Dedication-light

Every day you have twenty-four hours at your disposal. Out of twenty-four hours, daily, let us say, you spend half an hour or an hour on God. You meditate early in the morning for five minutes and then you say, "Oh, I have meditated." You feel that you have played your part. The rest of the day you spend time in your own way. But here there is no aspiration, no devotion, no inner cry. Out of twenty-four hours you could easily have used at least three or four hours for God. Certainly you have to sleep, you have to go to your office, you have to go to school. So for you to spend twelve hours on God may be impossible. But if you can spend at least three hours in spiritual activities — meditation, reading spiritual books, doing selfless service, mixing with spiritual people and coming to the Centre regularly — then that is called self-offering.

Right now, out of twenty-four hours you give five minutes in the morning and five minutes in the evening and then you feel, "Oh, God has to do everything for me because I have dedicated myself." But look at your sincerity. Ten minutes you have given to God and you are claiming God for your own use for twenty-four hours. This is no self-offering. You have to know how you can give your utmost to God. Your utmost may be three hours or four hours or it may be more.

If you have ten dollars, then out of ten dollars whatever you are in a position to give wholeheartedly and devotedly is called your self-offering. In your aspiration, in your concentration and in your meditation also you have to try your utmost. Then only the Supreme will feel that you are trying to dedicate yourself. If your utmost capacity in meditation is, say, a total of three hours during the morning, afternoon, evening and night, then those three hours will be considered as your true dedication. If you know how to do something well, then for five minutes if you do it and the rest of the day you don't think of it, that is not dedication. You have to know your utmost capacity and then you have to exercise that capacity.

When you dedicate yourself, you have to feel that this moment you could have done something else. You could have gone to the movies, you could have gone to a party, you could have done something silly, but instead you have spent that time in meditation, in prayer, in doing spiritual things. So always you have to know what you are doing with time. Each moment you can utilise for God, for the Supreme, or for your own purpose. The time that is passing by is not going to come back. Today, the twenty-seventh of December, nineteen hundred seventy-one, is not going to come back, it is gone. Tomorrow will come in the calendar, but today's slipping time, today's fleeting breath is gone away. You have to know how much time you have used today to please the Supreme in you and how much time you have used to please your unlit self.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Inspiration-Garden and Aspiration-Leaves, Agni Press, 1977
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