Inner progress and satisfaction-life

Part I

The disciples' inspiration-power

"No, Master, I spoke to the leader and some others and everybody agreed that I shouldn't go unless you told me to go."

"What happened? Why did they not want you to go?"

"Well, because Jyotish had gone there on Monday."

"So, they can't digest more light? The leader has just written to me that he is inspired again. He will be very spiritual, very devoted. For a few months he was very unspiritual, but now he has written such a soulful letter. So the more disciples who go there to visit, the better it will be for him. How is it that he does not want you to go? This is so bad. On the one hand he is trying to be good, to be spiritual and to dedicate himself more, and on the other hand this is his attitude. What was his reason?"

"Well, he felt that I couldn't do very much in the day I would be there and that Jyotish had done as much as was necessary during his visit there."

"But does he not feel that the very presence of a mature disciple is an inspiration? What a stupid fellow he is! He doesn't hear any good news, juicy stories or anything. Jyotish has told whatever Jyotish knows, according to his own inspiration and aspiration. But if another individual comes, it will add to his inspiration. You would have got another opportunity to tell him some news. Good disciples will always try to get as much inspiration as possible from others. To get a visitor from one of our main Centres is really something. It adds to their aspiration. So many things they will hear about our activities. Just because someone else has already been there, does it mean that others will have nothing to say? He is really something!

"I am under the impression that people from other Centres would have behaved differently if someone had wanted to visit them. Every day they would have said, 'Come, come!' Some Centres are like that. Today you have gone and then they hear that tomorrow someone else will come and, the day after, someone else again. They will gladly welcome everyone. They will feel that it is a great joy. So that fellow is mistaking our philosophy. I don't understand him."

Ramesh's wife said, "He might have been shy to ask Ramesh to come. Perhaps he felt that he would be causing Ramesh some trouble."

Ramesh said, "Jyotish's brother mentioned that it probably wouldn't be necessary for me to go."

"So, Asim discouraged you? Oh, Asim, have you nothing else to do? This is my request from now on. Of course, if other Centres don't want you, then how can you go as an unwanted guest? But I really want you to visit these little Centres and inspire them."

Ramesh said, "He would have been happy to have me, Master, but he didn't see any real reason for me to go and I guess I didn't either."

The Master said, "The real reason is to give added inspiration to those people who do not live near me. That is the most important thing."

"He did mention that I would give him inspiration, but as to what I could actually do concretely in such a short time, he didn't think it would be very much. He said that all I could really do was to give him inspiration."

The Master said, "What is most important? Inspiration is most important. When you have inspiration, for days and nights you can work. When you don't have inspiration, I have to go and touch your feet and beg of you, 'Ramesh, please do this.' You know the difference between inspiration and lack of inspiration. When I am inspired, I write so many poems."

Newness and transcendence

You can remember one particular day when you got the greatest joy, or the day that you accepted our path wholeheartedly. Remember the day I accepted you and you accepted me. Remember that day and then try to go one step forward tomorrow. Tomorrow you can have more delight than you had, say, three years ago. Then, the day after tomorrow, remember that joy and try to go one more step ahead. From joy you can always have greater joy, greatest joy, You can transcend yourself only by discovering and maintaining your joy. If you discover your previous joy and maintain it, then you will have the energy to go one more step. To discover, you need capacity; to maintain, you need capacity; and again, to go ahead, you need capacity.

If you do not have the first capacity, then you cannot have the second capacity. And without the second capacity, you cannot have the third capacity. Suppose you are lying down and then you get up. Getting up is your first capacity. If you know that you are no longer sleeping, that you have stood up and are looking around, then you have taken the first step. Then, when you get up, you have to start walking; this is your second. Then, as your third capacity, you have to run fast, faster, fastest. So if today you think of the joy you had when you first entered the spiritual life sincerely, that is your first step. And tomorrow, if you get more joy, you should take it as your second step. Then on the third day, you will get more aspiration and make a more serious promise to yourself and to the Supreme. That is your third step. But if you don't think of the day you accepted the spiritual life, when you gave up your desire-life and entered into aspiration-life, then you are not taking your first step. And if you do not take the first step, then the desire-life will compel you to lie down and sleep with ignorance again.

You get up early in the morning. That is your first step. Then you wash your face; that is your second step. Then, when you start eating, that is the third step. In the spiritual life, the first step is to get up from ignorance. The second step is to look around and start walking. The third step is to run the fastest.

Every day you have to energise yourself to such an extent that you will feel new hope and new aspiration. If on a particular day there is no hope, then on that day you are dead. If on a particular day there is no promise, then you are worse than dead. If you want to live on earth, then you must have hope. Hope is not a mental hallucination; far from it. Hope is a vast field. And if there is promise, then you can feel that you have sown the seed, the promise-seed. But if you don't have a field, then how are you going to sow the seed? So, you have to know that your hope is the field and your promise is the seed. Your promise is fulfilled only through constant aspiration. Aspiration was there inside hope, aspiration is now inside promise and, one day, when the promise-seed germinates, you will get the fruits of your aspiration. That is realisation: conscious, constant, inseparable oneness with the Supreme.

Part II — Two divine wings: inspiration and aspiration

Question: Can inspiration be controlled?

Question: Could you speak on the relationship between inspiration and creation?

Question: Does the Guru play the role of inspiration or aspiration in the disciple?

Question: What is aspiration?

Question: Could you speak more about aspiration?

Aspiration is the mounting flame within us. If there is no aspiration, then one can never, never realise God. Aspiration has the key to unlock the door of God. Aspiration in concentration, meditation and contemplation is of paramount importance. No aspiration, no realisation. Now this aspiration has to come from the inmost recesses of our hearts. Very often we have mental curiosity and we take it for aspiration. This is absolutely wrong. Aspiration is a burning cry within us. A child is crying for milk. No matter where he is, the mother comes running because the child is crying for milk or something else. The mother comes and feeds the child. In the spiritual life also, when an individual seeker cries ardently, soulfully and devotedly, God comes and stands in front of him.

If you ask whether there is anything that is most important in our spiritual life, then I wish to say, "Yes, there is, and that is aspiration." Today's aspiration is bound to bring down God tomorrow or in the near future. It is in aspiration that God manifests Himself through us. The human aspiration and the divine Compassion go together. Divine Compassion is the flame of human aspiration. There is no end to our aspiration. There is no end to our realisation, no end. The goal is ever transcending its own limits. Today's goal will be tomorrow's starting point. There is no end to our goal; therefore there is no end to our ultimate realisation. There is no end to our aspiration. We aspire for the Highest, for the Infinite, for the Eternal. The Infinite cannot be measured. As we enter into Infinity, the finite and the Infinite become inseparably one. Our Vedic seers voiced forth:

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Purnam adah purnam idam, purnat purnam udacyate

Infinity is that. Infinity is this.

From Infinity, when Infinity is taken away,

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Question: Is there aspiration in each part of us: soul, heart, mind, vital and physical?

Question: How can aspiration transform our body, vital and mind?

Now, what will we do? If we accept the spiritual life, then we will say that the body has to be active. Let the body run. Even if it is not running exactly towards the goal, even if it is going beside the goal, let there be some movement. If the body is taking a wrong direction, then somebody will immediately tell the body, "You have made a wrong turn. Come back and start again, run on the right path." So the body has to be energetic. Right now, the body is sleeping twenty-four hours a day. The physical body may not sleep, but what we call the body-consciousness is sleeping. When we don't meditate on God, spiritually we are fast asleep. He who does not aspire at all is absolutely dead according to the strict spiritual discipline. So the body is fast asleep. This body has to undertake some movement, it has to stand up, walk and run. While standing on its feet if it is not doing well, then our inner being will tell us that we are not doing the right thing.

What is the vital doing? The vital has become aggressive: it wants to destroy the world, absolutely destroy it. But if this vital becomes the dynamic vital instead of the aggressive vital, then it will try to energise and inspire the physical consciousness of others who are lethargic. It will say, "No, don't waste your precious time! Get up! Now do something good for yourself or for humanity." This is what the vital will say, the real dynamic vital.

Then the mind, the suspecting mind, the aggressive mind, the doubting mind, if it becomes the divine mind which is illumined by the soul's light, this illumined mind will say, "Let us be vast, let us be infinite. Let us think of everything in infinite measure. Let us think of ourselves as the vast sky or the vast ocean. We cannot be bound by anything. We won't suspect anybody, we won't belittle anybody. On the contrary, we shall expand our own consciousness and help others to expand their consciousness." This is the clear mind, the pure mind, the illumined mind.

Question: How can we have a free access to the higher worlds?

Question: How can we increase our need for God?

Again, one thing we have to know. Sometimes we make ourselves feel that we don't need the world but the world needs us. We don't need anything from the world but the world needs us. That kind of feeling is also equally bad. As we need many things from earth, we try to fulfil the needs of earth; but we find that it is simply impossible. Today we have one need, tomorrow we have another need. There will be an endless series of needs. Our expectation from the world is endless. That is also equally bad in the spiritual life.

The world does not need us and we don't need the world as such. We need the Divine, the Supreme in the world. We do need the Supreme in the world. You need the Supreme in your father, in your mother, in your relatives and in humanity. But if you feel that you need human beings as such, then it is simply absurd. You are not going to get anything that you need from humanity.

Question: What is the relationship between individual aspiration and collective aspiration?

Question: Does meditating in a group improve our aspiration?

Question: How can we increase our aspiration and strengthen our meditation?

Question: What is the relationship between aspiration and acceptance? There seems to be an aspiration which expends all its effort in the direction of rising, but it seems that there is also a time to accept and be still and let the influence of the higher forces come in.

Question: How can I renew my aspiration?

Question: Since everything will happen at God's Hour, why bother to aspire?

Everybody will eventually realise God, that is true. Tom, Dick and Harry will one day realise God. We believe it; this is our human faith in God, which is wonderful. This is the certainty that faith will give us. We know that we will realise God one day. But if we want to realise God today or tomorrow or the next day, then aspiration comes into the picture. For aspiration, a spiritual Master is required.

Mere faith in something is not enough. I have a disciple who is a good driver. I have faith in his driving; it is so wonderful that I have faith in his driving. But just by having faith in him, do you think that I will be able to learn to drive? Millions of times I have sat beside him, but I will not be able to learn how to drive just by sitting beside him, even if I have faith that he is a wonderful driver.

Question: How can we maintain continuous aspiration?

Question: In our Centre a number of people are unhealthy. Is it because they are not aspiring?

Question: Can you suggest some techniques for increasing one's heart-power?

Question: Lately I've been conscious of a number of obstructions in my outer life.

So either you have to bring forward the inner sun or you have to be satisfied with fear and doubt. How can you bring to the fore the inner sun? When you pray to the Supreme and meditate on the Supreme, always pray that the illumined part inside you, the illumined being or the inner sun, will come to the fore. Then you will see that there can be no obstacle. You are unable to walk along the street if the street is very dark or full of obstacles. But if the road is all illumined, then you can walk, you can run, you can go as fast as you want to. In the inner life also, if you think positively, if you think of Peace, Light and Bliss, then naturally your inner sun will come to your rescue. But if you don't pray and meditate, then all obscure, undivine, impure forces will always come and bother you.

Part III — Inner progress and satisfaction-life

Question: How can I be assured of making good progress if my past was not at all aspiring?

Question: How can we make the fastest progress?

Question: How should couples aspire in the spiritual life?

Now, how can couples aspire if they don't follow the same path? It becomes difficult. You will say that your path is by far the best and your husband will say, "No, it is impossible. My path is best!" There will always be a tug-of-war. You will claim that yours is by far the best and he will claim that his is by far the best, which is absurd. But there comes a time when you make progress. At that time you feel that if he is following another path, that means that he is more satisfied with his path than with your path. And if you follow a path, you have to know that your path is better for you than your husband's path. Now when you make considerable progress in your spiritual life, divine wisdom dawns. At that time you do not enter into competition. If he says that his path is far better, by far the best and no path can be compared with his path, inwardly you may laugh; but outwardly you will have compassion for him. Inwardly also you will have compassion. You will say, "Yes, it is better. It is best for you, but not for me. For me, my path is the best." So when we make considerable progress in the spiritual life, we say, "Yes, you are right. Your path is by far the best for you and my path is by far the best for me."

So let us not quarrel about the path. Only let us think of progress: how fast I can reach my destination with my own aspiration and how fast he can reach his goal with his aspiration. Again, there is no competition, only you have a goal of your own. Actually there is only one goal, but you have selected a particular path, a road. You have to reach your destination, the sooner the better. Why? You know that when you reach the goal it is called God-realisation. But even then the game is not over. Then comes God-revelation, which is more difficult. After God-revelation comes God-manifestation, which is most difficult. So in one goal there are three tasks. First, with utmost aspiration, inner cry, regularity and punctuality, you reach the goal. It is a lifelong task. And then you feel that your task is not over. God will say, "I am glad that you have passed the examination. You have completed your course in one field. But again, there is something more: God-revelation. Then comes God-manifestation." So we cannot waste time. Here we are not competing with anybody else, but we have to feel that we are trying to transcend our own limitation. While following our own path, our own capacity we are transcending, transcending. We are increasing and transcending. If it is ignorance, we are transcending it; if it is knowledge, we are increasing it.

Husband and wife can easily follow the same path. It is like four hands, four eyes, four legs: everything is double. The husband should feel that the wife is dearest to him just because God has made her the dearest to him, and the wife also should feel the same. God should be in between, not as a third person but as the bridge, the connecting link. Always the husband is coming to the wife through God the Bridge and the wife is coming to the husband through God the Bridge. This way God connects them. The golden link is God. He connects both husband and wife. If they follow the same path, then it becomes infinitely easier. But if they do not follow the same path, then my request is not to argue. Neither the husband nor the wife should emphasise his or her own path as the best path. Only say, "Mine is best for me; yours is best for you. Let us not fight. Only let us try to transcend our limitations, let us try to purify our existence, let us try to please God in His own Way." If the husband by following one path wants to please God in God's Way, then he is doing absolutely the right thing. Similarly, if the wife is following her own path and she feels the necessity of pleasing God, which is absolutely necessary in every path, then she is also doing the right thing.

In my path, in everybody's path, God comes first. That doesn't mean that we have to discard the husband or the wife. It is a matter of choice. Between husband and God, God has to come first. Between wife and God, God has to come first. That doesn't mean that God is asking you to get rid of your husband or to get rid of your wife, far from it. But if necessity demands that you make a choice, if your husband or your wife is not allowing you to fulfil your inner cry, at that time you have to know who comes first: God. In this incarnation you have got someone as a partner for your life. But who knows what connection you had? Perhaps you had practically no connection with that person in a previous incarnation. Who knows what will happen to him or to you in your future incarnations? But with God, your connection is eternal. He brought you into the world. After seventy or eighty years you will leave this body. Then again, after some time you will come back. At that time, who knows who will be your lifelong partner? But the eternal Partner is God. So we have to establish our oneness with Him, since we know it is He who is our eternal husband, eternal wife.

Question: Guru, I've often wondered how we can be certain in our next incarnation to remember to do whatever it is that you asked us to do before we came?

A tree has three branches, let us say. The past is the lowest branch, the present is the middle branch and the future is the top-most branch. Even when you observe from the foot of the tree, easily when you look up you can see the first branch, the second branch and the third branch. Now it is up to you to climb up to the first one or to the second one or to the third one. So think of your future in that way. This is your life-tree. In your life-tree, the past is already there, the present is already there, the future is already there. Now you have climbed beyond one branch, the past. You are sitting on the present branch but you are not satisfied with the present one because you feel that still there is a higher one. Just because you were not pleased with the previous one, the past, you thought that still there was one higher, so why should you sit on the lowest one? So you said, "Let me climb up to the higher one." Then you came up.

Now you are on the present one. Now you feel that still there is one higher than this one, so you climb up. But it is the same life-tree that has three branches: past, present, future. If you remain as the life-tree constantly evolving and offering flowers and fruits to Mother Earth as a token of your love or as a spiritual gift to Mother Earth, then eternally you will remain in her consciousness, in her heart.

So please feel that you are the life-tree, the cosmic life-tree with three branches: past, present and future. It is up to you to decide where to remain. You can remain on the first branch, the lowest branch, all the time thinking of your childhood, your friends, your neighbours and what happened to you at the age of six or ten. That you can do. Again, you can think of your immediate necessity, which is God realisation. What will you do right after realisation? You will reveal God more powerfully, more soulfully, more effectively. This will be your aim. So think at every moment of the life-tree, the cosmic tree. You have three goals. The first goal already you have passed. Now you have reached the second goal. But you feel that still there is a higher goal than the goal that you have already achieved and attained. So if you cry, if you cry desperately for the third goal, then you will reach it.

Each time you reach a goal, even while you are in the process of reaching the goal, you manifest. Movement itself is manifestation. While you are moving, at that time you are manifesting. While you are moving in the present, you are manifesting. And while you are moving in the future, you will be again manifesting.

How will you know what to do in your next incarnation? You will always know because it is not like earth-knowledge. Earth-knowledge you forget, but inner knowledge you don't forget. Inner knowledge can be recovered after five years, ten years or much longer. I had my realisation in my previous incarnation. For all spiritual Masters, if they had realisation in their previous incarnation, it takes a few years to get it back. For me it took twenty years to revise the realisation-book, but I didn't forget totally.

Here on earth there are many things that we can totally forget. We have forgotten what we ate even the day before yesterday. We don't remember whether we ate Italian eggplant or Indian food. We can search our memory, but we have forgotten because here it is the physical mind that is operating. But if the soul is operating in and through us, then if at the age of four a significant incident took place, or even a most insignificant incident, we will be able to recollect it because everything is recorded.

Question: What is the best way to meditate so that we can be spiritually strong? And if we become spiritually weak, how can we regain our strength?

There is another way to retain your spiritual wealth, to keep it forever. That is by assimilating it. Once when you get something from me, the real in you will value it. If you get a soulful inner experience, take that experience as a beautiful flower. Then on each petal of this flower you can write the word "gratitude". If you see the word "gratitude" around the entire flower and on each of the petals you also see your gratitude, then this is the strength, the boundless strength, the magnetic power to pull what I wish to give you and to keep the experience lodged inside your heart. When you value something, then automatically your gratitude-flower comes forward. If you start eating gratitude-food daily, then you will never lose anything that I give you.

Again, if you do lose something, do not think that you can get it back tomorrow or at some other indefinite time, whenever you please. Do not leave it for the future. If you feel that you have lost something which you have received, then immediately sit down and concentrate on it, meditate on it, contemplate on it until you get it back. It has to be like the Buddha's determination: "Until the time I get illumination, I am not going to move." The Buddha's illumination was infinitely more important than an ordinary seeker's achievement, but the light that you receive when you regain your experience is most important for you. If you lose something, then you must say, "I am going to get it back. And once I get it back I will not lose it again. No matter if it takes an hour or two hours or three or four, I will remain here until I get it back." I assure you that if you are sincere, then new experience, new divine wealth or spiritual wealth will never be denied you.

Suppose you have got a very solid experience from me. This solid experience can come in different forms. It can come as clarity, purity, security, peace, delight, light or satisfaction. If you have lost security or purity or your sense of perfection, what will you do? In your case, I assure you, the maximum it will take is twenty minutes to get it back. Twenty minutes of your one-pointed concentration, meditation and contemplation will be enough to get it back. During this twenty minutes, you have to feel that you as your individual self do not exist. Only oneness with your Guru exists. You can't say, "This does not exist, that does not exist, nobody exists." You have to feel that you yourself do not exist. If you feel that you don't exist, it doesn't mean that no one else exists. At that time you have to feel that you have what I have and that you are what I am. Then, in twenty minutes I will be able to give you back what you lost. If you have lost anything, any divine quality or any divine experience, whether it is security, divinity, purity, perfection, light, delight or satisfaction, then give me twenty minutes and I will get it back for you. You may get it back in one minute or two minutes or so, but a maximum of twenty minutes it may take to get it back, provided you have concentration, meditation, contemplation only on your Guru. You have to feel that your Guru has what you have lost and your Guru is what you have lost.

Suppose you have lost security. Then immediately feel that your Guru has it. If I have security for you, then I am that security as well. If you have lost purity, then you have to say, "Guru has purity and Guru is purity." If you have lost some perfection, then you say, "Guru has that perfection and Guru is that perfection." Look at my picture and repeat, "Guru has and Guru is." The thing that you have lost, I have; and I am also that very thing. So you will see that in twenty minutes I will return to you what you have lost.