Part II

SCS 266-270 Questions and answers following the lecture //Prayer and meditation.//

Question: What is the most important thing in the spiritual life?

Sri Chinmoy: There is one most important thing in the spiritual life, and that most important thing is: God first and God last. God should come first in my life and God should come last in my life. I will start my journey with God, I will end my journey with God and, in between, God will be there, too. I don’t need anybody save and except God. Whoever claims God as his own, I claim that person as my own. He who does not dare to claim God as his own is claiming ignorance as his own. I can’t claim ignorance as my own. So whoever is in God, with God and for God is mine.

In the spiritual life there is no such thing as neutrality. In the ordinary life we say, “I don’t want to be involved.” But in the spiritual life that is impossible. Either you take God’s side or the hostile forces will pull you, and you will be compelled to accept, consciously or unconsciously, world ignorance as your own. It will grab you and devour you. So please feel that those who are not aspiring have already taken the side of ignorance. And what is ignorance? Something that deliberately takes us away from the Real in us. Some people say that they are not practising spirituality, but they also say that they are not inside the prison of ignorance. But I will say, “You are already there, but you don’t know it.”

There are two magnets. If you allow the spiritual magnet to pull you, it will definitely pull you towards realisation. But if you don’t allow it, then ignorance will pull you to itself. You can’t stand in between; you can’t remain neutral. You have to take one side.