Aspiration

No aspiration, no realisation. What is aspiration? Aspiration is man's conscious cry to climb up to the Highest, to run the Farthest and dive the Deepest.

Awareness

Unless we are aware of what we are doing, of what we want to be and what we want to achieve, we are almost in the realm of the animal consciousness. Very often when people speak of awareness, they mean the awareness of the mind. They feel that the mind is the sole answer to all problems. So long as we are in the mind, we can and must be fully aware of all the activities that are taking place in the physical, the vital, the mind proper and the world that is visible with our ordinary outer eye.

One who is not aware of his all-pervading inner divinity is, from the spiritual point of view, a dead soul. In our Upanishads, the seer cried out, "Arise! Awake!" Awareness is the first rung of the ladder of spirituality; the next is aspiration. Very often people are confused by these two words. A person can be aware in any sphere: In the physical, in the mental or in the vital. But aspiration is something deeper. Aspiration comes directly from our inmost inner being, from the soul, from the Self.

Awareness is the domain of the mind, but the real spiritual seekers or spiritual Masters say, "No, we have to go beyond awareness." Awareness in the mental domain is: "What am I doing, what am I seeing, what am I eating, how am I behaving?" These are all in the field of the mind, but beyond the mind there are many regions. And it is aspiration that takes us to the regions beyond the mind. Aspiration is the mounting flame deep within us, the mounting flame that climbs up to the Highest, the pinnacle.

So we have to start our journey with awareness, because unless we are aware of what we are going to do, say and become, we will make no progress and never be able to launch into the path of the Spirit. But this awareness is very limited in comparison to the soul's realisation, which we get on the strength of our aspiration.

Beauty

The poet Keats said, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." But what is that thing? That thing, from the spiritual point of view, is our soul. The soul is eternally beautiful. God expresses Himself in the physical through beauty, pure beauty, beauty without a blemish. This beauty is not merely skin-deep, but it is in the soul. Here the soul is expressing itself through the physical form.

About one hour ago, X brought me these most beautiful roses. I told her that the roses were beautiful but that she is more beautiful than the roses. This was not my flattery. What I wanted to say was that her soul is infinitely more beautiful than the beautiful roses.

Beauty is something that can be cultivated constantly in our outer nature. This beauty we can cherish in our outer and inner life as God's choicest blessing. Just because God, our Father, is beautiful, because He is All-Beauty, we have every right to become like Him. So we want to possess the beauty of the soul in our outer life and we want to become really beautiful.

Bliss

God has expressed himself through many divine qualities but He has yet to express Himself in His Transcendental Bliss, the Bliss that transforms human nature totally into the Nature Divine here on earth.

Charity

An act of charity is extremely good, but if the charity is not given to the right person, it can create more problem than good in human life.

Common sense

Common Sense Number One: You are God's chosen son.

Common Sense Number Two: Not only do you need God, but God also needs you. You need God to realise your true Self; God needs you to fulfil Himself.

Common Sense Number Three: You want to realise God. Even if you don't want to realise God, He will not allow you to remain unrealised.

Common Sense Number Four: You may think that today you are an animal, but you must know that you are tomorrow's God.

Compassion

I know what God's Compassion is. God's Compassion is man's only salvation. It is through aspiration that we can awaken God's Compassion in us.

I know what man's compassion is. Man's compassion is often the aggrandisement of his ego's imagination.

Concentration

Concentration is the surest way to reach the goal. The goal can be God-realisation, the goal can be success in a material field, the goal can be merely the fulfilment of human desires. But it is concentration that acts like an arrow and enters into the target.

He who is wanting in the power of concentration is no better than a monkey. A real aspirant, a devotee, sooner or later acquires the power of concentration either through the Grace of God, through his constant practice of the inner life or through aspiration. Each aspirant can declare and proclaim that he has a divine hero, a divine soldier within himself. And what is that divine warrior? It is his concentration. Concentration is like a bullet entering and piercing the mail-coat of ignorance. Concentration is the aspirant's true divine Pride.

So if one wants to achieve any goal in any walk of life — whether it is the human, earthly journey toward emancipation or the soul's journey toward absolute realisation — then I wish to say that concentration is the answer.

Confidence

First of all, you have to have confidence in yourself and then in God. If you say, "I do not have confidence in myself; I have confidence only in God," this is an indirect way of placing your own responsibility at the Feet of God. And if you say, "I have confidence in myself but not in God," that kind of confidence is an erroneous conception of your own very limited capacity. In the spiritual life, when you say that you have confidence in yourself, that you feel that God exists and that you are His chosen child, then you are really and truly the channel of God.

In the ordinary human life, if you lack confidence, someone else can help you. But in the spiritual life, if you do not have confidence, no matter how great your spiritual Master is, you cannot go far. Unless you have the confidence that you are God's child and that you have the power to aspire, you will never make any attempt to bring to the fore your inner divine qualities. So it is only when this confidence looms large in you that it is possible to go one step forward.

Now you also have to have confidence in God — not only that He has the highest and deepest Truth, but that He will give it to you. You have to have confidence that one day you will be able to achieve the fullest realisation of Truth. From whom? From God. So when you possess confidence that you are God's child and when you possess confidence that God not only has what you are aspiring for but will give it to you, then you will see that aspiration and realisation will go together.

Consciousness

Consciousness is the glowing light which unites man with God; the finite with the Infinite. What God has is an all-loving and all-protecting Consciousness. What man needs is a ceaselessly aspiring consciousness.

Contemplation

Contemplate on ignorance with your soul's Light. Lo! Ignorance cannot bear it. It runs away. Contemplate on God. Lo! God runs towards you. Contemplate on your Self-discovery. Lo! You not only discover your true Self but you become your eternal and infinite Self.

Courage

In one of the Upanishads, it says that the soul is not to be won by the weakling. Courage is absolutely necessary in the spiritual life. The very acceptance of the spiritual life demands enormous courage. It is only a divinely courageous soul, only a divinely inspired soul, that can swiftly reach the highest Goal.

This courage is not the courage of a haughty, rough person who will strike others to assert his superiority; it is totally different. This courage is our constant awareness of what we are entering into, of what we are going to become, of what we are going to reveal. We have to jump courageously into the ocean of spirituality, but we have to know that we are not jumping into the sea of uncertainty. Uncertainty and spirituality never go together. When we speak of courage, we have to know that courage means certainty.

It is not by hook or by crook that we are going to have God-realisation; it is through constant self-offering. Self-offering is the most powerful weapon, for it is in self-offering that true courage lies. When we know, feel and realise that God is ours and we are God's, we get spontaneous courage streaming forth.

God and you are eternally one, each fulfilling the other. If you have indomitable courage or the soul's Willpower, you can fulfil the Supreme and the Supreme can fulfil you. This you feel on the strength of your all-giving, all-sacrificing inner courage.

Creation

Each moment we are creating ourselves, or, rather, God is creating Himself in us. But when we try to create ourselves by fulfilling our desires, when we create ourselves contrary to God's Will, Ideas and Feelings, we break the real Truth. When we create with our mind, with our vital, with our physical without being aware of what God's intention is, we may seem to create; but in God's view or in our soul's view we are actually being uncreative. On the other hand, when we become the channel of the soul's will, the soul's intention, outwardly we may seem to be wasting time, paying no attention to earthly duties, doing nothing. But what we are actually doing is creating something deep within ourselves. God wants us to create His Life in ourselves at every moment, to create His Dream in ourselves consciously.

Now when you say that you are God's creation, if you say it from the mind, you do not actually feel it. You feel it only when you live the life of aspiration. Your creation is you yourself and that creation has to be moulded, guided and perfected by the Supreme in the Guru. It has to grow in the constant guidance of the Supreme. So offer yourself as a flower at the feet of the Supreme and your Guru. Then and only then will your creation be the constant instrument and fulfilment of the Supreme.

Destiny

The power that foreordains man's ultimate End or Destination is called Destiny. God uses this power in and through the Master. A real disciple's Destiny is undoubtedly the Destiny of his beloved Master.

Detachment

Yesterday God taught you what human attachment is. Today God is teaching you what divine detachment is. Yesterday you wanted to bind mankind with attachment, but you sadly failed. Today you want to bind God with your divine detachment. And lo! Yours is the unparalleled success.

Devotion

Devotion is the secret of secrets. It lets you establish the sweetest and the most intimate connection with God, who entirely belongs to you.

Discipline

The body's discipline is sex-control.

The vital's discipline is dynamic-aggression-control.

The mind's discipline is thought-control.

The heart's discipline is emotion-control.

Man's discipline and his soul's divine pride go together.

Discrimination

Discrimination is the secret of success. Always discriminate light from darkness, pleasure human from Joy divine, human desire from divine aspiration. The more you secretly discriminate, the quicker God openly comes to you.

Divinity

Divinity and humanity must go together. Divinity cries sincerely, most sincerely for humanity. But humanity has no time to cry for Divinity; humanity cries only for itself. Humanity feels that it has or will have all the power necessary to fulfil itself. In the case of Divinity it is somewhat different. Its heart is extremely wide, boundless. In spite of knowing that It has all the power to fulfil and manifest itself on earth, Divinity feels that unless it can identify Itself with humanity, its role can never be fulfilled. If Divinity accepts humanity on a lower level of consciousness, then Divinity will be totally eclipsed by the teeming cloud of darkness. But if Divinity approaches humanity on a higher level, on an aspiring level of consciousness, then Divinity can succeed in transforming and illumining human life and fulfilling itself.

The seeker's highest Divinity lies not in the world of the past, but in the immediacy of today's deepest aspiration. The aspiration that leads the seeker to God-realisation is the harbinger of his inner Divinity.

Endurance

Difficulties indicate the strength of unwanted forces. Endurance indicates the inevitable victory of the soul's ever-fulfilling, ever-glowing Light.

Eternity

Eternity, Infinity and Immortality: all three go together. Now when depression, frustration, worry and anxiety come and attack us and make us feel that we will never realise God, that time is very short, then immediately we have to take shelter in Eternity. Eternity has to be lived in our day-to-day life. Each moment if we can feel that we belong to Eternity, then worry leaves us, frustration leaves us, all negative thoughts and ideas leave us.

But this feeling of Eternity should not make us say: "Oh, we can wallow in the pleasure of idleness because we are eternal and, of course, one day we'll realise God." No! We must try our utmost to realise God here and now at this very moment while at the same time offering ourselves devotedly and soulfully at the Feet of the Supreme. The Supreme belongs to the eternal Now. The Supreme is always the eternal Now. His Eternity, His Now is our real chance. So when the world wants to pull us back, we have to feel that we are not lost; we are in the eternal Now. For an aspirant, a spiritual person, Eternity is nothing but the eternal Now.

Faith

What you call Faith I call the Soul's foreknowledge of the Highest Truth. Faith tells the aspirant not only what God is but also what God can do for him at every moment. This faith is the aspirant's living breath in God the Omniscient and God the Omnipotent.

See through the eye of Faith. You will see the Eternal Truth. Feel through the heart of Faith. You will feel the Immortal Truth.

Forgiveness

The Guru knows that he is absolutely one with his disciples in their teeming ignorance. So he smilingly and soulfully says, "Who is to forgive whom?"

Fulfilment

Fulfilment lies in one's utter consecration to the Life Divine. The more consciously one consecrates oneself to the Supreme, the sooner one finds total fulfilment.

God's dog

A dog is faithfulness. If someone wants to be God's most faithful dog, God tells him that He is his slave.

Grace

A true disciple is he who cares for his Master's Grace. A true disciple is he who feels that his Master's physical existence and God's constant flow of Grace are inseparable. A true disciple is he who has realised that without his Master's Grace, he is nothing, he can do nothing. A true disciple is he who has realised that with his Master's Grace he can become not only the perfect ideal of humanity but also the greatest Pride of God.

Gratitude

When God fulfils your desire, you are all gratitude. When God does not fulfil your desire, if you can become all gratitude to Him, then God Himself is bound to come to you, not only to replace and fulfil your desire, but to give you what He has and what He is: Infinitude.

Guru

Your father and mother brought you into the world from God. Your spiritual father, your Guru, will take you back to God consciously and safely after first making you into His very image.

Happiness

Happiness is an invaluable treasure of the Supreme. You are bound to get this treasure the moment your heart says, "What I have and what I am is God's and God's alone."

Harmony

Divine Harmony can be established in one's inner and outer nature only when one accepts the inner life as a source of constant inspiration for guiding, moulding and shaping his outer life.

Hope

Hope is not an idle term. Hope is the reality that can and does reveal itself to us at God's choice hour. To hope is to know the secret of achievement.

Humility

God is great because He alone embodies perfect humility. God is greater because He reveals humility on earthly soil through our climbing aspiration. God is the greatest of all because He has not separated His Transcendental Glory from His most humble creation, the blade of grass!

In the spiritual life, there can be nothing greater than humility. True inner wisdom lies in humility. One has to be humble to whom? One has to be humble to the one whom he has accepted as a Guide or Pilot in his inner life.

Now some people are humble only in the inner life; in the outer life they are very rude; they know everything. When it is a matter of aspiration, they are humble to their Master; when it is a matter of worldly wisdom, they think that they know infinitely more than the Master. The Master is then helpless. I wish to say that a spiritual Master, even in the outer world, is more capable of seeing the Truth than a worldly trained person because the Master is in constant touch with the Highest, the Supreme.

Very often someone's doctor tells him something, and I tell him something else. Now I am not an M.D. I do not have a doctor's qualifications. But I wish to tell you that I enter into the patient's body infinitely faster than the X-ray machine. Then if the Supreme wants me to tell the disciple what he should do, I tell him. Naturally, at that time, the disciple should listen to me and not to the doctor. Again, I am humble to doctors because they are also doing God's work and are fulfilling God in their own way. But when there is a conflict between the doctor and a spiritual person, between the medical doctor and the spiritual doctor, I wish my disciples to understand that I go to the ultimate Source and then I tell them the absolute Truth.

It is not only in the case of your illnesses but in all aspects of your lives. When I tell you something about your outer life, your family life, your business life, your office life, I wish you to feel that I am telling you this from the Highest Source. But if you feel, "No, you don't understand, because you haven't met such-and-such a person, or learned such-and-such a skill," then I am not ready to help you. Even where you have had forty or fifty years of experience in practising some profession or dealing with some situation, if I say, "Do this!" then you should be wise and humble and listen to me. The outer results may be temporarily painful or hurtful or even apparently harmful, but inside the process is being worked out and fulfilled in accordance with God's Plan, and almost immediately the problems will be solved.

Beyond the physical is the spiritual and it is in the spiritual that the real Truth lies. It is from the spiritual, from the subtle physical, that one can most effectively change the physical. So when it is a matter of action in the physical world, I wish to tell those of you who have really accepted me that if you take a true humble attitude, then I can act. At that time I can run and I can make you run speedily. If you have the inner conviction that what the Master is saying is absolutely correct, if you feel this with full sincerity and with the spontaneous joy of acceptance, then you are my true disciple and your life can be a song of freedom and oneness with me.

Very often my disciples listen to me either when it suits their purpose or when I tell them to do what they themselves want to do and they are delighted. Or after they have tried everything on their own without asking my advice and find that there is no way out and they are blocked, this becomes the time to offer their deep humility or surrender and they call me up. I must not feel sad, but I feel that I am not given the proper chance, not given the full opportunity to act with or through these disciples.

If there is no constant humility on the disciple's part, then the Master is really digging in a barren field. I am a farmer, a sincere farmer; I cultivate and cultivate, but from some disciples I do not get any crop, not to speak of a bumper crop. Why? Because what I want to give is very rarely accepted with humility.

Humility is the real secret of the spiritual life. If you want to make immediate progress, you have to be humble, not only in the inner life, but also in the outer life. Then only will you realise God sooner than you expect. Otherwise I am working, concentrating and meditating in vain. Something else is necessary along with my action and that is a real, spiritual attitude on your part. And what is the real spiritual attitude? It is humility.

If we knock at God's door without humility, God's door will never open. So let us go and knock as humbly as possible at the door of the Supreme, Him to realise, Him to fulfil.

Immortality

Immortality smiles at the seeker's inspiration. Immortality loves the seeker's meditation. Immortality consciously and cheerfully becomes one with the seeker's realisation.

Inspiration

Inspiration is the first step. The second and final step towards God-realisation is aspiration. He who has no inspiration is no better than a dead man. He who has inspiration, soulful inspiration, is constantly running towards and crying for the Beyond.

Joy

The world is crying for only one thing and that thing is Joy. God Himself is trying to establish only one thing on earth and that thing is Joy. What you call Joy, we call in the deeper philosophy, Bliss. This Bliss comes only when we want to know the Truth, feel the Truth, realise the Truth and become the Truth. Until we become the Truth, there can be no abiding Joy. And there can be no greater or deeper Joy than to be constantly and unreservedly one with the Will of the Inner Pilot, the Supreme.

Very often people are confused by the words "Joy" and "pleasure", and mistake pleasure for Joy. Pleasure is something that binds, something that is fleeting. Pleasure immediately is followed by frustration, anxiety, worry, depression and so forth. But Joy, real Joy, is something that constantly grows and flows, something that gives us the feeling that we can walk farther, dive deeper, fly higher.

When we truly embody Joy, inner Joy, we become the perfect expression of God's Vision, Promise and Reality. What is God's Vision? God's Vision is that each human being can be as perfect, compassionate, powerful and merciful as God is. That is His Vision. What is His Promise? God's Promise is that He will make each individual feel that he can eventually become God Himself. And what is God's Reality? God's Reality is that each individual is already God, unmanifested. So when we really possess inner Joy, we are endowed with God's Vision, God's Promise and God's Reality.

Light

Light and darkness. Darkness makes us feel that we are nothing and can do nothing, that we are useless. Light makes us feel that we are everything, that we can do everything, that we can become everything. Now where is Light, real Light? Real Light is not in the physical; it is not in the mind. It is deep in the soul. Wherever there is Light, there is expansion. Expansion of what? Expansion of Truth. Light is the constant expression of Truth. Light and Truth go together. Darkness and conflict go together.

The light that we say we get from friends, relatives and worldly people is no real light. It is only a chain of thoughts and ideas, which we give value to. We always feel that others have more understanding and more knowledge than we. But I wish to say that you will have more light than anybody when you stay in the soul. Your soul has infinitely more light than anybody who is giving you intellectual information or outer knowledge.

Now how can you enter into the soul in order to see, feel and utilise the Light? You can reach the light by throwing off fear, the fear that is around you, in front of you, behind you and ahead of you. You are the victim of fear both in your own life and in the life of your loved ones: fear about your children, your friends, your country, your earth. If you have fear, you cannot enter into the soul and get the soul's Light. So please try to discard fear from your outer and your inner life. Then you will see that you are constantly being nourished by your soul's Light. A sincere aspirant also receives light when he enters into the Master's consciousness. The Master's consciousness is always inundated with spiritual Light, the Light of the Beyond.

Light and aspiration go together. Light reveals and manifests life only when aspiration ceaselessly feeds our inner hunger.

Love

First of all, let us try to know what love is. If love means to possess someone or something, then that is not real love, not pure love. If loves means to give oneself, to become one with everything and everyone, then that is real love. Real love is total oneness with the object loved and with the Possessor of love. And who is the Possessor of love? God. Without love, we cannot become one with God. Love is the inner bond, the inner connection, the inner link between man and God, between the finite and the infinite.

Love is the secret key to open God's Door. We must always approach God through love. The first step is love; the second step is devotion; the third step is surrender. First we have to love God; then we have to devote ourselves to Him alone; and finally we have to be at His Feet and fulfil ourselves. So if we go through our life's journey with absolute love, we can never fail to reach God or fulfil Him in our own lives or in humanity. Where there is pure love, divine love, there is fulfilment. Where there is no divine love, it is all misery, frustration and, ultimately, spiritual death.

Your children need your love. Your wife needs your love. But you need God's Love. God is ready to give you His Love. But you are not ready. You are ready to give your love to your daughter and your wife. But they are not ready. When you are ready to receive Love from God, to your amazement you will see that your wife and children will also be ready to receive love from you. Not one second before!

As we cannot exist on earth without life, so also God does not and cannot exist without His all-embracing, all-nourishing and all-fulfilling Love.

Luminosity

Luminosity is one of the divine qualities of the soul. But each soul need not and does not express itself through luminosity. It can use other divine qualities such as Peace, Bliss and Power. One does not have to cry for luminosity. Luminosity is bound to come if one is absolutely pure in the physical, genuinely sincere in the mind and soulfully aspiring in the heart.

Multiplicity

The outer voice of Multiplicity is human personality. The inner voice of Multiplicity is Divine individuality. Let us listen to the dictates of the inner voice … always!

Nirvana

No mind, no form, I only exist ...

The final end of Nature's dance,

I am It whom I have sought ...

I barter nothing with time and deeds;

My cosmic play is done.

[From "The Absolute"]

When one's cosmic play is done, one enters into Nirvana, the Nirvanic state. If one is a tired soul and wants to go beyond the conflict, beyond the capacities of the cosmic forces, then Nirvana is to be welcomed. Nirvana is the cessation of all earthly activities. This world is the playground of the dance of the cosmic forces, but when one enters into Nirvana, the cosmic forces yield to the ultimate highest Truth and there the Knower, the Known and the Knowledge or Wisdom are like three angels blended into one. At that time one becomes both the Knower and the Known.

If one does not have the experience of Nirvana, one usually cannot know what illusion is. According to some spiritual teachers, the world is Maya, an illusion. Then one enters into Nirvana one realises what illusion is. Nirvana is the static oneness with God. There, everything comes to an end in the static Bliss. This Bliss is unimaginable, unfathomable, indescribable. Beyond Nirvana is the state of Absolute Oneness. This oneness is the dynamic oneness with God.

Nirvana is a very, very, very, very high state. However it is not the highest state for the divine worker. If one wants to serve God here on earth, then he has to come back into the world again and again to serve the Supreme in humanity. If one wants to manifest the Supreme in the field of creation, then one has to work in the absolute dynamism of the Supreme and not rest in Nirvana. This does not mean that the divine worker cannot have the experience of Nirvana. The experience of Nirvana is at the command of all God-realised souls. But Nirvana is for those who want to be satisfied with the static aspect of the Brahman Supreme. If one wants to embody both the static and dynamic aspects of the Supreme, then I wish to say that one should go beyond Nirvana and enter into the field of manifestation.

Patience

Patience is not an unconditional surrender to universal suffering. No. Patience is the realisation of one's own unlimited Consciousness. Patience is the fruit of Eternity. God most effectively looks and sees through your Patience-Light. You try to see most soulfully through God's Compassion-Light.

Peace

God has infinite children, but the name of His fondest child is Peace.

Perfection

Everything has dawned on earth save Perfection, perfect Perfection. For man's perfect Perfection, two things are required: God's absolute Will and Eternity's Patience.

Prana

Prana is a Sanskrit word meaning life-breath, life-force, life-energy. Prana is a cosmic Force or a cosmic Energy which operates in the physical body. Human life has a short span in which the prana lasts for forty, sixty or eighty years. But the cosmic Energy in its own sphere lasts for eternity. There is a connecting link between the cosmic Energy, which is infinite, and the prana, as this energy is called when it enters into our physical body. This link is the soul. The soul and the prana work together. It is the soul which calls the prana into the physical body for a short span of years. Then when it is God's Will, the connection breaks between the cosmic Energy and the prana enclosed in the physical frame. At that time we lose the body and die.

When we meditate, if we can become conscious of our breathing, it will help us to become conscious of the great divine Breath, of which we are the instruments. When we start to meditate, if the flow of prana is spontaneous, steady and unobstructed, then the inner being is in a position to bring forward the inner wealth and make the outer personality feel, fulfil and realise the Highest.

Now how can we make the best use of this life-breath, this prana? It is through purity. The purer we can be in our inner and outer life, the easier it will be for the life-force to act in accordance with the Will of God. When prana becomes one with the cosmic will, immediately we see a great achievement, a grand achievement in our inner life. That achievement may come to us in the form of peace, in the form of joy or in the form of fulfilment. When prana, the life-force, is used in the service of the Supreme, we become the greatest pride of the Supreme.

Progress

Just say that the past is dust. Lo! You have made enormous progress.

Just tell yourself that your name is adamantine Determination. Lo! You have made genuine progress.

Just think that your Master loves you much more than you love him. Lo! Your progress is really remarkable.

Purity

There is a flower deep inside your heart and the name of that flower is Purity. Purity is man's everlasting link with God's immortal and infinite Life.

Spiritual reflection

Through pure meditation, pure thought, we are in a position to reflect upon our inner divinity. If we can stay for five minutes without any thought in our minds — whether divine or undivine, good or bad — then we immediately get the reflection of our soul. This inner soul represents our divine perfection in both our outer and inner life. We have to remain all the time deep inside the inmost recesses of our inner being, for it is from here that the actual inner illumination comes to the fore. This is spiritual reflection.

Renunciation

From the strict spiritual point of view, so-called earthly renunciation is not necessary for an aspirant. If renunciation means leaving one's family, not caring for society or humanity, then I wish to say that no matter what we renounce today, there will be something else to stand in our way tomorrow. Today the family is the obstacle; tomorrow it will be our friends or relatives; the day after tomorrow it will be our country and the day after that, the world. There is no end to this kind of renunciation.

Renunciation can never be applied to the world or to our dearest ones. If somebody says he is going to renounce the world in order to realise God, then I wish to say that he is mistaken. By leaving everyone, whom is the person accepting? God? No! God is in each human soul. Today he will renounce the world and tomorrow he will find that the God he is seeking is nowhere else. God is in the world itself. It is his attitude that prevents him from seeing God in the world.

The seeker has to try to see God in humanity. In order to see God in humanity, he has to remove the veil of ignorance that lies between him and the rest of the world. When the veil is rent, when the veil is, in fact, removed, there is nothing to be renounced. One sees God, one feels God, one is in God here and beyond.

Certainly we have to renounce in the spiritual life. But we are not going to renounce individuals; we are going to renounce qualities, the qualities which stand in the way of our union with the Divine. We are going to renounce doubt, imperfection, ignorance and death. When we enter into the spiritual life, we get the opportunity to renounce or, rather, to transform these things. When we speak of renouncing or transforming something, we immediately think of ignorance. Truly it is the one thing that we have to transform in our spiritual life.

But again, at times we see that we do have to sacrifice our dearest ones in order to realise God; there is no alternative. At those times we have to feel that those whom we call the dearest are not really the dearest. The really dearest is God. Then if we enter into the real Dearest, who is God, we will see that we are making no sacrifice at all. Real sacrifice comes when we feel that our ignorance is something that has to be transformed. At that time what we sacrifice is our limitation and stupidity.

Sacrifice

There is no such thing as sacrifice in the inner world, in the soul's region. Where is the sacrifice if we really feel that we are all one? When my leg is injured, I use my hand to bandage it. At that time I do not feel that my hand is making a sacrifice for my leg. Similarly, in the spiritual world, when it is a matter of oneness, total oneness, who is making a sacrifice for whom? We are one family, children of God, like limbs on the same body. When one particular limb helps another, we don't say that it is sacrifice. So what we do for humanity, we do on the strength of our oneness and not on the strength of our superiority. Here we are only expanding our limited consciousness into the unlimited.

Self-acceptance

Each individual has to accept himself as he is: half ignorance and half knowledge. Unless we accept ourselves in totality, as part ignorance and part knowledge, we can never reach the Goal. First we have to accept the darkness and light together. Then we have to give more importance, infinitely more importance, to the light in us. Then only will the ignorant, obscure part in us be transformed. But if we accept ourselves only in part, separating our darkness from our light, we are only covering up and fooling ourselves. We are only hoping that the darkness will disappear. But this is a terrible mistake. Bright and dark should first be accepted as one and only then, through our aspiration, can we pay all attention to light. And when we pay attention to light, light automatically spreads and darkness disappears. At that time we shall become totally what we are. What we are is God in the form of manifestation, Self-manifestation.

Selflessness

Selflessness has its true significance only in some higher ideal, higher reality, higher truth. Selflessness has to have an ideal in order to fulfil itself. For the seeker of the ultimate Truth, selflessness means to embrace the ideals of the realised Master, the Guru. The disciple's selflessness is his conscious inner cry for oneness with the Master — the Master's ideals and the Master's mission on earth. Total oneness with the Master's ideals is the supremely significant task. If one does not identify with the Master's consciousness, then one can never selflessly serve his ideals. So I wish to tell you that there can be nothing more important, more significant than selflessness. It is the real prize that God cherishes in your aspiring heart; it is the peerless treasure of the Supreme.

Self-realisation

Self-realisation is man's first and foremost Goal. In self-realisation man's aspiration grows eventually into the very Image of God.

Self-reliance

When your consciousness is in the physical, self-reliance will lead you to self-annihilation. When your consciousness is in the soul, self-reliance will lead you to Self-realisation. When your consciousness is in your Master, self-reliance will at once be fed by your Master's purest concern and God's sweetest Blessing.

Shyness

Shyness is sweetness. It is sweetest only when it expresses itself through the flower-like heart of a child. Shyness is divine only in absolute innocence.

Sincerity

Let each human being be sincere and not stupid. Let each human being always separate his soulful sincerity from his naked stupidity. When you are sincere to God, you realise the Truth. When you are sincere to yourself, you become the Truth.

Soul's cry

The disciple's soul cries for the Guru's infinite Compassion. The Guru's soul cries for the disciple's eternal love for God. God cries with boundless Joy when He sees that His two sons, Guru and Disciple, love each other, need each other and fulfil each other.

Supreme sacrifice

To please the Supreme, if you embrace death, that will be your Supreme Sacrifice. To please mankind, if you renounce your own Immortality, that will be your Supreme Sacrifice. When your life grows into spontaneous sacrifice, you become God's unique instrument, His unparalleled representative here on earth.

Surrender

Surrender means immediate progress. Surrender means spontaneous joy. Surrender means the matchless wisdom of the aspiring soul. Surrender means the perfection of human aspiration.

Man's unreserved surrender means God's unconditional acceptance. Surrender is the brightest and most effective key to open the Supreme's Heart's door at every moment in the all-aspiring life of a true seeker.

Tolerance

The Supreme is dearest to us because He is All-Tolerance. But when we go deep within we see that it is not tolerance at all. It is His all-loving Oneness. The Supreme expresses Himself through human imperfection, human limitations and human failure, not on the strength of tolerance, but on the strength of His spontaneous, soulful Concern for His children.

Truth

The doubting mind says that there is only one Truth: that the existence of God is a piece of colossal imagination. The aspiring heart says that there is only one Truth: God is, God exists. The all-offering and all-surrendering soul says that there is only one Truth: God-realisation is yours.

God has infinite names, but of these infinite names, Truth is His all-loving and all-fulfilling name.

Unity

Man does not need many things. He needs only one thing: Unity. Human unity is lip-deep. Human unity is a far cry.

God cries only once. God cries because He is not fulfilled. Only human unity can fulfil God's Vision in Heaven and God's Reality on earth.

Virtue

To be an honest person, to tell the truth, to do nice things that others may follow, to have a wonderful heart, a noble character: this is virtue. But the greatest virtue lies in the embodiment of Truth. This is not the ordinary truth, but the real Truth which says, "I am the Truth." The ordinary truth says, "Now I am telling lies, now I am telling the truth." But the real Truth is something different. The real Truth holds the entire creation. At present we separate Creation and Truth. We say Creation is here; Truth is there. But when we speak of the real Truth, it is all oneness. The Ultimate Truth is absolute oneness with everything in the universe. And that Oneness we all have to become.

The vital

The Vital embodies either divine dynamism or hostile aggression. When the aspirant brings the soul's light to the fore, the hostile aggression changes into the divine dynamism and the divine dynamism is transformed into the all-fulfilling supreme Reality.

Divine will

The divine will abides in the inmost recesses of our heart. This divine will tells us that we can do everything provided it is God's Will. Now how is it that the divine will in us can be separated from God's Will? The divine will that we have inside us is limited in comparison to God's infinite Will, just because we are still in ignorance. But once we can cast aside the veil of ignorance through aspiration, through constant aspiration, then the divine will within us can respond to the highest infinite Will above, and be fully at one with it.

Human will

Our human will is nothing but continual empty starvation. Our Divine Will is continuous, gradual, sure and ultimate Self-realisation. Our human will can grow into our Divine Will if we know whom to love, why to love and how to love. Whom should we love? God. Why should we love Him? Because He is All-Love. How should we love Him? Just by feeling that we are entirely God's and shall remain His and His alone through Eternity.

Spiritual wisdom

Wisdom can be physical, vital, mental, psychic and spiritual. Spiritual wisdom is the highest and deepest wisdom. Spiritual wisdom is the natural, spontaneous recognition of Truth. If we want to define spiritual wisdom in one short sentence, then we can say that spiritual wisdom is the spontaneous recognition of one's inner Being, inner Reality. God is yours. This is the true spiritual wisdom. You are God's. This is the true spiritual wisdom. Your inner cry and God's infinite Bounty are inseparable and indivisible. This is the true spiritual wisdom.

Without spiritual wisdom, we can never act the way the Supreme wants us to act. Spiritual wisdom is the first and foremost prerequisite for our absolute acceptance of God and, finally, for God-realisation. Spiritual wisdom is not only the greatest help, but God's peerless Blessing to the sincere aspirant. He who has spiritual wisdom is sure to realise God in this world, here on earth. And in God-realisation alone is the truest spiritual wisdom.

Editor's note

On a few occasions at his different spiritual Centres, Sri Chinmoy has asked his disciples to give him a spiritual word or concept which they wanted to know more about, and then he spontaneously spoke about it. This book is a compilation of Sri Chinmoy's spiritual comments.