What is hope? Hope is man’s preparation for the unknown. Hope is man’s aspiration for the unknowable. The unknown right now is man’s ultimate achievement; the unknowable is God’s eternal Now.
Hope is man’s inner effort. An ordinary man is not aware of this inner effort, but a seeker of the highest Truth is fully aware of it. This inner effort inspires the seeker to see something new, to feel something new, to say something new, to do something new and, finally, to become something new.
When I smile, I see something new around me. When I cry, I feel something new within my heart. When I pray, I say something new to the higher worlds. When I meditate, I do something new for the inner and the outer worlds. When I surrender, I become something new: God’s chosen instrument.
In the spiritual life, hope is newness. In this newness is our self-transcendence. Our self-transcendence is God’s Pride, His supernal Pride in us. And God’s Pride lives in our conscious and constant gratitude.
Hope and faith are two intimate brothers; they always go together. Hope nourishes faith and faith treasures hope. Hope dreams of God-Beauty in God-Reality. Faith dreams of God-Reality in God-Beauty. Hope pulls the heart of tomorrow into the body of today. Faith pushes the body of today into the heart of tomorrow. When tomorrow’s heart enters into today’s body, man’s aspiration is crowned with success. When today’s body enters into tomorrow’s heart, Heaven’s vision is crowned with success. Man’s success is the victory of God’s Compassion-Light. Heaven’s success is the victory of God’s Realisation-Height.
To hope is to see with the eye of the heart. To hope is to make the heart captain of the mind, the vital and the body. To hope is to send darkness-night into exile. To hope is to feel the presence of the inner sun. The inner sun is; the outer sun becomes. When we live in the consciousness of the inner sun, we reach the highest Height of God’s Silence-Light. When we live in the consciousness of the outer sun, we become one with the sound-life of God’s manifestation on earth.
In the spiritual life, hope is humility’s light. At the present state of evolution, human humility is a forced humility. But divine humility is soulful, spontaneous humility. Humility is God’s Dream-Boat that reaches His Reality-Shore. Humility is God’s Beauty in man’s reality.
When a spiritual pilgrim starts walking along the road of Eternity, his hope is nothing but humility’s light. Eventually it is transformed into divinity’s birthright. Then finally divinity’s birthright is transformed into Infinity’s Smile, Eternity’s Light and Immortality’s Life.
Divine hope is our soul’s promise to the eternal Supreme that here on earth we shall realise Him fully, reveal Him fully and manifest Him completely and perfectly. Again, there are mundane hopes or undivine hopes. We want to become a multimillionaire overnight. We want to lord it over the world and see the supremacy of our dauntless vital. We want the whole world to be at our feet and accept light from our mind. The world is in darkness; we alone are bathing in the sea of light: this is our firm conviction. Therefore, we feel that we are in a position to offer light to the world at large. We feel that we have everything and we are everything; our only hope is for the world to be at our feet. Mundane hope is not like divine hope. It is an unlit desire that binds us. This desire will eventually bring on frustration, which is immediately followed by utter destruction.
In our spiritual life what we now call hope, hundreds and thousands of years ago we called our soul’s promise to the Absolute Supreme: Him to realise, Him to reveal, Him to manifest on earth. At that time our divine hope was our soul’s promise that we would enter into the world-scene and participate in God’s cosmic Play as conscious players. When we entered into the spiritual life, slowly, steadily and unerringly this promise came to the fore from within. Gradually in our awakened consciousness the power and light of this promise began to loom large. Now we do not see hope as a promise; we feel it as a necessary preparation for our God-manifestation on earth.
In the ordinary, unaspiring world, hope is often no more than building castles in the air. But in the spiritual life, inner hope and the inner cry which we call aspiration always go together. Here our hope is playing the role of a divine harbinger. Hope is like the dream which is always just one step behind the reality. God is using His beckoning Hands to lead and guide the aspiration of the seeker to the destined Goal. God is sailing His Dream-Boat to the Golden Shore of the ever-transcending Beyond.
The hope of a human child is to get the highest degree or diploma. The hope or climbing aspiration of a divine child is to receive and achieve Peace, Light and Bliss in infinite measure. A seeker’s hope is his aspiration-light and the Inner Pilot’s hope is Perfection-Delight. Each individual seeker represents a conscious and constant promise to his Inner Pilot. Similarly, the Inner Pilot represents a conscious and constant promise to the individual seeker. In his aspiration-light, the seeker enters into the Supreme’s cosmic Dream to play his unique role in God’s Drama and manifest God in God’s own Way. Through His Perfection Delight, God enters into the seeker’s aspiration-light to give him what He eternally has and what He eternally is. What He has is the Golden Boat that carries humanity’s excruciating pangs; what He is is the Golden Shore of Infinity, Eternity and Immortality. Again, He Himself is the Pilot and He Himself is the Boat that carries humanity’s excruciating pangs and teeming ignorance, imperfections, limitations, bondage and death to the Golden Shore of His ever-transcending Beyond.
MRP 38. Faculty Room South, David Hume Tower, University of Edinburgh, George Square, Edinburgh, Scotland, 28 June 1974.↩
From:Sri Chinmoy,My Rose Petals, part 3, Agni Press, 1974
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/mrp_3