Obedience: a supreme virtue

Part I — Discourses

World-perfection

Perfection means satisfaction. A child finds the ultimate satisfaction in fooling around with his friends. He strikes someone; that is his satisfaction, that is his perfection. Restlessness is what a child calls perfection. Again, for an animal, perfection is to devour other animals or human beings. That is the perfection of the animal, but we call it destruction. According to a child, satisfaction lies in restlessness. According to an animal, satisfaction lies in destruction.

For a seeker, satisfaction depends entirely on his own inner progress. His inner progress depends on how much peace he has received and how many undivine things he has been able to discard from his outer life. Let him see how few things he can live with on earth. If he is a sincere, devoted and dedicated seeker, then his list will have only one item: God-Satisfaction.

We are all seekers. So, for us, world-perfection is nothing but God-Satisfaction. But we have to know that God-Satisfaction will not take place in all of humanity all at once. No, it will take place in individuals, one by one. Today it will dawn in you, tomorrow it will dawn in somebody else and the day after tomorrow it will dawn in a third person. An individual starts his journey with his own life. He knows how much he has suffered from fear, doubt, worry and other undivine qualities. Then there comes a time when he sees that these qualities are very few in number and very limited in capacity. So he knows that he has made considerable progress. This progress is nothing but perfection in his life. Perfection is our inner and outer progress, and this inner and outer progress gives us boundless delight. If we know how to make progress, then we achieve perfection through delight.

I am not speaking about total, ultimate perfection. The ultimate world-perfection will be achieved, although it will not be achieved today or tomorrow, or even in the near future. But it is bound to take place because God will never be satisfied unless and until His creation becomes perfect. There is no set time limit. The world will achieve perfection according to the inner and outer necessity of each individual. But the ultimate perfection will dawn only when all of humanity becomes perfect.

When a scientist discovers something, he will not be able to make the world benefit spiritually from his discovery. But just because the Buddha, the Christ and Sri Krishna realised God, they have been able to offer Light to the world in infinite measure. It is up to us to receive this Light from them according to our power of receptivity. The Christ embodied Light in infinite measure. We have received this Light from him; otherwise we would be in total darkness. But we received his Light only in limited measure. Still, the ultimate perfection all of us will one day achieve precisely because we have seen those who took human incarnation and became the embodiment of perfection.

We may now be imperfect. But some people who have gone ahead of us, who have gone infinitely beyond our standard, have already achieved perfection. The world-saviours have achieved something in a particular plane of consciousness, and this is their perfection. The world-saviours who have achieved perfection are human beings just like us. They did practically everything that we do; but they also cried for Truth, and God gave them infinite Truth, Light and Bliss. Just as they are God's children, we are also God's children. Because they were sincere, they got what they wanted. Just because they had an inmost cry to realise God's highest Height, they achieved infinite Peace, Light and Bliss. If we become sincere to the same extent, then we also shall realise God and become perfect.

A supremely realised soul

The soul. The soul is the eternal beauty in us. The soul is the divinely luminous spark in us. The soul not only consciously knows but constantly embodies the existence of God.

A realised soul. A realised soul is he who smiles with God and cries with man. A realised soul loves man because man needs his love. A realised soul loves God because it is God who feeds the love in him daily.

What is a supremely realised soul? A supremely realised soul is the worst foe of ignorance-night and the best friend of knowledge-light. A supremely realised soul is God's chosen instrument to elevate the consciousness of humanity, to expedite the growth of Divinity in humanity and to transform man's earth-bound mortality into man's Heaven-free immortality.

What is Heaven? Heaven is the goal of the soaring bird in us. Heaven teaches us the transcendental song, the song of perfect Perfection. What is earth? Earth is Eternity's patience-tree. Earth is infinity's flowing compassion.

A supremely realised soul is the result of earth's secret concern and Heaven's special care. Why is earth's concern secret? Earth's concern is secret because Mother Earth has millions and billions and trillions of children who consciously or unconsciously try to disturb the Concern that God has for a supremely realised man. That is to say, the jealousy of human beings consciously or unconsciously tries to blunt the aspiration of the greatest seeker before he is supremely realised. What is Heaven's special care? Heaven's special care is inwardly visible but outwardly it is not so visible. If at every moment Heaven did not offer special care to the greatest aspirant who is going to become the supremely realised soul in the future, then the aspirant could never become a supremely realised soul. Heaven has to show special care. It is only on the strength of Heaven's special care and earth's secret concern that the aspirant of today can become not only a realised soul, but the supremely realised soul of tomorrow.

Again, the aspirant cannot become supremely realised soul only with the help of Heaven and with the help of earth. No, the aspirant has to consciously concentrate, meditate and contemplate. He has to feel that God-realisation is the only reason he is on earth. He has to feel that it is only his God-realisation that can make him worthy of God's constant compassion and His all transforming Light, Bliss, Peace and Power.

Love

In divine love there is protection. A little child may be tempted by the world. He is standing in front of a pool watching a kite. He is holding onto his mother's hand, but he becomes so excited that he lets go and falls into the pool. But if the mother holds the child, there will be no possibility of the child's dropping into the sea of ignorance. If the temptation-world attracts the child, and if the child is holding onto the mother, he may fall. But if the mother is holding the child, then the child will not be able to enter into the world of temptation. So this is how the divine love saves. In the divine there is always security and certainty.

The Infinite can possess the finite. But the divine will itself be imperfect and incomplete if the human in us is not perfected. The day the human in us — the vital, the mind and our other undivine, unruly, unaspiring members — surrenders to the divine love for transformation, we will have complete perfection. The human can go to the divine or the divine can go to the human. If the divine enters into us, we will always be safe. If we try to go to the divine, the human in us will go one step and the divine will go ninety-nine steps. And even this one step that the human takes is not really certain. It will go half a step and then look around to see whether it has done the right thing or whether anybody is appreciating it. Only when the divine in us comes forward will real progress be made. We don't feel the divine in us because we don't aspire, and we don't believe because we don't want to believe. If we wanted to believe, God would make us believe.

If we do not feel God's Love and Compassion, then we feel that He is conditional, which is absurd. We have to feel that God's Compassion is unconditional. When we enter into eternal time, we will feel that we and God are eternal friends. He is not our boss or our superior, no. He is our eternal friend.

If the human in you says that your Guru is much better than you, the human in me will be bloated with pride. But the divine in me will be miserable because you don't feel our oneness. If I am on the throne, you have to feel inwardly that you are also sitting on the throne. If I am on the floor, then you are on the floor.

When we separate ourselves from God's Reality, immediately we feel, "Oh, He is so great; He has no time to think of us." But if we think of God's Greatness, we will never be able to realise God. We will be able to realise God only if we think of His Goodness. Greatness does not satisfy us, whereas Goodness does satisfy us. A child loves his father, not because he is a very famous person, but because his father is all love, all compassion. We love God, not because He is Lord of the universe, not because He is the Transcendental Being, no. We love God because God is good; that is why we want to remain in God's Heart.

Question: How can we feel that God loves us infinitely more than we love ourselves?

Who is God? God is our highest part, our most illumined part. When we as individuals enter into our highest consciousness and know that we are in all, of all and for all, at that time we do not doubt ourselves. At that time, we are everything, so who can doubt whom? We embody God and want to reveal and manifest God, so we do not even dream of minimising our capacity. Here we are spontaneously embodying and revealing the divine.

Spiritual perseverance

Yesterday you had money; therefore you went to an Indian restaurant and ate samosa and pappadam. Today you do not have money, so you have to go to a coffee shop and have a sandwich. Your aspiration is like money-power. Yesterday you had tremendous aspiration; therefore, you got divine peace, divine bliss. Today you do not have much aspiration-power, so you do not get this delicious inner food. If you are surcharged with aspiration every day, then you will always get the same inspiration and joy from your spiritual discipline.

Some people are of the opinion that every seeker at times has to go through a spiritual desert. But this is not at all necessary. There are many roads that lead to the goal. If you can soulfully offer your soul's gratitude to the Supreme early in the morning before you meditate, then your road will be most beautiful, sunlit and short. But gratitude has to come first. How can you feel this gratitude? Just remember every day that your friends, the members of your family and others are still wallowing in the pleasures of ignorance. Out of billions of people, you are one of the very few who has been chosen by the Supreme to serve Him. Naturally, you can offer Him gratitude for this boon. If you look around, immediately you will see that hundreds of people you know are not aspiring. How is it that you are aspiring? You cannot bribe God; nobody can bribe Him. Just because He has chosen you to be His divine soldier, He has given you more capacity.

If you get up early in the morning one day, full of energy, and do a good meditation, then immediately offer Him your gratitude. The following day say that it was so kind of Him to grant you joy yesterday and again offer Him your gratitude. Peace, light, bliss and all the divine qualities dawn in gratitude. Again, our gratitude should be unconditional since God is giving us everything unconditionally.

It is not because you meditated for six hours that God gave you some divine quality. First, you have to ask, "Who gave me the capacity to meditate for six hours? Ten years ago, even one year ago, I could not meditate for even one fleeting minute, and today I was able to meditate for six hours. Who gave me that capacity?" God did. But that part you forget. You feel that you have done something yourself. You say, "I did it yesterday; then how is it that I cannot do it today?" If you feel that one day you are the doer, then the next day you will be the sufferer. Yesterday Somebody acted in and through you. Today also that Person can act in and through you provided you are grateful to Him.

Obedience: a supreme virtue

Inner obedience is a supreme virtue. Inner obedience is the achievement of one's true knowledge. When we obey the higher principles, higher laws, we love. When we love, we become. And when we become, we come to realise that we eternally are the Eternal Now.

A child obeys his parents. While obeying, he walks along the path of truth, light and bliss. In the spiritual life we are all children; we are eternally children. We listen to the inner Voice, the Inner Pilot, who is guiding our destiny, who is moulding and shaping us in His own Way. When we go deep within, we feel that we are an exact prototype of His existence.

We obey our Inner Pilot not because He is all-powerful, not out of fear that He will punish us. We obey Him because He is all Love. He is our Love-power, and our life needs Love-power. Our existence wants to be one with the infinite Love. We are a streak of light that enters into the vast sun. We offer our individuality and personality to our highest Source and then we become the song of universality. Our individual consciousness is very limited; the personal consciousness that we embody is very limited. So our individual life, our personal life, we offer to something more illumined, something vaster. Our limited life, our limited consciousness, becomes universal and the universal becomes the unlimited, the Infinite One. From the finite we go to the Infinite and from the Infinite we go to the Transcendental Absolute.

Obedience and self-discipline in the spiritual life go together. They are inseparable. When we discipline our lives, we feel that we are no longer in the animal kingdom. We are in the human kingdom. And in the human kingdom we are aspiring for the divine kingdom. The divine kingdom is bound to dawn, and it is we who will give birth to the divine kingdom here on earth, on the strength of our aspiration.

Self-discipline leads us to self-discovery and self-discovery is God-discovery. God-discovery is followed by God-revelation and God-revelation is followed by God-manifestation. Finally, God-manifestation is followed by God-perfection and God-satisfaction.

Obedience is responsibility. When we look at responsibility with our unlit, human consciousness, it is a heavy load, an unbearable burden that we have to shoulder. But when we follow the spiritual life, we see that the more responsibility we have, the more the divine in us, the Supreme in us, will take our responsibility. The more responsibility we have, the more we are helping to fulfil the earth-consciousness. Responsibility is a supreme opportunity to grow into the Reality. Responsibility is an immediate necessity for our soul, for the ideal in us, the real in us, the ever-transcending Reality in us. In the Garden of God's Heart, a beautiful rose blossoms each time we obey our Inner Pilot. Each time we obey our Inner Pilot, deep within we experience the celestial fragrance of this rose.

A seeker tries always to obey his inner Voice. But very often a wrong voice will create unimaginable problems for the seeker. How will the seeker differentiate the real from the unreal, the right from the wrong? A sincere seeker will be able to distinguish a wrong voice if he notices that the voice wants him to get satisfaction from its message in a specific way, with specific results. If the voice makes him feel that satisfaction will come only if victory dawns, if success comes, then he knows it is a wrong voice. When defeat looms large at the end of his action, and the seeker is doomed to disappointment, then he has to know it was a wrong voice. The right voice, the divine Voice, will only inspire the seeker to right actions. The right voice does not care for results as such.

"You have the right to action but not to the fruits thereof." This is the message of the Bhagavad-Gita. The fruits of action we come to know either in the form of success or in the form of failure. But neither success nor failure is our ultimate aim. Our aim is progress. Today's success will pale into insignificance tomorrow. A child's success comes when he learns how to crawl. Then he learns how to stand and walk a few steps; he feels that it is a tremendous success. And when he learns how to walk properly, once again he is bloated with pride. Each time the child advances, his previous success seems insignificant; there is no satisfaction in it.

But when we take the path of progress, we get tremendous satisfaction. A seed germinates into a tiny plant; it then becomes a sapling. Gradually it grows until finally it becomes a huge banyan tree. At that time it embodies millions and millions of leaves. If we take life as a song of gradual progress, then life is constant satisfaction. But if we see it in terms of success and failure, then immediately our patience will be exercised. Today we don't get one kind of success; tomorrow we try to get another kind of success. And we try to achieve this success by hook or by crook, using any means-foul or fair-because all we want is something to satisfy our immediate need. But our immediate need is not our eternal need. Our eternal need is for progress. Progress itself is a continuous and continued nourishment of the eternal need.

Obedience is self-giving, the offering of our unlit consciousness to our illumined consciousness. Let us take the unlit in us as our feet; and let us call the illumined consciousness in us our head. The feet and the head have to establish an inseparable oneness. Here it is not a question of obedience; it is necessity. When an individual wants to run very fast, he needs tremendous concentration-power from his mind and his heart. The mind and heart will come to help the feet. So heart, mind and feet are all running towards one goal. That is conscious expansion of our existence. When one part of the being needs special attention, another part comes to its rescue; and together they reach the goal.

When we do not obey the inner light, there is a specific place where we reside. It is called the mind-room. Here it is all hesitation. The mind-room is full of hesitation. If the seeker roams in the mind-room, he sees a tiger in front of him, a lion behind him and mad elephants all around him. So he feels great hesitation. And when he hesitates, he shakes hands, either consciously or unconsciously, with the prince of doom: ignorance.

Why does hesitation occur? Because the seeker has not offered his inner existence the nourishment that it needs. He does not pray to God as his very own, as his Highest. But when he realises that the Reality in him is in God's Dream-Boat, when he realises that he is bound to cross to the Golden Shore, then there can be no hesitation. It is all divine assurance, divine certainty.

When a sincere seeker becomes an obedient child of God, he feels that it is his inner necessity and outer necessity that have compelled him to cry for God and become inseparably one with God's infinite Light, Peace and Bliss. He also feels that it is God's Necessity that constantly has need of his obedience. He acquires inner obedience because his human feelings are transformed into the divine life. He has developed the hunger for God-realisation; and God Himself has developed the hunger for His own Manifestation. Through whom? Through His devoted, surrendered instrument.

Necessity is founded upon mutual sincerity. The son has to make a solemn promise to his Father that to realise Him, to manifest Him, he will come into the world-arena again and again. His Father also makes a solemn promise that He will liberate and illumine His son and make him realise that he is another God.

The sincere and obedient seeker feels that the desire-life is dangerous. It is constantly destroying his possibilities, his potentialities. He also feels that the aspiration-life is constantly, consciously taking him away from the desire-life. The aspiration-life is the thing that is leading him to the realisation-life. So the aspiration-life is full of certainty, provided we are sincere.

The desire-life and the aspiration-life are both struggling for their own survival. They both have the necessity to strive for something. Our aspiration-life cares for Light, Light in infinite measure. Our desire-life cares for materialism, especially material wealth, earthly achievement, earthly prosperity. But only the aspiration-life, which is the life of God, which is the life of our true inner self, can give us satisfaction.

Occultism

Some occultists work in and from the vital plane. They use spirits and ghosts of their relatives. But sometimes they are killed; they are actually strangled by the spirits in the vital world. The spirits want to serve their lord, but if their lord has nothing further to give them, then they come and destroy their lord. This is what very often happens to the so-called occultists.

There is a funny story that I am sure most of you know. Once an occultist used spirits to help him in his occult play. He told people many juicy stories about their future and their past. He took help from the spirits. But the condition was that he had to give work to the spirits constantly. If he did not give them work, then the spirits would strangle him.

A time came when the occultist had nothing more to ask the spirits to do for him. The spirits got furious and wanted to kill the occultist in the vital world. So the occultist came and took the shelter of a Yogi. The Yogi said, "Please keep a dog right in front of you and tell the spirits that you want them to straighten the dog's tail." In this way the spirits were caught. Each time the tail was straightened, it curled back again. So the spirits always had work to do. Our human nature is like the tail of a dog. Very often it is prone to crookedness.

There are some occult powers which are innocent, harmless, and really helpful and productive. These occult powers you get the moment your six major centres and the crown centre start opening. The moment any of these chakras is fully opened, you can rest assured that you will have more than a little bit of occult knowledge and occult power. But you have to know how you are utilising these occult powers. If you utilise the occult powers to satisfy your curiosity and to know what is happening in somebody's life, then you are misusing them. If you use them only when the divine within you, the Supreme within you, inspires you to help somebody in awakening his consciousness, then you are using them in the proper way.

Now if you follow the path of Kundalini Yoga, easily you can develop these occult powers. But for that you have to be extremely pure, pure, pure. Your name should be nothing else but purity. When you develop occult powers and you are all purity, in your outer life and in your inner life, then occult powers are a blessing. Otherwise, occult powers are a veritable curse. So I wish all of you to go deep within and offer your love, devotion and surrender to the Supreme. He is our eternal Father, Mother, Brother and Sister. So let Him pilot us. If He wants to give us occult powers, He will give them. If He wants to give us spiritual powers — Peace, Light and Bliss — which are of infinitely more importance than occult powers, He will give them to us. Let us meditate and concentrate and not deal with occultism at this stage of our spiritual journey.

_Satyagraha:_ the zeal for truth

There are two words in Mahatma Gandhi's life: ahimsa and satyagraha. People are always confusing these two terms, but they are not at all the same. Ahimsa is non-violence. We always care for ahimsa, because God is all love. Inside us there are many things that we have to fight against. We have to fight against ignorance, doubt, fear, worries and anxieties because these things are inwardly standing in our way. But the outer fight, from the spiritual point of view, should be avoided.

Again, it may be the Supreme's Will that we fight outwardly, as when the Lord Krishna asked Arjuna to fight in order to uproot ignorance. But fighting is necessary only on special occasions, when it is the specific Will of God. In general, there should be no violation of authority, because it destroys our inner poise. Here I am not taking sides in politics, or referring to any particular conflicts in different places. No, it is from the purely spiritual point of view that I am telling you this.

When we try to follow the man-made truth, we feel that we have to justify this truth with our reasoning mind. Somebody will say that his salary is not high enough; so according to his truth, he feels he should go on strike in order to get higher wages. In this way, he will stick to his own truth. But who knows whether his demand is justifiable or not? But in the spiritual life, when we speak of satyagraha, it has a different meaning. It refers to the spiritual truth. Here we think of the divine seeker who, with constant inner joy, is walking along the path of truth and devoting his whole life to truth.

In ordinary satyagraha, we try to get the truth by hook or by crook. Either we will keep on fasting, or we will go on strike, and in that way we try to get the thing done. But true satyagraha, from the spiritual point of view, is not like that. There we want to see the truth through surrender to the Will of God. The seeker wants to pursue the truth, but while pursuing the truth he feels the necessity of surrendering to the Will of God. He feels that it is the Will of God that is giving him the capacity to follow the path of truth, and it is the Will of God that will give him the capacity to see the truth.

In ordinary satyagraha, the individual lives twenty-four hours a day without truth, but to satisfy the demands of his physical, vital and mind, he wants to show the world that he is following the path of truth and offering light to the world. This is not at all spiritual. But in spiritual satyagraha, one sees the truth and cries to be the truth itself; one wants only to be the torch-bearer of truth. Then one sticks to the truth and offers his life to the truth. He does not cry to God for the fulfilment of his own desires. He surrenders and he says to God, "If it is Your Will, then do this for me. If it is not Your Will, then do not do it for me. I want only to fulfil You."

Part II — Radio interview at the United Nations

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Sri Chinmoy, how do you help people?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ You talk of the Supreme, you talk of God. Is it a concept that other religions also have in their use of the word God? Jews, Christians and Moslems, for example? Or is it an entirely different concept that you have of the Supreme Power?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ How do you try to make your concept of God known to your followers?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ You say that love is the predominant element that appeals to you. How did you discover this?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Sri Chinmoy, did you practise this philosophy in your native land of India?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Who was your spiritual leader there?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ But didn't you have any representative in India who inspired you or taught you?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ I notice that your followers, who call you their Guru, may be in some way subconsciously thinking of you as God.

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Do you have any text or scriptures on which you base your message, or is it all inspired?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Sri Chinmoy, I didn't notice today at your meeting any collection of money or anything like that. How do you make a living?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Are you married?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Do you believe in marriage?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Sri Chinmoy, I watched you as you spoke to your followers today and your eyes were closed most of the time. Some of them seemed to have their eyes closed also.

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ But did you see me come in with your eyes half-closed? I came in a little late.

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Sri Chinmoy, you also use a chant of some kind. What does that do?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Are you referring to the triune God with three characters, or are you talking about three gods?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ In everyday life, do you expect your followers to change their ways and habits?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Who decides what is wrong and what is right?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Do you believe that the human being is born with a pure soul?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ How do you find a way to eliminate hatred between people if misunderstandings develop or there are arguments?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Why should somebody want to become a follower of yours?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Are you seeking to convert people, like a missionary?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ You are not out, then, to tell a Jew or Christian or a Moslem to drop his faith and follow you?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ What if a member of one of these religions wanted to become one of your disciples? Would you want him to retain his faith?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Sri Chinmoy, you are an Indian living in the United States. What do you plan to do from now on?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Are you going back to India?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Don't you think that Indians need this kind of advice that you are giving Americans?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ That would account for your form of meditation. What do you see as the difference between the East and the West?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ What effect did Hinduism or Buddhism have on the West?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Do you include Yoga, then, in the practise of your particular faith?

_Mr. Schonfeld:_ Does physical exercise go with the meditation?

Part III — Question and answers

Question: What is the role of the seeker?

Question: What is Heaven?

Question: Is Heaven one of the seven higher worlds?

Question: Is all suffering and pain a sign of purification?

Question: What is the purpose of evil and what is its source?

A cow is tied to a tree with a rope. The cow gets very limited freedom, but it destroys whatever it can. With our limited freedom also, we start wars and try to destroy the world. But again, if we have good will, if we have love and a feeling of oneness, then instead of destroying the world, we shall try to embrace the world.

Question: Isn't it really easy to get rid of undivine qualities if we just set our mind to it?

Question: Was Martin Luther King a saint?

Question: You say, "Annam Brahma — Food is God." At what times do you say, "Work is God?"

Question: When this world is all perfect perfection and we are in the Beyond, will we all be there together?

It is like this. Let us say a father wanted to become a multi-millionaire, but he could not. But if after he leaves the body he sees that many years later his own son has become a multi-millionaire, he does not immediately return into the world to share the wealth of his son. No, from there he is happy that his son has fulfilled his desire on earth. Similarly, all those who cried for perfection on earth will be extremely delighted and proud that, although they did not see the success, the success has been achieved.

To see the success and then to come and say, "I also did something," would be to act in our human way. Here on earth when we do something for someone we say, "I have done that for him." Then immediately others come to us for help. But spiritual giants, even when they are on earth, do millions of things for their disciples and for Mother Earth. If a spiritual person does ten good things on earth in the outer life, then people will say, "Oh, he is very kind, very generous, very self-giving." But if he does ten things outwardly, then we have to know that he has done ninety things inwardly. When God-realisation takes place, spiritual seekers make the promise to God that they will do millions and billions of things for earth. If the Supreme does not want them to disclose what they do, then they will just keep it secret. But here on earth when we do something before we are realised, immediately we either tell everyone or others come to know of it because it is done on the physical plane. If someone does something on the physical plane, then either today or tomorrow others will come to know of it. But if it is done in the inner world, then only the spiritual Masters and really sincere seekers will know of it because they are constantly trying to identify themselves with the consciousness of the Inner Pilot, the Supreme. Again, very often it happens that the highest Supreme does not want even the seekers to know what is being done for them by their spiritual Master. It is only between God and His instrument through whom He is operating. So when perfection is achieved, many people will be on earth to see it. There will also be many who cried for perfection who will see it from a distance, but they will not come down to earth to see it. Perhaps there will be some who will be eager to see their achievements and to see that their aspiration has taken material form. But according to my own feeling, the really sincere spiritual seekers and Masters who cried for the perfection of the earth consciousness will not go because the thing has been done not by them, but by the infinite Grace of the Supreme. The others, who will have really only given the finishing touch, will be on earth at that time. They will pray and meditate and receive the glory. The others in the higher worlds will take the glory inwardly because they started the journey. The Supreme, who was right there from the beginning and who deserves all the glory, will give all the credit to the spiritual Masters, to the seekers and to the aspirants. He will do everything, but He will take no glory. Only we seekers will take the glory.