Question: If our fulfilment lies in our utter consecration to the life divine, could you say something about consecration.

Sri Chinmoy: In the divine life, consecration is fulfilment; but this fulfilment is not the fulfilment of the vital. Let us say you have achieved something or you are successful in a particular field of life. This is a kind of fulfilment. But this fulfilment we regard as success and not as progress. Consecration means an upward journey, or inward journey or forward journey. Each time we consecrate our body, mind, heart and soul to a higher or inner cause, we are proceeding forward; we are climbing upward and diving inward. And this movement is continuous progress.

Consecration is self-giving. To whom? To the divine in us, to the divine in others. It is through self-giving that we eventually become God-like. So let us consecrate our existence, our divinity, our inner cry, our good qualities to the divine in others. Each human being houses a few good qualities and a few bad qualities. If we offer our own good qualities to the good qualities of others, they become most powerful. Then it is like two persons in a tug-of-war against ignorance; in this case, naturally the divine shall win. This is the correct and safe way to transform ignorance and change the face of the world. But if we consecrate ourselves to the undivine, to our undivine vital or mind or to somebody else’s, then our own divinity enters into the undivine and increases the power of the undivine.

If, out of pity or compassion, we say, “Oh, what is the use of dealing with the divine, for it is always divine. Let us deal with the undivine, for it is the undivine that needs change,” then we have to be very careful. When we consecrate our existence to ignorance with a view to transforming it, we have to know whether or not our power is sufficient. Our power is like an army, a divine army fighting an undivine army. Now, if our power is not strong enough, the divine army will lose and become the slave of the undivine army. When we lose to ignorance, ignorance utilises us for its own purpose to destroy the whole world. So if we consecrate our spiritual life to transforming the undivine, if we lose in the battlefield of life, then we will become true soldiers of the undivine forces. So if we are not powerful enough alone to transform someone else’s ignorance, then let us side with the divine of that individual and together conquer ignorance. But if we are very powerful, very strong, then we can accept the challenge of the undivine forces, for we know we can defeat them. And once we conquer ignorance, we try to change its existence and essence so that it, too, can become a perfect instrument of the divine.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Flame-Waves, part 4, Agni Press, 1975
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