Spirituality20

Spirituality is man’s conscious longing for God. Spirituality tells us that God, who is unknowable today, will tomorrow become knowable and, the day after, will become totally known.

We must need God for God’s sake. God can fulfil us in our own way, but it is we who will not be truly fulfilled when God satisfies us in our own way. Our crying heart, our aspiring heart, our illumining heart, will never be satisfied unless and until it pleases God in God’s own Way; therefore, our God-realisation is for God’s sake. Man’s perfection lies in God-satisfaction.

A beginningless beginning tells us that spirituality is an aspiration-plant. This plant grows and grows; eternally it grows. An endless end tells us that spirituality is a surrender-tree. This tree bears divine fruits, and these fruits come to us on the strength of our constant, conscious and surrendered oneness with our Beloved Supreme.

True spirituality is our conscious acceptance of life, not the annulment, not the negation, not the annihilation of life. We must needs accept life and radically change the face of life into the very Image of our Beloved Supreme. Spirituality says to the heart, “O heart, why do you remain insecure? Do you not feel that inside you the Almighty, the Lord Supreme, abides? You must not feel insecure, for it is you who can proclaim to the world at large that inside you is the living Presence of the Beloved Supreme. Of all the parts of the being, you have been chosen to be the first and foremost instrument to guide the mind, the vital and the body to the soul. The soul eventually will bring them to me.”

Spirituality tells the mind to remain silent. It says to the mind, “O mind, do not think any more. Your thinking power is nothing short of confusion. You confuse the other members of your family — body, vital and heart — and, at the same time, you are yourself confused when you indulge in the thought-world.”

Spirituality says to the vital, “O vital, do not crave. Do not crave for name and fame. Do not crave for anything, for even if you possess the things that you crave, these possessions will not satisfy you. Even inside these possessions there will be a cry for more possessions. You will always act like a beggar if you crave for anything. No matter what you get, you will remain dissatisfied and unfulfilled. So do not walk along that path. Your craving must come to an end. Do not crave anything.”

Finally, spirituality says to the body, “O body, how long will you sleep? Do you not know that you have been sleeping from time immemorial? It is because of your ignorance-sleep that the rest of the members of your family are not able to reach the Golden Shore, the Destined Goal. O body, sleep not! The Goal is only for those who are awakened. Awake, arise! The rest of the members of your family will run faster than the fastest the moment you become active and dynamic and cast aside the shackles of ignorance-sleep.”

Spirituality tells the seeker not to live in the hoary past, not to live in the remote future, but to live in the immediacy of today, in the Eternal Now. This Eternal Now embodies man the aspiring seed and God the all-nourishing Fruit.


20. St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University; New York, New York, USA, 11 July 1977