Beauty

Beauty. Beauty without light is a flower without fragrance.

Outer beauty and inner beauty should be filled with fragrance — not with perfume, but with all the fragrance of a flower. We are all flowers and we have to feel at every moment that we are dedicated at the Feet of the Highest Lord Supreme.

He who aspires enters into beauty: beauty that makes his life fruitful in the highest realm of consciousness and meaningful here in the field of manifestation. The beauty that we see around us, we can utilise to go deep within. The beauty that we feel and embody, we can use to perfect God's outer creation.

Beauty is the sacrifice of human life and the smile of divine realisation. The moment the human in us is sacrificed, the Divine in us gets the strongest opportunity to grow. Human sacrifice and God's fulfilling creation can and must go together.

God's Beauty liberates man. Man's beauty binds God. Man's beauty is his sacrifice. On the strength of his sacrifice, man can bind God. God, on the strength of His own inner Beauty, which is All-Beauty, can throw infinite Beauty into the sea of human reality.

When man seeks for the Highest, God is more than eager to offer the Highest to man. Man's human beauty climbs up to the Highest. God's divine Beauty descends into the lowest plane of human life.

Each seeker not only has the capacity to become, but eventually must become the beauty of the soul, the beauty of Reality's ideal, which is the highest self-discovery.

Compassion

There are two kinds of compassion: one is called human compassion and the other is called divine Compassion. In human compassion we often see quite a few undivine things. We see the exaggeration of one's false capacity. That is to say, while showing compassion, one deliberately and consciously overestimates his true inner feeling for somebody else. Everybody says that he is compassionate, but there is great deception in his compassion. It is not actually compassion that he is offering to the needy, but an overestimated opinion of himself.

In the matter of compassion, very often man is fooling himself. He says he is compassionate to so-and-so. But there is a form of inner weakness in him that is either not allowing him to open to the Light, or not allowing the victim to open to the Light. How can a human being, unless and until he has abundant inner light, show compassion to a sufferer? A blind man cannot show light to another blind man.

But again, inside a human being divine Compassion can and must exist. This divine Compassion is spontaneous Delight. In it there is no feeling of separativity, no feeling that one is superior and the other is inferior. No! It is a feeling of oneness. Delight unites us and the sufferer whom we are going to help.

Whenever an aspirant says that he is offering compassion to his fellow beings, he has to know if it is really Delight that he is giving or something else. If he feels that he is superior, that he has something unusual, something extraordinary to offer, then he is mistaken. He has to feel that it is Delight that he is offering. Delight he has and the other person also has. But right now the other person's Delight is not operating, while his is operating.

From now on let us try to feel that the divine Compassion means the divine Delight, and that human compassion is very often treacherous and full of self-deception. Let us try to use only the divine Compassion in and through our life.

Creativity

Each person is meaningless and fruitless if he or she does not enter into the field of creativity. Without inner and outer creativity, man is nothing but a great failure, not only in the eyes of humanity, but in the Eye of God, too. Each soul is endowed with creativity. But the soul finds it extremely difficult to convince the mind, the vital and the physical that they can consciously co-operate with the soul, that they all can create together and fulfil the Divine here on earth.

Creativity does not mean that one has to write poems or articles, or compose songs. Creativity means one's inner concern for the expansion of what he is or what he has. When one consciously wants to go beyond his capacity and beyond his achievement, only then do we find real creativity, only then can creativity have its proper value, worth and purpose.

Where does one find the source of creativity? If one wants his creation to be permanent and eternal, then that creation must come from the soul — not from the mind, not from the vital, not even from the heart. In the heart, in the mind, in the vital and even in the gross physical, one can also see creativity, but the achievements of that creativity can never be lasting. It is only the soul's creativity that can be abiding. So creativity can be in the physical, in the heart, in the mind, in the soul — anywhere. But if it is in the inner life, the soul's region, then only can the aspirant be truly happy.

Each moment man can create in the inner world. He can easily bring his creation to the fore through his constant inner urge. Without creativity, man is no better than an animal. With creativity, man can divinely claim that he is God's true and worthy son. One who really creates something, inner or outer, but especially inner, is God's true Pride. Creativity man must cherish; creativity he must adore.

Discipline

The body's discipline is sex-control.
The vital's discipline is aggression-control.
The mind's discipline is thought-control.
The heart's discipline is emotion-control.
Man's discipline and his soul's divine pride go together.

In the spiritual life, the role of discipline is most significant. An aspirant is spiritual just because he knows the meaning of self-discipline. Discipline is our inner awareness of Truth. Discipline is the total purification of our outer life.

A human being is not a monkey. He is not a donkey. He is a divine child. Right now he is unconscious of his Divinity. But tomorrow he will be fully conscious of his Divinity and he will grow into the sea of Divinity. We cannot expect discipline from animals; but we try to tame them, we try to discipline them. Animals do not have the conscious, developed mind. But we do have the mind. So we have every right to discipline our own nature. In the process of evolution we are far above the animals. We expect something higher and deeper from our life, and for that what we need is self-discipline.

There are two Sanskrit words: abhyasa and vairagya. Abhyasa means practice. We have to practise the spiritual life, and there is no other way to practise it than to meditate every day. Every day we eat; we feed our outer body. Similarly, every day we have to feed the soul, the divine child in us, through our aspiration. The practice of our self-discipline does not necessarily mean self-mortification. Far from it! Self-discipline is the inner light that tries to illumine the difficulties and obstructions on our way.

Vairagya means discretion and indifference to the gross earthly life. We have to feel that the world of pleasure is not for us. The world of Joy, the world of Delight is for us. Whenever we see pleasure, we have to know that pleasure will be followed by frustration. But Joy and Delight constantly grow in our inner nature and in our outer life if we know how to discipline ourselves.

There is a Sanskrit word called dama, which means control of the senses. We start with the senses. If we do not control the senses, we are no better than animals. Another word, shama, means control of desire and thought. A third is shama dama, control of the intellect. The intellect has to be transcended. If we do not put an end to our teeming, fruitless desires and to the life of our doubting, unfortunate mind, and if we do not go far beyond the domain of the spiritually barren intellect with its pride, vanity and dance of ego, then we can never hope to discover the hidden treasure deep within us.

Discipline and its practice are like the obverse and reverse of the same coin. We cannot separate discipline from practice; they have to go together. When we practise the spiritual life, God practises something in us and for us: the Game of His boundless Compassion. We have to know that the strength of our daily practice is very, very limited. But the power of God's Grace is unlimited.

Discrimination

Viveka means the Light in Power and the Power in Light of inner discrimination. The Power and Light of discrimination from within show us the Knowledge-Sun, offer us the Knowledge-Sun and reject and destroy the ignorance-night. According to my philosophy, Viveka means the inmost aspiration of our heart that constantly, devotedly and soulfully listens to the dictates of the soul. While listening to the dictates of the soul, Viveka bathes in the sea of the soul's effulgent Light and Delight.

Grace

One has to have faith in Grace. If we think that Grace is like a gentle stream of liquid, then we are mistaken. The mind will tell us that God's Compassion is like rain slowly falling into a bucket. Then we will have no confidence in God's Compassion, and we will feel it as something weak. We will say, "If I meditate for five hours, God's Grace will descend like a drop of honey." A drop of honey will be sweet, but it will not be powerful in our life.

If we feel that Grace is blind, we will think that it has no strength. And if we do not think Grace is strong, we will say, "How can Grace help us to fight against what is attacking us?" We have to feel God's Compassion as something infinitely stronger than that which is attacking us; then we will see what Grace can do. Otherwise, we will see Grace on one side fighting against some powerful undivine thing on the other side.

Grace is not like that. We must feel that Grace is many times stronger than an atom bomb. Only then will we have faith in Grace. When we think of it as an atom bomb or a hydrogen bomb, then we will feel that God's omnipotent Power is working, and naturally we will be convinced that we can conquer our enemies. If we feel that Grace itself is omnipotent Power, then only will we know that our weakness can be conquered. Otherwise, it will be impossible to conquer weakness. God's Will does everything, provided we know what Grace is, and what the capacity of Grace is.

All the progress that we make and that everybody makes is due to the Grace of the Supreme. Personal effort has no meaning here. What you call personal effort, for me is divine Grace. I have come to feel that there is no such thing as personal effort. It is the Grace that is asking me to speak to you and the Grace that is asking you to listen to me.

Perhaps we have brothers or sisters or friends who are not spiritual. Why, then, are we spiritual? We have become spiritual because the Grace of the Supreme has descended upon us. All our progress, in the sense of experience, is due to the operation of divine Grace.

Gratitude

Gratitude is one's feeling of concern for the Highest. As the Highest has concern for the lowest, the lowest also should have some concern for the Highest. We may ask, "What can we do for God with our concern?" We have to know what He will think of us if we live an ordinary, undivine, animal life. The answer is that He will feel miserable. He will think that we are not making any progress and are holding back His Manifestation. Our concern for the Highest makes us feel what we can do, and that very thing is to offer gratitude. This is one way of viewing gratitude.

There is another way to view gratitude. When we are about to be totally destroyed, our hope, our pride, everything that we have is shattered and smashed. But inside our utter hopelessness, helplessness, destruction and frustration, if we see a streak of hope, a streak of light, that hope or that light is gratitude. Like a magnet, our iota of light is pulling down a higher force which is entering into us to save us. The moment we have this magnet, it pulls down more of God's Grace and God's Love. The magnet is our inner cry, our gratitude, bringing down more Love from above.

Humility

God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. Why? Just because He is all Humility. We know by God's all-pervading Humility that He is God. God is infinitely greater than anybody else. He is infinitely superior to us in every way. Why is God with us, in us and for us, who are infinitely inferior to Him? We are following the spiritual life. When we meditate, what do we feel? We feel His Presence within our heart. Why should the One who is Infinite, the One who is dwelling in infinite Consciousness, stay inside tiny creatures like us, inside our tiny little hearts? We are the finite absolute. He is holding His infinite Consciousness inside our spiritual heart, which, according to the Upanishads, is as small as a thumb. Here in this tiniest possible corner, the Infinite is staying. Why? It is because of His Concern for us, and His Humility. It is because of His feeling of oneness with us. From the spiritual point of view, God is becoming totally one with us through His humble attitude. He knows what is best for us and for Him. That is why He has adopted this life of Humility.

We can launch into the spiritual life if we feel that God is the Doer and God is the Action. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna said to Arjuna, "Become a mere instrument." Right now, when we do something grand, we are bloated with pride. We proclaim, "I have done it, I have done it!" Our achievement makes us so unbearably proud that nobody can come near us. But when we see that we are not capable of doing anything, that it is God in us who is doing everything, humility enters into us. If we feel that we ourselves are not the doer, then automatically our sense of pride decreases. We do nothing; all is done by God within us. If we take a humble attitude, if we are really humble, basking in the sunshine of true humility, then the Supreme's Grace can act and we can run speedily to our Goal.

We must feel that out of His infinite Bounty, God is utilising us; we are not indispensable. He can utilise us today and tomorrow He can throw us away. The world needs us, but at the same time we must have the feeling that without us the world can go on. Very often people feel that the world needs them, that their friends, their family, all their relations need them. No! They all need God. And if God wants to, He can utilise them. The more we give the responsibility to God, the sooner we will become one with Him. As individuals and members of society we can do this. If we offer our responsibility to God and become mere instruments, then automatically we become one with God and with other human beings. Then our pride is diminished.

A tree is humble from the root right up to the top. When we identify with a tree, we get humility. The tree protects people against rain and against bright sun. When the tree bears many fruits, it bows down with these fruits and offers them to the world at large. The tree is at that time the possessor of wealth in the form of its fruits; it is all-powerful. When the tree has attained this wealth, it wants to offer it to mankind, so it bows down; it is ready to offer its achievement with utmost humility. Why? Because the consciousness of the tree feels that if it bows down with its branches, then others will benefit. When a tree bears fruit, it becomes a perfect servant to feed mankind. The tree could have been very proud, very haughty; it could have lifted its branches still higher because it had achieved something great. If it had been without leaves, without fruits, its branches would have remained always straight, dry and very erect and, we can say, arrogant. But no! This tree does have many fruits and flowers; it does have good qualities and it wants to offer these divine blessings to humanity.

Similarly, when spiritual Masters achieve their realisation, they come down to serve humanity. When they get the highest Light, they come down into the earth-consciousness to be of some help to the aspiring souls. The higher we go, the lower we can come down with compassion for mankind and the easier it will be for mankind to realise the Highest. When we have that kind of inner humility, we will become one with the Supreme and His entire creation.

Divine humility is very often misinterpreted and misunderstood. I wish to say that only when one is really spiritual can one be humble. People make a mistake when they think that spiritual Masters do not have humility. They do have humility. If they did not have humility, no spiritual Masters would enter into the mire of ignorance and bondage of the world. They have come out of bondage. They could easily stay in the Light of Perfection, in infinite Bliss and Delight; but they consciously and deliberately enter into the earth-consciousness. It is the Light of the Supreme that they use when they enter into unaspiring or aspiring human beings.

Sometimes spiritual Masters use divine authority. Divine authority is not to be confused with aggression, haughtiness, pride or vanity. Divine authority comes directly from the Supreme when the spiritual Master executes His Will. The Supreme says, "Do this," and the spiritual Master gives the message to a particular person. He just executes God's Will. The spiritual Master tries to put the same strength, the same power that the Supreme uses, into each word. This is not pride or vanity; it is only the Master's way of expressing the Truth or the Reality while announcing the Supreme's Command.

How can we become humble? If we know the secret of identification, we can become humble. Look at Mother Earth who is protecting us, nourishing us and giving us shelter in every way. How many bad things are being done to Mother Earth! Yet she is all-forgiving. Forgiveness is all-humility. Right in front of us we can see humility in a patch of grass. When we see grass with our human eyes, we feel that it is something unimportant. Anybody can step on it. But when we see it with our inner eye, we feel how great it is. Early in the morning when we see dew on the grass, we say, "How beautiful it is!" And just a few hours later we will be walking on it; yet it never complains or revolts. When we have the inner capacity to appreciate the grass, we say, "How humble and self-giving it is!" When we identify ourselves with grass, we see that it has a very big heart. Consciously or unconsciously, from grass we get a feeling of humility.

When we really have something to offer, and when we want to offer it with a devoted quality, then humility automatically comes to the fore. We have God's Blessing, and that is why we have some good qualities. But when someone does not have anything to offer, we say, "Naturally he has to be humble." But it is not so. The very fact that he does not have anything, that he does not have any good quality, means that it is impossible for him to cultivate humility. If he has no ordinary good qualities, how can he have the best, the most precious quality among all the divine qualities, which is humility? When somebody is really good, from him we can expect something. If he has some good qualities, then he can grow more good qualities.

First we have to try to grow more divine qualities. It is from one good quality that we get two or three more good qualities. We have to give more importance to the divine qualities than to the undivine qualities. Gradually, the divine qualities will conquer the undivine qualities in us, such as arrogance and stubbornness. And the more divine qualities we develop within, the sooner we will have the best, the absolutely most essential quality, which is humility.

While we are constantly achieving something, we have to remember to be humble in order to be of greater service to mankind. But first we have to know that if we want to become humble, it is certainly because we want to become happy. And in self-giving we become really happy. Real humility is the expansion of our consciousness and our service. Let us always try to develop these good qualities within us and then humility is bound to come.

With His infinite Light, God has become one with finite and insignificant creatures like us. The Infinite has entered into us. We are learning from God how the Infinite can show His feeling of oneness by identifying Himself with something inferior, something limited. Similarly, one person notices that God is within him. That ordinary human being sees that he is superior to someone else, just by one inch, or just for a fleeting second. Again, that other insignificant creature is superior to somebody else, who is one inch inferior to him. So these people should realise that they also can be humble to their inferiors. The more we identify ourselves with the ones who are a little undeveloped or awkward, or who are not in the same fortunate position as we are, the quicker we help mankind to reach the Highest.

There is false humility and there is real humility. False humility is what a slave shows to his master. Humility is not coming from his heart. A slave knows that if he does not obey his master blindly, if he does not show this kind of outer humility, the master will punish him. That is why he is very humble. The master knows that the slave is insincere, but in spite of that, the master keeps him because he gets the job done. Are all bosses fools when their employees and subordinates show them false humility? No. Some bosses like false humility and flattery. Of course, flattery itself is all false. When we seek appreciation from others, we get not appreciation, but flattery. When people are flattered, they are satisfied. When they notice false humility, they say, "Something is better than nothing. This person is showing humility, while others are only snubbing me; they don't pay any attention to me." This kind of person is satisfied with false humility.

But when the boss is God and the subordinate is man, God does not fire us; and we cannot flatter God. God has infinite Patience. If we are stubborn, if we are arrogant, God says, "All right, let some light dawn on them, and one day they will know what humility means, what the feeling of oneness means."

When we meditate, the first thing we have to know is whether or not we are humble in our inner, spiritual life and in our outer life. One who has an inferiority complex can never be really humble, but can only have false modesty or false humility. Inside, his heart is burning with jealousy, and he is all the time thinking of how to become equal to his superior and then surpass him, or how to belittle or destroy the good qualities of the superior. It is on very rare occasions that the inferior shows real humility towards the superior. In the ordinary life, the superior person does not have humility either; he is always bloated with pride. He is stronger and he is more powerful. But one who is really powerful spiritually is humble because he knows that the ones who are inferior are also part and parcel of himself.

By outer means, by outer behaviour, by courtesy, one can never become humble. Humility comes directly from the soul's light. When the soul's light is expressed in the soul's way by the physical being on the strength of absolute oneness with all human beings, this is divine humility. Nothing can enter an individual so silently and at the same time so convincingly as humility.

From the inner, psychic point of view, real humility and real strength go together. When one has real humility, one can have the soul's strength. At the same time, real humility comes directly from the soul, and it actually is the soul's strength. From the spiritual point of view, what we call in Heaven 'humility', we call on earth 'strength'. When the soul's strength wants to manifest in humanity, it does so through humility. If another force is used, people will not accept the Power or Light or Delight or Peace that is offered. But people will accept something when it is given to them with utmost humility. That is why the soul finds it extremely easy, in comparison, to inject human beings with humility.

When one really possesses Peace, Light and Bliss, he becomes humble. Then he descends into the inferiors, into those who also want to climb up and achieve the Highest. When a superior wants to enter into an inferior who has just started aspiring, it is always better to enter through humility. We use humility when we want to enter into the vital or into the physical of aspiring human beings. We use the soul's strength when we see that someone is already awakened and wants a further push. When one is aspiring and has gone a step forward in the spiritual life, if his inner urge is really strong, at that time we can use the soul's force. We use the power of the soul only in dealing with advanced aspirants who can receive Light and Power when these forces enter into them. So on various levels we use soul's humility or soul's strength, although they are one.

From the spiritual point of view, in divine humility alone can true dignity abide. Human dignity, if it is not purified, is all pride, ego and vanity. It is through false human dignity that we are constantly separating ourselves from the world. But when we have divine dignity, we say, "I am God's child. I am in everything and with everything; I have to be in the world's suffering and in the world's delight." At that time we can never separate ourselves from the world or from reality.

We have to know the purpose of each action of ours. If someone washes the dishes, immediately ordinary people will say, "Oh, such a mean job, such insignificant work he is doing!" But I say, no. This is the greatest job if we are doing it soulfully. Lord Krishna washed the feet of the kings, of the emperors, of the most important people, and he was declared the greatest man — an incarnation of God. When we act or when we say something in pure humility, there lies our divine dignity. Human dignity separates us from this divine dignity.

Humility does not mean that we will be always silent and shy, when inside we are criticising others' wrong actions and wrong judgements. Humility is the true inner wealth that unites us consciously with God. When we show humility to God, He feels that we really have some inner wisdom.

When we meditate here at our Centre, we should try to bathe first in the sea of humility. Otherwise, infinite Peace and Bliss we will not get. Spiritual Grace is like a torrent of rain. If we keep our inner door closed, we will get nothing. Let us open our inner door with the key of humility.

At home also, when we meditate, let us please feel that we are all heart. We are God's children and God's children are those who are really humble in their inner life as well as in their outer life.

We really need God. Let us step onto the first two rungs of the ladder of spiritual progress: simplicity and sincerity. These qualities should be bathed in the sea of humility. The Supreme is infinite. Him we can cherish. Him we can possess, embody, reveal and manifest with soulful humility. When we speak to our spiritual brothers and sisters, we should speak with utmost humility. This humility is immediately received by the Supreme in our brothers and sisters. Let us be humble to each other. We want the Supreme to be proud of each of His children at every second. In the spiritual life, humility is the key to open the door of Infinitude.

Imagination

We try to build castles in the air. We don't meditate for one month and then we try to imagine what is happening in the inner worlds. That is sheer stupidity. If we want to imagine something divine without meditating, it is useless; our imagination will all be false. But if we meditate with eagerness and then start imagining a little, at that time God will show us His Compassion and bring down Light for us. But even if we meditate first and then use our imagination, we should not use our imagination for longer than five or ten minutes. We should not use it for hours and hours. Also, early in the morning is the best time for us to exercise our imagination.

In the beginning of our spiritual journey, imagination is good. Through imagination we can increase our inspiration. In our imagination we want to become something or we want to achieve something. Then, with the inspiration from our imagination, we can go a step further to aspiration; we can aspire to do what we have imagined. Then from aspiration we go a step further; we go to self-sacrifice. What are we sacrificing? We are sacrificing our limited consciousness — not to a stranger, not to someone else, but to our own highest consciousness. When we have sacrificed ourselves to our own highest consciousness, we enter into that consciousness and become one with our Inner Pilot. When we sacrifice ourselves entirely, we get a sense of Self-identification; and in Self-identification, in our oneness with the Highest, there abides our realisation. When we are in the ordinary consciousness, we always see familiar faces. From day to day there is no change; everything is monotonous. But once we have realisation, we find that at each moment we are seeing the world in a different way. We see in our divine consciousness that the world is at every second having a new birth. So we can start our journey with imagination and then progress to inspiration, aspiration, self-sacrifice and finally realisation.

Patience

Patience is a tree that grows within us and produces not one fruit, but four fruits: wisdom, joy, peace and victory. Patience requires energy as well as the co-operation of the body, the vital and the mind. Without patience, the mind works automatically, like a machine. It moves by compulsion, not by choice. It is restless; it darts here and there. The body may be inert, but the mind is constantly roaming. There can be no peace without patience.

Patience is not inertia. Inertia is a negative and destructive way of approaching the Truth. It is stagnant, and that which is stagnant eventually leads to destruction. But patience is dynamic; it always goes forward towards the goal. Patience has the steady movement of growth and is always accompanied by peace. This peace can never be mistaken for inertia which is always accompanied by restlessness.

Peace

Peace itself is strength. When you have inner peace, you can have joy and delight when you enter into the outer world. The outer world can be under your control when you have peace of mind, even if you have only a little peace of mind. Wherever you go, you will make your own peace. If you do not have any inner peace to offer, the only qualities you will express are restlessness, aggression and other undivine things.

When a spiritual Master meditates with a group of seekers, several show that they are restless. The Master's Peace will not be affected by anybody's restlessness. On the contrary, the strength of his Peace will enter into all the seekers who are sincere. The Master maintains his inner poise and, after half an hour when the seekers go back into the world, they feel very peaceful. Peace the Master has put into them; then after half an hour or an hour, Peace, Light and Bliss are emanating from all of them.

The world is something very huge, but each person represents the world. You and I create the world by the vibrations that we offer to the world. Any little room, let us say, is a miniature world. If we can invoke Peace and then offer it to somebody else, we will see how Peace expands from one to two persons, and gradually to the world at large.

Receptivity

It is through identification of one's will with the divine Will that receptivity automatically increases. Receptivity is something elastic. If you make yourself like an elastic band, then your spiritual Master can pull you, expand you. We know that the capacity of an elastic band is limited. But again, if someone pulls the band, it can be expanded.

If there is no receptivity, then we cannot give anything to mankind. I tell my disciples, "If you do not have the capacity to receive, then how can I give you Peace, Light, Bliss and other divine qualities?" How many people are really receptive when I concentrate and meditate on them? Out of four hundred persons, perhaps twenty will receive what I offer. And the same persons do not receive every day; today, this twenty may receive; tomorrow, another twenty; and so on.

Before our realisation, when we do not know our Self, our problem is smaller. But when we discover our Self, when we understand our Self, when we know our Self, when we realise our highest Self, at that time the real problem starts: how shall we help mankind? At that time, if it is God's Will, we have to give, whether mankind accepts our offering or not.

Responsibility

The world is blessed with all kinds of complaints. Children do not listen to their parents, friends do not listen to their friends, husbands do not listen to their wives, wives do not listen to their husbands. But when we go to the root of all these problems, we observe in no time that it is the word 'responsibility' that is playing all the mischief. Everybody knows what the word 'responsibility' stands for. But what is true responsibility? In human life, there can be only one true responsibility, and that is to offer our unreserved dedication to God, the Supreme, with what we are and what we have. We know what we are: we are our own existence; and we know what we have: we have friends and family. Instead of taking the responsibilities of others, we must make it a point to offer ourselves, along with our family and friends, to the Supreme.

In the ordinary life we create responsibility to gratify and feed ourselves and that responsibility is based on ego. But spiritual responsibility is not based on ego. When the highest Power and highest Light enter into us, we expand. The expansion of our soul, body and physical mind is the expansion of the Divinity within us. Our responsibility, then, is not to show the world what we are doing, or what we stand for, or how much we have given it. Our responsibility is to feel that we must have God-realisation. In the true spiritual life, I wish to say that the cry for God-realisation is not a sign of ego; it is rather our constant awareness of the Truth, our awareness that the Truth has to be seen, felt, realised, revealed and manifested. It is the soul's responsibility that we feel as our very own, because the soul tells us constantly that God is ours, that we can reveal God and eventually become God.

Sacrifice

In our yoga we use the term sacrifice. First of all, let us take sacrifice in our ordinary day-to-day lives. Suppose you are a student. You want to study in the evening at seven o'clock for your examination. You want to prepare yourself to pass the examination, but exactly at seven o'clock there is a wonderful movie playing. If you go to the movie, then naturally you will be sacrificing your studies. In the ordinary life you will say that this is not a sacrifice; you feel like going to a movie and you just go. But no! If you become sincere, you will see that your ideas have changed. You feel that the movie will give you more satisfaction than your studies, so you go to the movie. When you are sincere, you will see that you have made a sacrifice of the time that you were going to use for your studies. And instead of going to the movie, if you study at home seriously and devotedly, you sacrifice your so-called pleasure for two hours in order to prepare for your examination.

In the ordinary world we see that sacrifice is of two types: the superior makes a sacrifice for the inferior, or the inferior makes a sacrifice for the superior. The inferior ones feel that by making their sacrifice for the superior, they are pleasing the superior. In their heart of hearts they feel that the superior will have a very secret, sacred corner for them in his heart. A labourer makes countless sacrifices to please his master. Again, in terms of his time, the master or boss can also make a very high, grand or sublime sacrifice for the labourer, his inferior.

The Lord Buddha wanted to sacrifice his own life when he saw that a goat was bleeding and suffering. His heart's compassion bled even for an animal. There have been spiritual saints in India who have wanted to give their lives to save a bird or some other animal. We see that their sacrifice is for the so-called inferior object, but their heart is so big that they want to make the tremendous sacrifice in order to save, protect and illumine the inferior one.

At every moment we get the opportunity to sacrifice. What are we going to sacrifice? We do not have to sacrifice our body, our home, our parents, our children and family. No! Sacrifice does not mean that. Sacrifice means that we have to give up the things which are not opening to the light. There are many things wrong with us; we have darkness, imperfection and limitation inside us. So we have to sacrifice them consciously to the light within us. From the spiritual point of view, sacrifice means the renunciation of our ignorance, our bondage. When we are unconscious, we cherish our ignorance and feel that it is something most necessary in our day-to-day life. But when we are conscious of ignorance-play and how it tortures us and binds us, we try to free ourselves from its meshes. And in order to free ourselves, we have to sacrifice our ignorance.

Sacrifice involves the total being: the body, the vital, the mind, the heart and the soul. In the spiritual life, sacrifice means that all that we have and all that we are in our entire being must be dedicated to the highest and deepest in us. At that time, the body will not have its own individuality; it will be the conscious play of the Divine in us. The mind will not have its own individuality. No! The mind will be a conscious instrument of the Divine, like the heart and the soul. The vital also will be a conscious instrument of the Divine.

Sacrifice does not mean that, by giving, we lose something. We sacrifice our limited self to our highest and largest Self, and at that time we immediately become the largest and the highest Self. Sacrifice does not mean that we will lose something and then be repaid. No! Sacrifice is something that enters into its origin. God started His creation with Love, and Love is oneness. Sacrifice is the feeling of oneness. When my disciples enter into my highest consciousness, at that time they become one with their own highest being and consciousness. When we offer something to the Divine with our mind, heart and soul, we actually become the Divine in our entire being. When we can sacrifice our entire being, we feel the Divine in ourselves. It is easy to do. In sacrifice we become the entire Divinity. We sacrifice the hunger of our body and the demands of our mind to our heart and soul. This sacrifice is not something mental. It is not something that someone can impose on us; at the same time, it is something that we can never avoid. It is the very breath of our existence. If we want to exist in God's world, then sacrifice is the only key to our human existence. It is the Breath of the Supreme. In sacrifice we come to know that we are all Divine.

When an aspirant wants to reach God, he cries inwardly day in and day out. At the end of his journey, he realises that he has made many so-called sacrifices. He did not get pleasure from any place he visited, he did not get joy from his friends or from his relatives. He went through so much hard, arduous, austere self-discipline. He felt that there were many things on earth which could have given him pleasure, joy and comfort, but he avoided them. He went to the Highest, the Goal. He made sacrifices.

Then, after reaching the Goal, perhaps he is told by the Supreme, "I won't allow you to stay always in the perpetual Delight. I want you to go down once again to earth and work for your brothers." If he listens to God, which he must do, then he is making a greater sacrifice. He wanted to come out of ignorance, the ignorant world, and he wanted to reach the highest abode of Wisdom-Light. He made many sacrifices and with greatest difficulty he realised God. Now, after reaching the Highest, God says that again he has to go back to the ignorant earth and work with the unlit, obscure imperfect, unaspiring mankind. This sacrifice is undoubtedly superior to the previous sacrifices that he made along his journey to realisation.

When we look at it from a human point of view, the very act of coming down into the world is a tremendous sacrifice. When one comes into the world after achieving full realisation, he must take on the burden of a human body and work in the physical consciousness. He has to bear all suffering, pain and, what is worse, the obstruction and imperfection of humanity. He has to work for the ignorant world and stay in ignorance. This ignorance is constantly ignoring him or biting and pinching him; the ignorant world is barking at him even while he is trying to transform it. He is offering his achievement to the world which is mostly ungrateful, mostly unaccepting, mostly callous. In Indian scripture this is called the supreme sacrifice because he could have remained in his highest Liberation-Realisation in the soul's world. He rejects his own Immortality in order to help mankind and free it from the meshes of ignorance. Then he carries humanity towards the infinite Light. His very act of carrying the suffering yet unwilling humanity is a tremendous sacrifice for him, in spite of his great inner achievement.

Again, when we go deep, very deep into the inmost recesses of our soul, we feel there is no such thing as sacrifice. We say that the mother makes a thousand and one sacrifices for her son. True, in the beginning the mother nourishes and takes care of the son. The mother sends the son to school. All kinds of sacrifices the mother makes. If she is poor, the mother herself won't eat; she will offer the child her own food. But all the time there is something that the mother cherishes and that thing is hope. Inside that hope is the future fulfilment of the son. And inside the future fulfilment of the son, the mother sees the expansion of her own light and consciousness, her own creation. These things the mother unconsciously feels. But a spiritual person consciously feels the ultimate result of his so-called sacrifice. When he enters into the Highest, he feels that there is no sacrifice, because the Highest embodies the lowest; it embodies the absolutely imperfect, the absolutely unaspiring.

When we say we are making sacrifices, from the ordinary point of view it is true. But from the highest point of view it is not true. If we say we are making the supreme sacrifice, where is our feeling of oneness? I don't make any sacrifice for myself. Whatever I do for myself, I feel that it is legitimate, it is right, it is my obligation to myself. It is I who want to make my life successful. I cannot separate my conscious will from my future achievement; my conscious will and my future achievement go together. Similarly, when we use the term 'sacrifice', we must see that in our sacrifice is the fulfilment of our conscious will. Unconsciously we call it sacrifice, but consciously we call it what is necessary to do, in order that we may sing and fulfil the song of oneness inside us and around us. Sacrifice, in the purest sense of the term, is a conscious way of becoming one with one's own highest, with the all-pervading Consciousness of the Absolute Supreme.

Sincerity

We always know whether we are sincere or not. Sincerity is not something that we have to be taught; it comes from deep within. When something comes to the fore from the inmost recesses of our heart, we are bound to be sincere. This is not true in the case of the mind. The mind is consciously negating things which have come directly from itself. This moment we think that something is true and we are ready to fight for it, and the next moment we discover that it is absolutely false. When our own realisation is dubious, if we build our assertion on it, then this assertion becomes totally insincere.

If our focus of concentration is in our heart and not in our mind, then easily we will be able to feel that what is coming to the fore from the inmost recesses of our heart is all sincerity. Inside the heart is the soul. The soul cannot be anything else but the flood of sincerity. More than that, it is the flood of spirituality. Through the heart the soul speaks most powerfully and most convincingly. So if we spend more time in our heart than in our mind, we are bound to know what sincerity is because nothing but sincerity will come from our heart. We have an inner vessel which is filled by God's Purity every day. This vessel is located inside our heart. And if we can cultivate our heart, we will see that we are collecting a bumper crop of sincerity every day.

Everybody wants to do something or be something. Many people would like to be very rich, but without working hard, or they want to get a Master's degree without studying hard. They would like to have everything, but they don't want to work for it themselves. If we are really sincere, then we will work very hard.

If we don't care to make progress, no matter how much opportunity we are given, we will not make progress. Each one has to avail himself of his opportunities and use his sincerity. Where there is sincerity and opportunity, progress is bound to grow. Every day, every second, we can make progress if we have sincere aspiration and, at the same time, if we have opportunity. Some people are really sincere, but they do not get ample opportunity because of the cosmic laws. Our sincere soul will aim and gain. If one is extremely sincere, either today or tomorrow he will reach his Goal.

If a truly realised person inspires a sincere seeker, an honest seeker, what happens? The sincere teacher, the realised soul, has some inner Peace, Light, Bliss and Power of his own which he has received from God. This inner Peace, Light, Bliss and Power he can offer to the sincere student who is now eager to learn from him, who also wants to reach the highest Light and Truth. Then it becomes infinitely easier for the student to walk more speedily towards his Goal. Here the spiritual Master acts like a private tutor who teaches the student with affection and concern and tells him what he should do and how he should study in order to pass his examination.

There are many instances in which a truly sincere person has been considerably helped in the spiritual life by an insincere person. But when an insincere person wants to inspire a sincere person, he does not or he cannot do it consciously and with good intention. He talks about God and spiritual truth and light just to show off his knowledge. It is not inner wisdom that he offers, but the learned knowledge that he has acquired from books, from his friends and from the rest of the world. He can only help by telling what he has learned and what he knows he is supposed to feel. There his play ends. It is the sincerity, strength and capacity of the sincere seeker that finds inspiration in his words.

Fortunately, a spiritual Master has the capacity to help a sincere seeker, and he even has abundant capacity to help an insincere person who is not sincerely praying or meditating. He can actually force the insincere person, the unblossomed soul, to aspire. But he will do this only if it is the Will of God that the insincere person be inspired and given a chance for a better life of aspiration. If God wants the spiritual Master to apply his force, he does apply it and he helps the insincere seeker to become sincere. By an insincere seeker I mean one who is not totally sincere, totally consecrated, one in whose case we see an enormous gulf between what he says and what he really is. There are many seekers in whom we see no discrepancy between their inner existence and their outer way of living. But again, there are many seekers who make others feel that they are the best aspirants on earth, but whose inner life and outer life do not go together at all. In their inner life they are the worst possible hypocrites; in their outer life they profess to be absolutely sincere seekers.

Sincerity is one of the requisites for realising God. But just by becoming sincere, one cannot realise God. Ordinary people can be sincere. We see in our day-to-day life many honest people on earth. They don't tell lies. They do not deceive anybody. They do not harm anyone. These people have sincerity. This good habit they got from their parents, or they brought it from their past incarnation. But they are not going to be realised tomorrow or in this incarnation unless they begin to aspire. They are nowhere near realisation. In addition to sincerity, one has to have aspiration, one has to have the soul's inner urge. When we have aspiration, then only do we go consciously towards the Supreme. With aspiration we will enter into concentration, meditation and contemplation, and only then can we run towards our Goal. Sincerity is absolutely necessary, but it is not the only thing that is required for the spiritual life.

Just as we develop muscles, we can also develop our sincerity. But again, what we need is that constant inner urge. Otherwise, one moment we will be sincere and the next moment we will be insincere. Our life will be like day and night, like light and darkness. But if our inner aspiration is constant and spontaneous, then the very urge, the very flow of our inner aspiration, will compel us to be sincere all the time.

Family members often become very generous. The parents say, "We should not come first; our children should come first. We brought them into the world, so let them be our primary concern." The children will say, "We should not come first. Our parents have always been extremely kind to us, so they should come first with us." In this way, the husband will think that the wife is dearest and the wife will think that the husband is dearest. They just widen their consciousness in a very clever and convincing way; they do not feel that they themselves are most important, but that somebody else in the family is the dearest, the most important. At that time they are fooling themselves. God the Supreme must come first — not only in words, but also in deeds. In all our actions He has to come first.

It is very easy to say that God comes first. Everybody can say, "Oh, God comes first." But does He come first? This is what we have to know. We can write it down. We can say it hundreds of times, but it may not be true. All those who enter into the spiritual life tell the spiritual Master, "Yes, God comes first in my life." But everybody has a way of twisting the truth. When the spiritual Master tests them or examines their sincerity in the inner world, he sees that it is not so: the son comes first, the daughter comes first, the father comes first, the mother comes first, the husband comes first, the wife comes first. Or, if they don't come first, it is the first personal pronoun, 'I', who comes first.

An insincere disciple or aspirant will try, consciously or unconsciously, to deceive the spiritual Master even when he speaks face to face with the Master. When he speaks to the Master, in the mental world he tries to convince the Master that he is telling the truth. But the Master sees through him. When he looks into the matter inwardly, he finds that it is all false. By repeating a lie even millions of times, an insincere aspirant cannot convince a true spiritual Master that he is telling the truth.

An insincere disciple feels that the Master can be won if he flatters the Master, if he constantly says, "Master, you are very great." But no, it can never be. An insincere aspirant will try to please the Master in various ways, bringing to the fore his divine qualities, but hiding his undivine qualities: jealousy, hypocrisy, fear, doubt and worry. His love, faith and devotional feeling he offers to the Master. But the Master is not satisfied. The Master can be satisfied only when the aspirant offers to the Master what he integrally is. He will never be satisfied with an aspirant who offers only the good things of his life while he tries to hide the bad things.

Fortunately or unfortunately, a real Master has a clairvoyant third eye. Although he can see through the aspirant who is trying to deceive him, the Master very often ignores this deception. Out of his Compassion-Light, he feels that one day the aspirant will also bring forward his subconscious, the dark part of his life, and offer it to him. Unless and until the dark, unlit part of his nature is brought forward along with the bright, divine part, his progress will be very limited. It will take him hundreds and hundreds of years, perhaps hundreds of incarnations, to come to the real spiritual path.

Each individual needs a path and a guide. All paths are not the same. Only the Goal is the same for all paths. Each person must follow only one path and one Master, the leader or guide of that path. It is impossible and foolish to try to have ten or twelve guides. In the outer life, we need a teacher for history, a teacher for geography, a teacher for each different subject. But in the inner life there is only one subject, God-realisation. One guide is all that is needed to help us open the door to God-realisation. If a person constantly changes paths and teachers, he will never reach his destination.

Sometimes it happens that the seeker searches for a Master for many years, but does not find one. Recently at a university talk, somebody told me that for twenty years she had been looking for a Master. But if she had been sincerely searching for a Master, she would definitely have found one. If the aspirant is sincerely crying for a path, he will definitely find one. Either the Master will come to him or the aspirant will be able to approach the Master. Unfortunately, in the West many people say they are looking for a path, but their cry is not sincere and they are not earnest in their effort. If one makes a sincere effort, I wish to say that his inner life and his outer life are bound to be crowned with success.

Softness

Softness includes affection, love, sympathy and the feeling of oneness. It is not just using polite or kind words. No! One has to be totally plastic. One has to all the time feel others' sufferings as one's very own. Sympathy has to be the first and foremost thing in one's life, sympathy and the feeling of oneness. There cannot be anything greater than the feeling of oneness and this feeling of oneness starts with softness.

Editor's preface to the first edition

On some occasions at his different Centres, Sri Chinmoy asks his disciples to give him a spiritual word or concept which they want to know more about, and then he spontaneously speaks about it. This book, the second of its type, is a compilation of Sri Chinmoy's spiritual comments.