God comes first in my life

Vivekananda showed the sincerity of his inner cry for Truth, for God, for Light. It happened once that Vivekananda, who was then called Naren, was offered a significant gift by his spiritual Master, Sri Ramakrishna. Sri Ramakrishna said to him, “Naren, you know I have gone through the most austere spiritual disciplines. I constantly pray to Mother Kali and worship God. I have done everything necessary and now I am blessed with occult power. But you know that I don’t care for any outer achievements. I pay no attention even to wearing clothes. I am in my own world most of the time. So I wish to tell Mother Kali that I would like to offer you all my occult power. You will be able to use it when you have to work for the world at large.”

Naren immediately replied, “Master, please tell me whether this power will be of any help to me in my God-realisation.”

Sri Ramakrishna said, “No, no! You know that occult power has nothing to do with God-realisation. But when you realise God, if you want to work for the world, if you want to manifest God on earth, then this power can be of great help to you.”

Naren’s immediate response was, “First things first. First I want to realise God. Then if you and God want to give me occult power to use for mankind, I will take it. But right now I want only God. God comes first in my life.”

Ramakrishna was extremely pleased with his dearest disciple. He said to the other disciples, “Look at my Naren. Look at the example he has set for you. You have to pay all attention to God first, only to God. That is the only way you can realise God. Occult power is of very secondary importance.”

Most genuine spiritual Masters have advised their disciples not to care for the hidden powers of the kundalini. If a disciple cares only for Truth, only for Light, then he will make real progress in his inner life.

We practise kundalini yoga in order to get power of one kind or another. But if we meditate on God and please God, the Creator, He will give us His entire creation if He wants to. If we want the Creator first and foremost, and not His creation, then we will get the Creator. And once we have the Creator, His entire creation will also be at our disposal. If we cry for one tiny part of the creation, we may get it with comparative ease; but the infinite Wealth of the Creator will be withheld from us, and we will have to be satisfied with the tiny portion which we asked for.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Vivekananda: an ancient silence-heart and a modern dynamism-life, Agni Press, 1993
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/vvk