The Master said, “Have you done the right thing? It is not good to make this kind of promise.”
“Why?” the rich man asked.
“If you fulfil your promise,” the Master said, “pride will enter into you. And if you don’t fulfil your promise, you will feel sad and disturbed. Who knows, one day you may want to invite some scholars and sincere seekers to your house. Then your pride will go and you will feel sad and depressed. And depression is destruction. Again, if you don’t invite them, you will feel very proud that you kept your promise, but pride is also destruction. You are the loser no matter what you do. So it is better not to make promises.
People say it is good to make promises; then only your inner capacities come forward. But I wish to tell you that only one promise is good: your promise that you will conquer ignorance and realise God in this life-time. That promise alone is worth making; other promises are all dangerous and destructive.”
The rich man said, “But look what happened to my best friend when he invited some seekers and scholars to his house. How badly he was insulted! If those people were sincere seekers, why did they not come to please my friend? And if they were real scholars, they should have had humility.”
The Master asked, “How do you know why they did not come? They may have thought that the rich man was inviting them only to add to his own glory. Perhaps they felt, ‘He does not care for knowledge or aspiration; he is just inviting us to show off to society. So why should we falsely glorify him? Again, they may have thought that he was inviting them to honour them. But then perhaps they felt, ‘We don’t need honour. We want only to remain in our own prayer and meditation.’ Especially the seekers may have felt like this.
“If scholars don’t come because of their pride and vanity, it is they who will be blamed. Again, if seekers don’t come because they feel that glory is nothing short of temptation and they do not want to be glorified, then they are doing the right thing. But whether they are doing the right thing or the wrong thing, whichever way they want to please themselves, let them do so. Your business is only to invite them, if that is what gives your heart joy. Again, if it is only your vital that wants to be glorified, then you are making a mistake by inviting them. And if you want to invite them because your vital feels that they are inferior and you are in a position to bless them and glorify them, then again you are making a mistake.
“This world is full of misunderstanding. So the best thing is not to make any promises. Only try to see the situation. Don’t have any specific hard and fast rules. When necessity demands, do something spontaneously, but don’t make it a law that you will do it. Wait for the inner command.”
“Master, Master, yes, I see that you are right. I will always wait for the inner command,” said the rich man. “Now, what is my inner command?”
The Master said, “In your case, the inner command is that you have to conquer your pride. If in the inmost recesses of your heart, at times you have the desire to invite people, then do so. Then, if they want to come, well and good, and if they don’t want to come, don’t say anything. But do not promise to yourself that you will not invite any scholars or seekers because certain ones have insulted your friend. Human knowledge you know, but there is also the supreme knowledge. The supreme knowledge is oneness, oneness with God’s Will. If you have oneness with God’s Will, then whether they come to you or you go to them is of no importance. What is of importance is only to remain in God’s Will. Then, no matter where they are and no matter where you are, all of you will please and fulfil one another.
“So my advice is not to make promises. Fulfilling your promises brings in pride, and the failure to fulfil your promises unnecessarily brings in sadness and frustration. Keep only one promise, and that is your promise to achieve God-realisation. And then modify that promise also.”
“How can I modify that promise?” asked the rich man. “I need that promise badly. I want only to realise God. No other promise will I make, Master.”
The Master said, “That promise also has to be made in a certain way. Your wish is to realise God, but it is up to God whether He will make you realise Him in this incarnation or in some other incarnation. So when you make this promise, add, ‘This is my wish. If Your Wish is otherwise, then please fulfil Yourself in and through me in Your own Way.’ That is the best promise: ‘I will fulfil my Beloved Supreme in His own Way, and for that only I shall pray to Him.’ That promise is the only promise which at every moment all seekers must treasure.”
GIM 40. 13 January 1979↩
From:Sri Chinmoy,Great Indian meals: divinely delicious and supremely nourishing, part 2, Agni Press, 1979
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/gim_2