Aspiration7

Dear seekers, dear brothers and sisters, I wish to give a talk on aspiration. In the spiritual life, there is nothing and there can be nothing more important than aspiration. Aspiration is our inner cry for the highest Absolute. Aspiration is the eternal road. Aspiration is the eternal guide. Aspiration is the transcendental Goal.

A man of aspiration knows that what he has is human knowledge. Human knowledge is limited or unlimited ignorance. Aspiration is divine knowledge. Aspiration knows what binds us and what liberates us. What binds us is ignorance-night; what liberates us is wisdom-light.

Aspiration does not and cannot learn anything from or with the physical mind. Aspiration learns everything through the heart, through the heart's perfection. Aspiration is not head-learning; aspiration is heart-becoming. Head-learning doubts. Doubt is slow poison in our spiritual system. It obliterates our purity, our serenity, our reality and our profundity. Heart-becoming is founded upon our faith, our self-giving and our feeling of universal oneness. Heart-becoming accepts. In acceptance looms large the message of total satisfaction, for through acceptance we eventually transform imperfection into perfect Perfection. First we see and accept a thing which is undivine. Then, on the strength of our inner light, we give it a new life. Finally we make it supremely divine.

Aspiration is the acceptance of life and the transcendence of death. Aspiration is the transformation and transcendence of the death-force. Through our aspiration we try to establish a free access to the immortal life so that here on earth we can establish the Kingdom of Heaven. This Kingdom need not and cannot remain eternally imaginary. It must be established in our life of aspiration.

When we go deep within, we discover that aspiration is the very breath of God which we utilise for our own sake. Again, aspiration is the death of the ignorance of millennia. When ignorance comes to an end in a seeker, God claims that particular seeker as His chosen instrument and God manifests Himself here on earth through that seeker. There are two worlds on earth: the world of desire and the world of aspiration. In the world of desire, frustration looms large and the animal life reigns supreme. In the world of aspiration our satisfaction-flower blossoms petal by petal. In the world of aspiration, the seeker's dream is transformed into supreme Reality. The seeker comes to realise that God is man yet unmanifested, and that man is God yet unrealised. Man's realisation and God's manifestation take place when the seeker's entire being becomes all receptivity to God's ceaseless flow of Compassion and Light. On God's behalf, aspiration prepares our inner being. And on our behalf, aspiration welcomes and receives God. Aspiration welcomes the divine in us and fulfils the human in us. Man and God need each other equally and sempiternally. Man needs God to realise his transcendental Reality. God needs man to manifest Himself totally, integrally and universally on earth.

Aspiration expedites man's journey toward the transcendental Goal and accelerates God's manifestation here on earth. The seeker can expedite God's choice Hour provided his aspiration-flame every day climbs up high, higher, highest. Today, on the strength of his aspiration-flame, he reaches the Highest. Tomorrow, he comes down to reveal the highest transcendental Reality in the heart of aspiring humanity. Aspiration houses the outer world and the inner world, the world of realisation and the world of manifestation, the world of ego and the universe of universal oneness.

With aspiration we begin our journey, and with aspiration we continue our journey. Since there is no end to our journey, and since God is infinite, eternal and immortal, our aspiration will constantly flow toward God's Infinity, Eternity and Immortality. There is no end to our journey. Aspiration is the endless road that leads eternally toward the ever-transcending Beyond.


MMT 8. Queens University, International Centre, Kingston, Ontario, 22 March 1974

Sri Chinmoy, My Maple Tree, Bhakti Press, 1974