughtless.” I listen to my concentration friend and abide by his dictates. Then my meditation friend offers me his advice. He says, “Your heart is full of fear, impurity, insecurity and ignorance. Just empty it, empty it.” I empty my heart, and immediately I feel tremendous joy, for then the Eternal Guest, God, comes in and sits on His Throne inside the inmost recesses of my heart. Finally, my contemplation friend tells me, “When you contemplate, try to feel in the beginning that you are playing a game of hide-and-seek with an intimate friend. This moment you hide and he seeks; the next moment he hides and you seek. Now, how long can you play hide-and-seek? For fifteen minutes, half an hour, an hour. Then it is all over and you come together as real friends, intimate friends, freely and totally revealed to each other. This is what happens between you and God when you contemplate.”

I ask my three friends who has taught them all about God. They tell me that it was their parents who showed them the Face of God and taught them all about God. I ask them who their parents are. They say that their parents are aspiration and will-power. Aspiration is their mother; will-power is their father. When we become one with our aspiration, with our aspiring heart, we acquire knowledge from our conscious identification and oneness with the ultimate Reality. And just as our heart’s identification with the supreme Reality can show us God’s existence in Heaven, so, too, can our soul’s light show us God’s existence on earth. And what is our soul’s light? It is our will-power. In the spiritual life, aspiration and will-power go together. We need both mother and father.

What is aspiration? Aspiration is our inner cry for the Highest. And what does aspiration do? Aspiration helps us to minimise our desires. Once our desires are diminished, we feel peace within and joy without.

```

anandena jatani jivanti

```

What is will-power? Will-power is something that expedites our journey. We know that we have a starting point and a destination. If we take the help of an Indian bullock cart to reach our destination, it will take us years and years. But if we make use of a modern jet plane, it will be only a matter of a few hours. Similarly, with our adamantine will-power we accelerate our progress. While we are proceeding along the path, concentration enters into us like a divine bullet, energises us and makes us feel that we can run the fastest to our goal. Meditation tells us that we have to dive the deepest to find our goal. Finally, contemplation tells us that we do not have to go anywhere. We do not have to run; we do not have to go deep within. We can stay where we are. Only we must give to God what we have. What we have is soulful gratitude to the Inner Pilot. We have gratitude because we feel that our aspiration and our power of receptivity have come directly from God.

Receptivity grows only when gratitude flows. God’s existence can be proved only when our receptivity is complete, for if we cannot receive Him, no matter how many times He appears before us we will not be able to claim Him as our very own. And unless and until we can claim God as our very own, we will not be able to prove His existence.

Right now we are in the finite and we are for the finite. We find it very difficult to imagine the Infinite as our very own. But this is the limitation of the physical mind. There is also an intuitive mind, an illumined mind, but right now we do not have this mind. The physical mind always wants to experience the truth by cutting it into little pieces. For the mind to accept God or any reality as a whole is impossible. The mind limits; the mind binds. But the heart does not do that. The heart expands; the heart liberates. The heart wants to see the truth in its entirety; it wants to feel, possess and claim the truth as its very own. How does the heart do this? The heart is very wise. It secretly enters into the room of its elder brother, its most illumined brother, the soul, and brings back to its own abode boundless light. When the aspiring heart is inundated with light, whatever it sees it accepts in its entirety. Eventually there comes a time when the physical mind enters into the heart, which takes it into the soul. At that time the mind becomes liberated, just as the heart has been liberated by the light of the soul, and the soul has been liberated by the Consciousness-light of the Supreme.

We are all seekers. For us God does exist. It is only a matter of time before we become consciously one with Him. He who has already left the starting point will naturally reach the goal sooner than those who are still lingering behind. But spirituality is not a matter of competition. If we have to compete at all, then let us compete with the fear, doubt, anxiety, jealousy and other negative forces within ourselves. Let us defeat them, which means transform them. If we can transform our fear into courage, our doubt into faith, our insecurity into security, our impurity into purity and our imperfection into perfection, that is a worthwhile success and a significant progress. In the spiritual life we give all importance to progress, because progress is our soul’s constant necessity. We are part of an eternal progress. From the unmanifest we entered into the mineral kingdom, then into the plant kingdom, then from the plant to the animal and from the animal to the human. Now we are trying to enter into the divine kingdom. When we think of ourselves as a song of progress and not as a song of success, then God-realisation is within our sure reach.

Beauty<sup>9</sup>

As a seeker, when I develop these divine qualities, I become all beauty. A child is beautiful, a flower is beautiful, a flame is beautiful. When I have a childlike heart, God talks to me. When my life becomes a flower of gratitude, I get the opportunity to sing with God His universal Song. When my life grows into a climbing flame, I play with God and take conscious part in His cosmic Game.

Beauty is in giving. Beauty is in receiving. Beauty is in giving and giving alone. Beauty is in receiving and receiving alone. When I give, I see that before I have given anything, Heaven is already smiling through my offering, my self-giving. When I receive, I see that earth is smiling in and through me. When I give and give, I see that God the divine Pilot is offering Himself to aspiring humanity in and through me. When I receive and receive, I see that God the infinite Compassion is entering into me and expanding my earthbound consciousness, finally transforming it into the Heaven-free Reality.

When I invoke the soul and become one with the soul, I have the capacity to reveal the Source at God's choice Hour. At that time, I have a most significant message to offer to my brothers and sisters of the world:

> Vedaham etam purusam mahantam...

When I have attained this capacity, my own soul shines with the effulgent beauty of that one great Being.

When I invoke the heart, become one with the heart and try to offer the wealth of the heart to the world at large, I see a new beauty growing within me and flowing around me. At that time my message is:

Twameva mata pita twameva...

```

Thou art the Father.

Thou art the Comrade.

Thou art Wealth.

Thou art my Lord Supreme.

This message that I offer to the world is founded upon my heart's oneness with my Inner Pilot. This is the sweetest and, at the same time, the most convincing feeling of inseparable oneness with the Inner Pilot. When I establish my inseparable oneness with my Inner Pilot, I feel Him as my Mother and Father of Eternity; as my Friend and Comrade from time immemorial; and as my Lord Supreme, my All. This is the beauty of the heart that a seeker embodies, reveals and manifests here on earth.

When I invoke the mind and become one with the mind, I offer the wealth of the mind on the strength of my soulful prayer.

Aum bhur bhuvah svah...

This is the Gayatri Mantra, the prayer for the mind, for the illumination of the mind. This is India's peerless mantra or incantation. All the other mantras of India are derived from this one. This is the loftiest prayer that the Indian seers of the hoary past realised and offered to aspiring humanity.

We have already discovered beauty in the soul, beauty in the heart and beauty in the mind. Now we have to discover beauty in the vital. When beauty in the vital dawns, we become energetic, dynamic, progressive and fulfilling. At that time we pray to the Supreme to inundate our vital with power infinite, power divine, the power that builds, not the power that breaks; the power that energises us, the power the vital needs for the full manifestation of divinity on earth. The message of divine power which I offer to the world is:

Tejo asi tejo mayi dhehi...

```

Thy manly vigour I invoke.

Thy battle fury I invoke.

```

I also try to invoke the body-consciousness and become one with the aspiring body in order to discover beauty in the body. For this, I pray to the Supreme to grant me sound health and an aspiring body. This is the prayer of my body:

Tach chaks ur debahitam...

May we, for a hundred autumns, see that lustrous Eye, God-ordained, arise before us...

In this case a hundred years means an infinite or indefinite expanse of time. If we have a long life of aspiration on earth, then we can realise God, reveal God and manifest God. We need a long life of aspiration, dedication, devotion and surrender. This is the beauty in the body and of the body, for the soul and for God, the Supreme.

If we want to discover more beauty here in the earth-consciousness, we have to realise what is essential and what is not essential. Another most significant message of the Upanishadic seers is:

Neti, neti

Not this, not that.

Ignorance, no! Darkness, no! Bondage, no! Limitation, imperfection, no! We do not need them. We need faith, courage, humility, purity, sincerity and all the divine qualities. We renounce the unillumined parts in us and invoke the parts that are illumined, the consciousness that is illumined. Not this; not the ignorance which we now claim as our very own and which claims us as its very own, but light, the light that claims us as its very own and the light that we are going to claim as our very own.

There is also a supreme Beauty. The supreme Beauty is in our conscious, inseparable oneness with the Supreme. This supreme Beauty we discover on the strength of our conscious, constant and unconditional self-giving. When we dare to say, “Not my will, but Thy Will be done,” then we can also say, “I and my Father are one.” When we sincerely say, “Let Thy Will be done,” at that time the supreme Beauty reveals itself in and through us. And when we say, “I and my Father are one,” at that time the supreme Beauty finds its complete manifestation on earth here and now.

I have given a short talk on beauty. Now my students and I will sing a Bengali song on beauty.

[This is a translation of the song which Sri Chinmoy and his disciples sang. The words and music were written by Sri Chinmoy.]

/Sundara hate sundara tumi

```

Beauty unparalleled in the garden of Paradise.

Without You my eyes have no vision;

All around me, within and without,

My world is filled with excruciating pangs.

O Lord, O my beautiful Lord,

May I be blessed with the boon to see Thy Face.

```

Stop pulling! God's knowledge-Light is too vast.

Pulling is temptation.

Yours will be the Goal of goals.

Philosophy, religion and spirituality¹⁰

Philosophy is in the thinking mind. Philosophy is of the searching mind. Philosophy is for the illumining mind.

Religion is our conscious or unconscious response to the beckoning Light. Religion is our firm belief in the lofty experiences of our predecessors. Religion is our great satisfaction in our glorious past.

Spirituality is in the aspiring heart. Spirituality is of the liberating soul. Spirituality is for the fulfilling and immortalising God.

A lover of philosophy talks about God’s Vision. A lover of religion talks about God’s Power. A lover of spirituality talks about God’s Compassion. A lover of philosophy wants to see God’s Face. A lover of religion wants to see God’s Eye. A lover of spirituality wishes to grow into God’s all compassionate Heart.

A man of philosophy is a dreamer. A man of religion is an observer. A man of spirituality is a divine lover. A divine dreamer, a divine observer and a divine lover are good friends.

A man of philosophy wants to see the height of life. A man of religion wants to see the depth of life. A man of spirituality wants to see the reality of life and the reality in life.

There is a human philosophy and there is a divine philosophy. The human philosophy is a dry piece of wood. The human philosophy is a soulless goal. The divine philosophy is a fruitful tree. The divine philosophy is an all-illumining life and an all-fulfilling goal. The divine philosophy knows that its Source is transcendental Silence. The divine philosophy knows that its Source is transcendental Delight.

There is a human religion and a divine religion. The human religion is a baseless self-aggrandisement. The human religion is a lifeless confidence. The divine religion is a constant God-proclamation from the very depth of the seeker’s heart. It is in the inmost recesses of his heart that a seeker proclaims God’s Reality, God’s Divinity, God’s Immortality.

There is a human spirituality and a divine spirituality. The human spirituality, in the name of God, deceives mankind. The human spirituality, in the name of God, deceives its own true being by offering a false God-realisation to aspiring humanity. The divine spirituality knows that at God’s choice Hour each follower of religion will be inundated with infinite Light, Peace and Bliss. The divine spirituality is fully aware of the fact that each practitioner of spirituality is a conscious, chosen instrument of God, crying for the dawn of Life immortal here on earth.

A man of true philosophy, a man of true religion and a man of true spirituality need God. For them there is no other choice.

I am extremely happy to learn that the motto of the state of Colorado is “Nothing without Deity”. Without God, without the Inner Pilot, we are nothing. With the Inner Pilot, we are everything. God is the Realisation-tree, and this Realisation-tree has many branches. Philosophy, religion and spirituality are three branches of God the Realisation-tree. The man of philosophy can sit under the philosophy branch, the man of religion can sit under the religion branch, and the man of spirituality can sit under the spirituality branch. It is in the protection and shelter of the Divinity that we can grow into Immortality.

> Love

> The mind's love doubts God in the morning, fears God in the afternoon, hates God in the evening and cries for God's Love at midnight.

Part II — Questions and answers: University of Arkansas

Question: What do you concentrate on?

Question: Do you respect other religions?

Question: How can one work for God?

If you are a labourer and are working with your hands, your mind can be inside God, your heart can be inside God, and you can consciously place your very action inside God. Otherwise, your action will be in somebody else — in somebody's appreciation or admiration or judgement — and you will be concerned with what he thinks about your work. But if you are working to please one person, the Inner Pilot within you, the Inner Pilot will naturally expect you to work perfectly. He will not tell you to cheat or deceive the person who has asked you to work, for the real employer of everybody is the Supreme.

Right now when we finish a difficult job, we are very pleased with ourselves. We say, "Ah, I've done it. It was such a hard job, but I did it." But there comes a time in the spiritual life when we feel that all the work we accomplish is actually being done through us by the Inner Pilot. We realise that we can do nothing by ourselves; we are mere instruments. It is God who does everything in and through us.

Question: I am a vegetarian but I work as a meat handler. Is this increasing my karma?

Sometimes, I know, there is something called compulsion. If this is the only place that you can get a job, then you should do it. But your consciousness must not be in the meat; your consciousness must be in something pure and divine. You have to know where your consciousness remains while you work. There are some people in the spiritual life who do not eat meat, but when they see meat and fish immediately their greed and desire comes to the fore. This kind of vegetarianism is only self-deception. But if you do not want to eat meat and do not feel the need of it, then even if you touch meat there will be no problem.

Question: How do you see the physical body as entering into the scheme of things?

Part III — Questions and answers: University of Tulsa

Question: Is it necessary to transcend all emotions for the spiritual life?

Question: Is it important for spiritual seekers to spend time with one another?

Question: How many levels of initiation are there, and how many times will a Master initiate a disciple?

Part IV — Questions and answers: Southern Methodist University

Question: How important do you think it is to have a spiritual teacher if one is very eager to make fast progress? And also, how long does one have to stay with the teacher?

Question: How is it best to cope with the occasional fears and doubts that plague us?

To cope with doubt we should ask ourselves whether we accomplish anything by doubting others. If we doubt somebody's achievement to the very end of our days, our doubt will not take away from his achievement. If he has achieved something, it is done and our doubt cannot diminish it. But if we start doubting ourselves, that is our real destruction. The moment we start doubting our own possibilities, potentialities and capacities, we can no longer progress. If you now doubt me and feel that I am not a sincere seeker, a few moments later you will feel that I am a sincere seeker, and a few moments later you will doubt your own capacity and authority to judge. Now, when you doubted me, I did not lose anything, and when you had faith in me, you did not lose anything. But when you started doubting your own judgement, then you reached a stalemate. If you cannot now accept a Master wholeheartedly, it is best to try to create aspiration within yourself, so that you can conquer doubt.

Let us take fear, doubt, courage and faith as four persons knocking at your door: two friends and two enemies. Since it is your door, you can allow your friends to come in, but not your enemies. Allow courage and faith to enter, then bolt the door to keep out fear and doubt, for once you allow your enemies in, they will exploit you. They will try to take every advantage of your weakness. It is you who can accept or reject fear and doubt, faith and courage. At every moment a seeker must be conscious and cautious about when he should open his heart's door and his mind's door.

Question: For spiritual beginners, it seems that it is necessary to make some compromise between their family life and their spiritual life. Do you think that this compromise will always have to exist, or can it be transcended by some other kind of relationship?

If God wants you to run the fastest, at that time you have to know who is dearest to you — God or the members of your family. Right now you are making a compromise so that your near and dear ones can be happy. But you know that your capacity is very limited, whereas the One you are approaching has unlimited capacity. You do not want to neglect your family, but you have to know that you do not have infinite capacity to make your mother or father or brother or sister happy. In trying to please them, you reach a kind of compromise. But if you reach the Source with your intense inner urge, then you can ask the Supreme, your Inner Pilot, to take full responsibility for your near and dear ones. And He has infinite capacity to make them happy.

Part V — Questions and answers: University of Nevada

Question: How can one know the God inside himself without becoming confused by the mind?

Question: Is there but one _Satguru_ in any one age or are there many _Satgurus_ at one time?

Question: If we fall asleep during meditation, does that mean we should sleep more at night so we can stay awake?

Question: How can we see the divine in another human being when each human being has so many faults?

In the spiritual life, we have to see others with the heart of a lover and not with the eye of a critic. Each individual knows his own limitations, but still he should think primarily of his divine possibilities and divine potentialities. By constantly thinking of his divine potentialities, by focusing his attention on his divine possibilities, he is able to enter into the realm of fulfilling reality.

To see the divine in others, we have to love. Where love is thick, faults are thin. If you really love someone, then it is difficult to find fault with him. His faults seem negligible, for love means oneness. This oneness comes from our conscious acceptance of his reality as it is. A mother, in spite of knowing her child’s countless limitations, does not stop loving him, because she has established her oneness with him. If there is imperfection in the child, the mother claims this imperfection as her very own. And when the child grows up, he feels that his mother’s weaknesses are his own.

Part VI — Questions and answers: Stanford University

Question: I've heard that when one accepts a spiritual path, there is a point at which one must surrender oneself to a Guru who is higher than himself. But I've also heard that one must constantly question his teachings and listen to his own inner voice. These two injunctions seem to conflict.

When you accept a spiritual Master as your teacher, it is because he is more illumined than you. As I said during my talk, you have to listen to your higher part. Right now your mind is superior to your physical or vital. When the mind asks you to do something, the physical and the vital in you obey. But again, the heart is superior to the mind, for the mind doubts and suspects, whereas the heart gets illumination from the soul. Similarly, the spiritual teacher, if he is really illumined, is the seeker's own highest part. He is not a different person. So just as the mind must listen to the heart, which is its more illumined part, in order for the seeker to make spiritual progress, so too the seeker must listen to his Guru, whose illumination is that of total oneness with the Supreme. There should be no sense of separativity when the disciple listens to his Guru, for the unillumined part of him is listening to the illumined part.

In the matter of surrender, we do not surrender to somebody else. We are only abiding by the soulful dictates of some part of us which is already illumined. It is not somebody else we are listening to; it is our own highest part. As beginners, we cannot remain constantly in contact with our higher part. But if we know that there is someone who represents and embodies the Highest, we can try to listen to him. When my legs listen to my mind, I do not feel that it is beneath the dignity of my legs to do so. I know that my head and my legs are part of the same body. The spiritual Master and his disciples are in that sense inseparably one.

Question: How does one begin on the spiritual path?

Question: Why is it that you always speak of God in masculine terms?

Question: What is the nature and purpose of the soul?

Question: Was the Christ an avatar?

Part VII — Questions and answers: Portland State University

Question: Is there a difference between sleep and meditation?

Physical sleep is necessary, for the body needs rest. Every day the seeker goes out into the battlefield of life and fights against fear, doubt, anxiety, jealousy and other undivine forces, so he does need rest. When the body is tired and exhausted, it needs sleep. But we have to know whether our desire for sleep is the body's necessity or the necessity of pleasure-life, whether it is the body's need or merely its demand. If the body has worked very hard, then certainly the body deserves rest. But if the body demands ten hours or twelve hours of sleep, unless we are sick we are only making friends with inertia, lethargy, ignorance and death.

When we indulge in excessive amounts of sleep, we do not create anything; we just add our own contribution to ignorance, to death's capacity-might. Because of lethargy and our love for idleness, if we wallow in the pleasures of ignorance, then the time that we are offering to sleep, we are unable to offer to God. Time does not wait for us. Time comes to us, and we can use it either to pray or meditate or to take rest. But when we have established inner peace, we diminish our need for sleep, because peace itself is rest. We can sleep for only two hours or we may not sleep at all for days and nights. For the beginner it is advisable to sleep for seven hours; but eight, nine or ten hours is too much.

Question: Could you tell us what Christ is?

Question: Why is it so difficult to unite one's worldly work with the spiritual life?

Question: How should one meditate?

Part VIII — Questions and answers: North Idaho Junior College

Question: When a disciple meditates on you or on your photograph, how much does he actually feel your presence?

Every day we do not eat most delicious food. One day we eat delicious food and then, for a week, the food we eat may be quite ordinary. Similarly, one day a disciple may feel his Master’s presence strongly, and then for a few days he may not. No one can become an expert all at once. Everyone needs practice. In the beginning, it may not be possible for a seeker to feel the Master’s presence every day, but there comes a time when he is bound to feel the Master’s presence within him, not only during the time of his meditation, but also during his multifarious activities.

Question: What is the Will of the Supreme?

Question: How can we achieve peace in our outer life?

Part IX — Questions and answers: University of Montana

Question: What is the difference between seeing God and realising God?

Question: Could you please talk about attachment and detachment in love?

When we love divinely, we are not attached to anybody. We care only for the expansion of our own consciousness and of the consciousness of others. We feel that it is not right to bind them. By binding an individual we do not accomplish anything. When we really love we feel that we should expand our consciousness into Infinity and should allow and help those with whom we are closely connected to expand their consciousness as well. Divine love is the song of expansion. Constantly we try to expand our reality and help others to expand their reality. And while we are expanding, one day, at God's choice Hour, we will become one with His universal Consciousness, His transcendental Consciousness.

Question: How may one realise God?

Question: How do we deal with negative emotions like anger, jealousy and fear?

Suppose we are constantly at the mercy of anger. Now, if we can establish peace in our being, we will not have anger. How do we do this? We do not think of anger at all; we pray and meditate only for peace. The very nature of peace is to spread. When peace spreads its wings inside our being, our anger is bound to be transformed because it comes under the influence of peace.

Suppose we are assailed by jealousy. We are jealous of others because we have not established our oneness with them. But if I put the shot with my right hand, my left hand will not be jealous even though it will not be able to throw as far. My left hand and right hand have established their oneness. When one part of my body does something, the other part does not feel miserable, because each knows that it belongs to the same body, and that the entire body is its reality. When I work with my mind, my feet do not feel miserable, because they have established their oneness with my mind. In the spiritual life also, when we establish oneness with the Source, which is God, then we are not jealous of anybody. If we feel that our reality is God, then each individual is like a limb of our conscious, dedicated, devoted spiritual body. If they are all limbs of my body, then they are part and parcel of my existence. So how can I be jealous of them? So if we pray for inseparable oneness with the Source, the problem of jealousy will easily be solved, because God is the root and the tree and the branches. Jealousy can be overcome only by our constant feeling of oneness with others. Unless and until we have realised others as our very own, we call them different personalities, different individualities. But if we can see and feel them inside ourselves as members of our own larger family, jealousy will disappear from our life of aspiration.

Part X — Questions and answers: University of Colorado

Question: Could you please tell us about your path to God-realisation?

Love, devotion, surrender — this is our path. Divine love, divine devotion and divine surrender. Human love, we know, ends in frustration, and inside frustration what looms large is destruction. Human devotion is attachment. As with human love, with human devotion we try to possess and we are possessed. In this song of possession, we do not get any sense of satisfaction. But when we devote ourselves to the Supreme, to the Inner Pilot, we feel boundless satisfaction. When someone devotes his life to an ordinary human being, one imperfect being is devoting himself to another imperfect being. And two imperfect beings, when they come together, cannot make one perfect being. So we try instead to offer our devotion to the Perfect One, who is God, and from Him we expect perfection through our dedicated, devoted service.

Divine surrender, too, is totally different from human surrender. A slave surrenders to his master under compulsion, because he is at the mercy of his master. But in the spiritual life, when we make divine surrender to God, it is not the same kind of surrender. We feel that we are a tiny drop entering into the vast ocean. When the tiny drop, the individual consciousness, enters into the vast ocean of infinite Consciousness, it does not lose its individuality or personality. Rather, it grows into the infinite Individuality and Personality.

Question: How does a person surrender? What does a person do to achieve divine surrender?

Question: In the highest state of samadhi, when you look at other human beings, what kind of consciousness do you feel in them?

Question: If God is the only doer, what is the role of man's free will?

Question: Why must a seeker love God?

Editor's preface to the first edition