Is the spiritual life an act of giving? Yes, it is. What precisely do we give? We give our bondage-night and ignorance-day. To whom do we give them? We give them to God. What else do we give to God? We give God, or rather, we reconfirm to God our soul’s promise that we made millions of years ago. What was that promise? Him we shall realise unreservedly and Him we shall fulfil unconditionally.
Is the spiritual life an act of receiving? Yes, it is. What precisely do we receive? We receive God’s Grace and we receive God the Grace. What is the difference between God’s Grace and God the Grace? The difference is this: God’s Grace shows us God’s Face with form and without form; and God the Grace tells us that we are not only eternal, infinite and immortal like Him, but also equal and perfect. We have made friends with ignorance; therefore, we are not conscious of what we truly are. But God and we are inseparably one: this is what we learn from God the boundless Grace.
We should know something about God with form and God without form. God with form is often questioned by the dark human mind. God without form remains always a far cry for the proud and unaspiring human mind. The dark, unaspiring human mind does not want to see God in God’s own Way, whereas the loving and aspiring heart tries to see God in God’s own Way. God with form is accessible to those who love God with their heart’s inmost feelings. God without form is also accessible to those who love God in the inmost recesses of their hearts.
Is the spiritual life an act of becoming? Yes, it is. What precisely do we become? In the process of evolution each individual becomes another God. When? At God’s blessingful, choice Hour.
How do we know that a certain individual is spiritual? If we say that he is spiritual because he often talks about God, we may be making a deplorable mistake. People can talk about God day in and day out but never follow the true spiritual life. If someone feels that there is a world of Peace and Bliss unlike this world of ours, and that he belongs to that world, does it mean that he is spiritual? No. He may be building castles in the air, or he may be enjoying some mental hallucinations. If we say that someone is spiritual because he gives up his friends, his relatives and the members of his family and enters into a Himalayan cave to become a recluse, then we will be mistaken again. Spirituality does not demand that we live the life of an ascetic; it does not ask us to give up our near and dear ones. Far from it.
So how do we know whether or not an individual is spiritual? We know that an individual is spiritual only when we notice a certain amount of purity in his body and surety in his soul. What do we mean by the body’s purity? The body’s purity is the divine capacity for endless God-receptivity. And what do we mean by the soul’s surety? The soul’s surety is the soul’s conscious and constant oneness-perfection with the Absolute Supreme. The soul’s surety is the soul’s conscious and constant oneness-satisfaction in the Absolute Supreme.
Some people are of the opinion that spirituality and divinity are very close to each other, that they are adjacent to one another — two loving, faithful, soulful and fruitful neighbours. They are absolutely correct. But I wish to add one thing. The nature of spirituality and the nature of divinity are similar. What both of them embody is God’s boundless creation and what both of them reveal is God’s infinite Compassion. But if we observe spirituality and divinity very minutely, then we do observe a subtle difference. Spirituality is God’s Self-expansion and divinity is God’s Self-perfection. While expanding Himself, God perfects Himself; and while perfecting Himself, God transcends Himself. Therefore we can safely say that spirituality and divinity are complementary.
The question is often asked whether each and every person on earth can be spiritual and divine, or whether spirituality and divinity are the monopoly of only a few selected individuals. Spirituality and divinity can be claimed by each and every individual, providing each and every individual has a sincere need for spirituality and divinity. Spirituality is not the sole monopoly of any individual. Each and every individual can practise spirituality, provided he wants to cry — cry for the ultimate Truth, the transcendental Height, the immortal Delight.
How does one become spiritual and divine? One becomes spiritual and divine by studying the inner life. One has to spend time on inner studies. When we study other subjects, we go to school and learn from our teacher. To learn spirituality and divinity, we go to the inner school. In the inner school, God is the only Teacher.
God the Teacher always asks us to be simple, sincere, humble and pure. Only then will He be able to teach us. If we are wanting in simplicity, sincerity, humility and purity, then God will not be able to teach us. What does God teach us? He teaches us how to become His perfect instruments on earth. He teaches us how to take part in His cosmic lila, the Game eternal. He also teaches us how to fly and how to march, how to fly with His ever-transcending, infinite Vision and how to march with His ever-progressing, boundless manifestation. God grants us His Vision-Reality and His Reality-Vision at the end of our journey’s close. God’s Vision-Reality is God’s eternal Greatness-Height and God’s Reality-Vision is God’s eternal Goodness-Depth.
Our Teacher, God, tells us that we cannot enjoy double-dealing. In secret we make friends with desire-night and in public we make friends with aspiration-day, aspiration-light. God says He cannot accept this double-dealing precisely because He has an aversion to this double-dealing. With our desire-night we try to bind God and have God please us in our own way. With our aspiration-light we try to love God and serve God in God’s own Way.
Why do we love God? We love God because He is all Beauty. Why do we serve God? We serve God because He is the only Reality: the Reality that we long for, the Reality that we want to grow into, the Reality that is all satisfaction, Eternity’s satisfaction. What we all need here on earth and there in Heaven is satisfaction: satisfaction in God’s own Way.From:Sri Chinmoy,Sri Chinmoy speaks, part 5, Agni Press, 1976
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