Spirituality³

Dear sisters and brothers, dear seekers of the transcendental Truth, I wish to give a short talk on spirituality. When we use the term “spirituality”, we mean God. We are with God, we are in God, we are of God and we are for God. This is an experience that can be living and spontaneous in our day-to-day life. To be with God we have to withdraw from our little “I”, our ego, which binds us, limits us and finally leads us to death. To be in God we have to purify our body, vital and mind. To be of God we have to please God in His own Way. To be for God we have to offer God on earth the promise that we made to Him in Heaven: Him to realise, Him to reveal and Him to manifest — for this we came onto the earth-scene.

Self-reliance is good. Dependence on God is far better. But when we offer our surrender to God’s Will, and when God’s Compassion accepts our surrender, this is by far the best. We say that we love God. If we really love God, then we have to serve God in humanity. In order to serve humanity, we must liberate ourselves from vital depression, mental suspicion and psychic disintegration. We have to be fully ready to love humanity even though humanity misunderstands us. A divinely crucified earthly life glorifies the Heavenly promise.

Earlier I mentioned the little “I”, the ego. Now I wish to speak about the big “I”, the universal “I”, which we can call the universal Consciousness. When we live in this Consciousness, we feel that we are the chosen children of God. If we are the chosen children of God, how can we mix with falsehood, darkness and ignorance? It is impossible. If we are God’s chosen children, then our friends are Peace, Light and Bliss.

Here we are all seekers of the highest Truth. At every moment our thoughts are judged, our prayer is judged, our meditation is judged, our surrender is judged by our Inner Pilot. If we have a pure thought, we then acquire solid strength. If we have a soulful prayer, then we gain divine confidence. If we have a sublime meditation, then we come closer to God. If we make an unconditional surrender to God’s Will, then we can claim God as our very own.

Among the seekers there are some who are afraid of light. There was a time when we were all afraid of light. We thought that our evil thoughts and evil deeds would be exposed by light. But now that we have become seekers we clearly see that light has not exposed us; on the contrary, light has illumined us. The outer light exposes us; the inner light only illumines us. This is the difference between inner light and outer light.

In the spiritual life we cannot and must not make earthly plans. Very often when we make plans, five-year plans or ten-year plans, we wait and wait until the last moment before acting on our plans. Then at the last moment it is too late and we achieve nothing. A spiritual seeker does not need any plan. He depends entirely on his inner guidance, which is spontaneous and constant. When we listen to the guidance of the Inner Pilot, we achieve everything immediately.

Life means action. Action is based upon meditation. Meditation eventually reveals God and manifests Him on earth. We pray to God and meditate on God — not because we have done many things wrong in this life, not because we want to compensate for our ego-directed actions, not because we have to offer Him a petition so that He can forgive us, but because we feel that our life is a constant preparation for God. This preparation is the indication of God’s revelation in and through us. This preparation makes us feel that God needs us for His manifestation. We need God to reach the highest Truth, highest Light and highest Bliss. God needs us to reveal His Dream and manifest His Divinity. What is His Dream? His Dream is earth-transformation. His Dream is nature’s perfection. Our real reality lies in our conscious embodiment of God, our conscious revelation of God’s Light and our conscious manifestation of God’s Perfection.

Here we are all seekers; some are beginners, some are a little advanced. The beginners may have some curiosity about God’s existence. But those who are a little advanced know that God does exist. They feel that it is God who is guiding them in a divine way. But when? Only when they inwardly cry. To love God and God alone, we have to cry inwardly at every moment and become a helpless inner cry. I always tell people in the spiritual life to start no matter where they are, no matter how developed or undeveloped they are. Unless we start, we can never reach our destination. Even if we start with curiosity, we will see that our curiosity will eventually lead us to faith. Faith is something divine within us. When we have faith in God, God gives us faith in ourselves. When our faith in God and our faith in ourselves work together, we become a perfect instrument of God. At that time, we gain inner experiences and these experiences carry us along the road of Immortality.

For those who follow the spiritual life there comes a time when we distinctly hear God’s Voice. God offers us His highest message: today’s imperfect man is tomorrow’s perfect God. Today’s unfulfilled man becomes tomorrow’s fulfilled God. But how? Through divine love, divine devotion and divine surrender. Human love binds us. Human devotion is nothing but attachment. Human surrender is nothing but compulsion. Divine love is the heart’s expansion. Divine devotion is the sweetest intimacy with God. Divine surrender is the complete satisfaction of our life. This surrender is the surrender of our unlit life to our own fully illumined soul. In the real spiritual life if we have divine love, divine devotion and divine surrender, then we accomplish everything. The Kingdom of Heaven we bring down into the world, and earth’s cry we carry up to Heaven’s Smile.

From:Sri Chinmoy,My Rose Petals, part 4, Sri Chinmoy Lighthouse, New York, 1974
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/mrp_4