Acceptance

In the spiritual life, acceptance of reality is of paramount importance — not rejection but acceptance. We have to accept the world, we have to accept our life, we have to accept all our weaknesses and shortcomings to transform them and illumine them so that we may become perfect instruments of God. If there is no acceptance, we cannot perfect ourselves and fulfil the divinity within us.

Beauty

The divine beauty is not in merely observing the world in its sorrows and joys. The divine beauty is in becoming inseparably one with the sorrows and joys of humanity's life.

Compassion

The animal in us has no compassion. Even the human in us has no compassion. We use the word compassion, but it is nothing other than attachment. Only the divine in us has compassion, and this compassion is for the human in us and the animal in us. Our compassion is the life-changing miracle-power in us. With our divine compassion, we can raise the standard of humanity far beyond our imagination.

Courage

Without courage in the outer life we can still walk, but in the inner life we cannot cover even one metre if we do not have courage. Courage is of constant necessity to take one step ahead. Courage is the divinity in us that can take us into the infinite realm of silence, peace and bliss.

Delight

Delight is the spontaneous revelation and manifestation of our all-illumining soul.

Determination

Determination needs two friends to arrive at the Goal: sincerity of the heart and purity of the mind. When we have a purity-mind and a sincerity-heart, then determination can play its role most effectively and most powerfully inside our inner life and also inside our outer life. Determination is the first convincing step that expedites our Godward journey.

Devotion

Devotion is the magnetic power in us. If we use this magnetic power, then we can please God sooner than the soonest. God gives us a bridge, and the name of that bridge is devotion. Both the seeker in us and God frequently cross this bridge. God comes to us to take care of our aspiration. We go to God for peace, light and bliss. Devotion is the bridge between our receptivity and God's Divinity.

Effulgence

Effulgence we can have only inside our God-oneness-soul. Effulgence in infinite measure we can see inside our soul. When we see the effulgence of our soul, we become the choicest instrument of our Inner Pilot. Effulgence has the power to illumine our darkness and ignorance in the twinkling of an eye. Again, this effulgence is to be found only inside our all-loving, all-inspiring and all-giving soul.

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is our inner beauty. Enthusiasm is our inner determination. Enthusiasm is our love of God-oneness. Enthusiasm is the capacity to destroy the unaspiring past in us. Enthusiasm is the capacity to expedite our aspiration-journey. When we have enthusiasm in our body, vital, mind, heart and soul, God immediately starts playing, singing and dancing. Our enthusiasm is God's immediate Pride in us.

Faith

Faith shows us the way to arrive at God's transcendental Palace. When we have faith, ever-blossoming faith in our heart, God shakes hands with us, God embraces us, God crowns us and makes us sit on His Golden Throne.

Forgiveness

When we forgive the world, God proudly shakes hands with us. When we forgive ourselves and when we are determined to do the right thing, to become the right person, God immedi­ately comes and embraces us, and bles­singfully assists us to become what He wants us to become. To forgive the world is, indeed, a difficult task. But to forgive oneself is extremely, ex­tremely difficult. In the spiritual life, we are trying to become conscious. When we become conscious, we see how consciously and deliberately we have done many, many things against our own divinity, against our Lord Beloved Supreme. So it becomes very difficult to forgive ourselves. Again, if we cannot forgive ourselves, if we can­not forgive the mistakes we have made, then God feels that no matter what He gives us — peace, light or bliss — everything will be either rejected or misused. So forgiveness of oneself is of paramount importance. That is where we must start. We must forgive the darkness in us in order to trans­form that darkness into peace, light and bliss.

Grace

We all need Grace in abundant measure every day, every hour, every minute and every second so that we can grow into God-manifestation and God-satisfaction-will.

Gratitude

If there is any short cut in the spiritual life to arrive at the Golden Shore, then gratitude is the short cut. If there is a secret and sacred way to love, please and fulfil God, then it is the way of gratitude. Gratitude embodies and reveals all our divine virtues. It is by virtue of gratitude that we can bring down God's infinite Power, infinite Light, infinite Love. Gratitude is the master key to open up all the doors of Divinity's Palace.

Heart-power

There are many types of power, but only heart-power knows when God's God-Hour will strike. When God's choice Hour strikes, at that time heart-power receives peace, light and bliss in boundless measure from the highest Height of Reality and Divinity.

Inner fire

The outer fire burns. The inner fire transforms. The outer fire burns and extinguishes everything. The inner fire burns not to destroy, but to help us to please God so that God can employ us. We feed God with our heart's inner fire. We become God's direct representative by increasing the beauty of our inner fire.

Light

Light in the soul works most powerfully. Light in the heart sometimes works; sometimes it does not. Light in the mind on very, very rare occasions works. Light works more satisfactorily inside the physical body and inside the vital than inside the mind. Light cannot work inside the mind precisely because the mind is revolting all the time against our own inner divinity. The miraculous power of light abides inside our heart of self-giving to humanity, to God the creation.

Obedience

Obedience is the source of our love, devotion and surrender. He or she who has cultivated obedience, sleepless and breathless obedience, is the Himalayan pride of our Absolute Lord Beloved Supreme.

Oneness

Oneness in the heart is the fulness of life. The fulness of life is at once God's universal manifestation and God's transcendental Realisation. Today's oneness is tomorrow's fulness. Tomorrow's fulness is God's perfect manifestation here on earth.

Peace

If we have peace of mind, if our inner life is inundated with peace, God shares with us His infinite Secrets. If we have peace of mind in boundless measure, then God feels that we are becoming His representative on earth. Each peace-dreamer on earth is a special child of God. Each peace-lover on earth is a very special child of God. Again, each peace-distributor and peace-server on earth is a supremely beautiful, powerful and God-fulfilling child of God in a most surprising manner. Peace we need to become what God has in His universal manifestation and to become what God is in His transcendental Vision.

Perseverance

We all need perseverance in our dynamic vital to remain always under the direct Protection of our Lord Supreme and also to make progress not only in the vital but also in the body, mind and heart. If you have perseverance, then you can make fast progress.

Purity

Even by repeating the very word 'purity', one can develop adamantine will-power to protect oneself against ruthless attacks from the physical, vital and mental world.

Responsibility

In the spiritual life, the more we can accept responsibility, the more we can please our Lord Supreme in the manifestation of His Light here on earth. The more responsibility we accept, the more opportunity we get to manifest His Light here on earth.

Sacrifice

When you are not one with God the Creator, when you are not one with God the creation, everything that you do for another individual or for other individuals, you feel is a stupendous sacrifice. But when you become one with God and with humanity's life, heart and breath, then there is no such thing as sacrifice. It is only a oneness-song that you are singing in the God-aspiring, God-revealing and God-manifesting universal family.

Self-mastery

Self-mastery comes not from exercising our mental will-power. Self-mastery comes from God-obedience. Self-mastery comes through constant and conscious self-giving to the Will of God. There can be no fulfilment of God on earth if we do not have self-mastery. But this self-mastery has to come from our God-obedience, God-dependence, God-surrender, God-willingness and God-fulfilment. We can never develop or acquire the power of self-mastery unless our goal is God-discovery. Self-mastery is the very, very first step and God-discovery is the very, very last step of our God-climbing ladder.

Soul-delight

The soul cannot be separated from delight. Delight cannot be separated from the soul. The soul is the universal Beauty of God the creation and delight is the transcendental Fragrance of God the Creator. So if we want to swim in the sea of the soul's delight at every moment, consciously we have to increase our love of God, our devotion to God and our surrender to God and God's Will.

Supreme

When I pray, I feel that I am a chosen, supremely chosen instrument of my Lord Supreme. When I meditate, I know that He is going to be successful eventually in turning me into another God.

Surrender

The mind wants to dominate us, but if we surrender to the mind, then we only add more confusion to our life. If we surrender to our heart, which is in tune with the soul, then at every moment we surprisingly and perfectly grow into the universal Consciousness of our transcendental Reality. When we surrender to our heart, we know what God's Will is. Our conscious, constant, sleepless and breathless surrender to God's Will definitely expedites our God-manifestation-task here on earth.

Editor's note

On 3 January 1999, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sri Chinmoy requested the disciples present to offer him a spiritual word. He then spontaneously gave these twenty-seven commentaries.