Spirituality³

Spirituality, according to my knowledge, understanding and realisation, is a house, and God is the resident of this house. Now this is the realisation of the beginning seeker in me. But when the seeker in me is well-advanced, he says that the house and the resident of the house are one and the same.

In the beginning, it is extremely easy for us to think of God as the Creator and not as the creation, because when we look around we see that God's creation is full of imperfection.

At the dawn of his spiritual awakening, a child asks his mother, “Where is God?” The mother immediately answers, “God is in Heaven.” Then the child asks, “Where is Heaven?” The mother’s immediate answer is, “Heaven is up in the sky.” The child is satisfied; he feels that his mother’s answer is quite adequate. Then when the child grows older and goes to a church for religious training, the child asks his teacher the same question: “Where is God?” The teacher may say that God is in Heaven or that God is in the child’s own heart. Years later, when the child enters into his young adulthood, he may want to go deep within and see for himself where God is. Then eventually he comes to hear about spiritual teachers who have realised God. He goes to a spiritual Master and asks about God’s authenticity. When he is convinced that God does exist, his immediate question is, “Where is God?” The spiritual Master will tell him that God is everywhere and in everything. But until the seeker has realised God himself, this will be just mental knowledge. He must go deep within in order to feel these truths.

God is in the “yes” of the heart, and God is in the “no” of the mouth. When the heart says “yes,” God exists inside the “yes”. God is visible; He is really there. But when we try to speak about God, very often we are subject to doubt and our own inner feelings are confused. The mouth says, “No, no God,” but God exists even in the mouth that denies Him. It is only in the heart, however, that we can feel, see and grow into the highest Divinity.

We need God. Why? We need God because we are wanting in satisfaction. We have everything save and except satisfaction. A child is not satisfied with what he has. Today his father can give him ten toys, but tomorrow he will want to have more. An adult may have two cars, but he will feel that he needs three cars or two much more beautiful and expensive cars.

We can easily see that material possession rarely gives a person satisfaction. Only when we aspire and go deep within can we see the face of abiding satisfaction. We try to satisfy ourselves with desire-life, but we fail; we badly fail. Then we try with aspiration-life, and we succeed, we easily succeed. But among those who aspire, there are some who aspire to become great but not necessarily to become good. There are some seekers who enter into the spiritual life because they want to have worldly power, and they hope that God will grant them this boon. These so-called aspirants are not satisfied with the world as it is at present. They want to govern the world in their own way, and show their inner realisation or their spiritual supremacy to the world. Those seekers can never be God’s chosen instruments. Only those who aspire for God-realisation, for the sake of fulfilling and manifesting God in His own Way, can offer satisfaction to humanity. The seeker feels that it is his dedicated and unconditional service that can save and transform humanity, and not his wise wisdom.

There is a way to see God face to face. There is a way to grow into our inner Divinity. There is a way to perfect the face of the earth. But who can show the way? The Inner Pilot, the inner Being. But where is that inner Being? Who can tell us about the inner Being? Very often we hear a voice or get a feeling from within, but this is not always the voice of the heart. It may be the voice of our demanding vital, or the voice of our doubting or sceptical mind.

At this point who can help us? Who can take us into the inner realm of our consciousness where we can distinguish the voice of our Inner Pilot? A spiritual Master can do this. A spiritual Master teaches the seeker how to enter into his own heart and how to listen to the dictates of his own inner Being. He can easily lead the seeker to the realm of his inner consciousness and make him feel and hear the voice of the Inner Pilot. The Inner Pilot is the real guide, the only guide. Until one has free access to the Inner Pilot, a spiritual Master is of paramount importance.

How can one know who his spiritual teacher is? One can easily know provided he does just a few things. First he has to silence his mind. There can be no doubt, no thought-waves, no negative or positive forces in the mind — nothing, nothing. When the seeker sees that he has become the possessor of a calm and quiet mind, he asks his dear friend, heart, to choose its proper Master. His heart looks at the spiritual Masters and makes the choice. When the heart sees a spiritual Master, if it is overwhelmed with joy, then there is every probability that that spiritual Master is the right one for the seeker. But when the heart sees a spiritual Master and can make a solemn promise that it will please this Master in his own way, without asking anything in return, then that is most certainly the right Master. When the seeker sees a teacher and finds his entire being inundated with joy, and if he wants to go one step ahead and say, “I will give you my whole existence, my inner and outer existence with no expectation, to serve you, to love you, to fulfil you,” then he and his Master will definitely be able to please each other. If the seeker can dare to make that kind of promise to the Master, if this promise comes from the very depth of his heart, then without doubt this particular Master is his.

Otherwise, a seeker may think that because so-and-so has ten thousand disciples, naturally he is a great teacher. Well, he may be a great teacher, but he may not be your teacher. Your spiritual teacher is only he whose very presence will make you swim in the Sea of Light and Delight. Your teacher is the one to whom you will want to surrender your entire existence.

Your Master will make you feel and discover that the inner treasure that you are searching for, and have for millennia been searching for, is within you and at your command. It is not the sole monopoly of the spiritual Master. As he has it, you also have it as your very own; it is your birthright. Inside you is the coffer, inside you is the key. Unfortunately, you do not know where the coffer is hidden or what is inside it. The Master just shows you your key and helps you to open the box. Then, to your wide surprise, you see that the infinite wealth which is inside belongs to you and nobody else.

Right now, realisation is a far cry. It is a distant, unrealised dream. But today’s dream is tomorrow’s reality. Today we are living in a cottage, let us say the cottage of dreams. Tomorrow we shall be living in the palace of Reality. Today we are crying to see just once the Face of God. If we can see the Face of God only once, we feel that our life will have a purpose. Once we see the face of our Beloved Supreme, our dream will become a reality. And sooner or later, on the strength of our aspiration, we shall definitely see the face of our Beloved Supreme.

But we shall not be satisfied with that joy, with that reality. We will soon have another dream, a higher dream, to be blessed and embraced by our divine Pilot Supreme. This dream, too, will one day be fulfilled. But again, we will not be satisfied with this reality, either, with being blessed and embraced by God. We will have a third and last dream. This is the dream of becoming inseparably one with the Absolute Supreme and of growing into His transcendental Illumination, Perfection and Infinity. This is our last dream, and for that we aspire, aspire for years, for lifetimes, for centuries. But at last all our dreams bear fruit, all our dreams are manifested in the form of reality.

We are now living in the world of dreams, but these dreams are not mental hallucinations. These dreams are not the result of vague ideas. These dreams are the precursors of a new dawn. In the new dawn we will see the God-touch, God-realisation, God-revelation and God-manifestation on earth.