Sincerity, purity and certainty

Sincerity, purity and certainty: these three divine qualities perfectly rhyme. Sincerity is of paramount importance in the spiritual life. Sincerity and spirituality always go together. We are all in the spiritual life; we are all spiritual persons, or at least we claim to be. An aspirant can be sincere to his friends, relatives, neighbours and to the world at large, but he may not be sincere to himself. It is infinitely easier to be sincere to others than to be sincere to oneself. In his day-to-day life in the outside world, an aspirant almost always speaks the truth. But unfortunately, that very aspirant constantly tells lies to himself.

The aspirant is supposed to meditate early in the morning and he does meditate. What is his meditation? His meditation is his invocation of infinite Light, Peace and Bliss. It is his conscious effort to have nothing to do with the obscurity, impurity, imperfection and ignorance which he sees all around him. He is beyond it; he is above it. During meditation he makes a promise to himself that he will be pure, that he will be detached, that he will constantly aspire. It is his ardent promise to himself that he will not doubt himself, he will not fear anything, he will not be a victim to impurity and anxiety. But the moment he comes out of his room and enters into the wide world, consciously or unconsciously he falls a victim to impurity, anxiety, jealousy, fear and doubt. All his promises are broken as the day advances. Every day he makes an inner promise to his soul, to God, that he will be divine, he will be a chosen instrument of God, that he will listen only to the dictates of his inner being. Although he makes all these inner promises, he does not fulfil even one of them. His outer promises he very often keeps, but the inner promise to himself he cannot keep. Yet the inner promise has to be fulfilled first and foremost. When we can fulfil our inner promise, we will become our own true self; we will become our unparalleled inner divinity.

We have to breathe in purity as we breathe in air during our meditation and during our day-to-day activities. We have to think of purity consciously. We have an inner existence and we have an outer existence. Our inner existence is bound to be suffocated when it is impossible for us to breathe in purity. The cosmic Self, the universal Self, is always eager to supply us with purity in infinite measure. But we do not have the time, the necessity or the inclination to have it. If purity is not established in our inner life, our outer life is bound to fail sooner or later. In purity our divinity can grow; in purity our true life can flourish and have its fulfilment here on earth.

Purity in thought is extremely difficult to attain. Purity in outer action is easier, but purity in thought has to be achieved first. How can we have purity in the mind, in our thoughts and ideas? We can easily have this purity if we feel that we are not the body but the soul. The word 'soul' immediately brings purity to our mind in abundant measure. Purity will come to us; it has to come to us the moment we feel that we are not the body but the soul. Even if we do not know what the soul is, the very word 'soul' brings to our mind a sense of luminosity, a sense of divinity, a sense of unalloyed joy. And these divine qualities spontaneously give birth to purity.

The soul utilises the body to fulfil its mission on earth. When the body consciously becomes one with the soul, the body realises its purpose and significance on earth. Otherwise, the body will always remain blind, obscure, imperfect and, to some extent, undeserving. But on the strength of the body's absolute oneness with the soul, it becomes the greatest pride of the Absolute. Let us offer the body to the soul and become one with the soul. Let the physical mind become merged with the universal Consciousness which we are aspiring for. Let the physical mind that cherishes jealousy, fear, doubt and ignorance be offered to the soul which is the emblem of perfection in both the inner and the outer world.

Where is our Goal? It is not in the blue skies, it is not in the vast ocean, it is not in the distant desert; it is deep inside us, in the inmost recesses of our heart. Our spiritual heart is infinitely larger than the world. The world grows and flows inside the spiritual heart. If we can feel that our aspiring heart is the living Breath of the Supreme, then we are bound to feel that our cherished goal is within and not without.

In order to realise the goal, in order to reach the goal deep within, we have to renew our life and make it fresh every day. Each day early in the morning we have to revitalise our outer life with golden hope. This hope is not an idle dream; it is the precursor of the divinity which will manifest in and through our outer nature. It is our dynamic divine quality, our golden hope, that sees the Beyond even when it is still a far cry.

To see the Beyond, what is absolutely necessary is our certainty — our implicit faith in ourselves. We have to feel that we are God's chosen child. We have to feel that we embody infinite Light, infinite Truth and infinite Bliss and that now we have to reveal and manifest these divine qualities. Revelation and manifestation are absolutely necessary. The moment we start revealing and manifesting our inner divinity, we will see that we already embody infinite Truth, infinite Light and all the other divine qualities of the Supreme.

The supreme Goal is within. The Goal is crying for us, but we are looking for it elsewhere, where it does not exist. We cry for our own existence, which is full of fear, doubt, ignorance, pride, vanity and selfishness. But if we cried for God every day, if we meditated early in the morning for harmony, peace, bliss, plenitude and fulfilment, then only would we see, feel, realise and grow into our Goal. We would discover that our transcendental Goal is within and grow into its very image.

When we reach the transcendental Goal, we see that God and we are one and will forever remain one. Man and God, the aspirant in man and the saviour in God, are totally one. Each fulfils the other. One fulfils through his soul's gratitude; the other fulfils through His Soul's infinite Compassion. Gratitude and Compassion fulfil each other — gratitude from the aspiring soul of man and Compassion from the illumining Soul of God.