Spiritual dryness

In the spiritual life, a seeker should know that he cannot always eat the most delicious food. Once he has eaten something delicious, this does not mean that every meal from now on will be most delicious. It is possible, but only if he is very rich and has an excellent cook. If he is not rich and if he does not have a good cook, he will not be able to have most delicious food every day. In the spiritual life, it is also the same. One must have inside him a seeker who is most sincere, and constantly sincere. When people accept the spiritual life, for five days, for five months, for five years they are sincere. But to be sincere at every moment is something else.

You may think, “Oh, I am following Guru’s path.” Yes, that is true, but to be sincere every day and every hour and every moment is a different thing. In each day there are twenty-four hours. Seven or eight hours we sleep and then five or six hours we waste talking or mixing with others. On spirituality we spend just two hours. And even during these two or three hours sometimes we are not sincere. For two minutes we are sincere and the rest of the time we are daydreaming and building castles in the air.

There is a constant battle going on in us between the heart’s inner cry and the mind’s constant or conscious rejection. When sincerity plays its role constantly, we remain inside the heart. But sometimes the heart loses. When the heart loses in the battlefield of life, it is all a barren desert.

Just because you are experiencing night, you cannot say there will be no day for you. There will be. But if you want to remain in day all the time, then you have to do two things. The first thing is to use your imagination-power. Imagination is something most important in the spiritual life. Today something is all imagination; but tomorrow this very thing becomes inspiration and the day after tomorrow it becomes aspiration. And the following day it becomes realisation. With your imaginative power, think how you used to meditate on the heart centre one year ago or two years ago. Immediately you will be able to go back and catch the bird that used to fly so well in the psychic sky. As soon as you feel that you have reached the stage where you were two years ago, offer your gratitude to the Supreme. So, first use your imagination-power and then use your gratitude-power. In this way you are bound to get back in your day-to-day life the capacity you once had to concentrate, meditate and contemplate on your heart.

Once you have achieved something, you are bound to get it back; only it is a matter of time. But you can expedite your progress through constant inner cry, through imagination-power and gratitude-power. Again, if you have not got something, that does not mean that you are not going to get it. But if you once had some inner treasure, it is always infinitely easier to get back that treasure.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Sri Chinmoy speaks, part 2, Agni Press, 1976
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/scs_2