June 25

Dear seekers of the infinite Light and Truth, dear sisters and brothers of the Spirit Universal, here in Zurich I see and feel indomitable strength: strength of the body, strength of the vital, strength of the mind and strength of the heart. In the spiritual life nothing is as important as strength and courage. But this strength is not the strength of a hostile force to be utilised for an undivine purpose. Your strength, spiritual strength, is being utilised for a new dawn and a new era. You are inundated with the strength of the spirit, the strength that we call inner strength.

Four thousand years ago the Indian seers of the hoary past, the vedic seers and sages taught us this sublime truth: Nayam atma bala-hinena labhyo. "The soul cannot be won by the weakling." Only the strong can face the teeming ignorance-night and transform it into wisdom-day. He who lacks strength will never dare to enter into the spiritual life.

When we enter into the spiritual life we become fully conscious of our four simultaneous lives. It is only in the spiritual life that we become aware of our animal life, human life, divine life and immortal Life. Before we enter into the spiritual life, these lives are practically unknown to us, simply because we are not conscious of their existence.

What do we mean by the animal life? The animal life is the life of jealousy, doubt and destruction or conscious annihilation. The animal life is like a strong and binding rope. Although the propensity of the animal life is to fight and destroy, there is something in the process of evolution that tries to curb this destructive tendency. That is why from the animal life we enter into a higher form, the human life.

In the human life we still notice a half-animal life. That is to say, we still quarrel, fight, destroy and do many other undivine things. But in the human life we also notice something very meaningful and fruitful, which is called hope. We cherish and treasure an illumining hope. Hope is not something vague and tempting yet millions of miles away from the actual blossoming of reality. No, hope is something that is pushing us forward, pulling us upward to a sublime Reality. Hope is constantly helping us and energising us to run towards the destined Goal.

At times we see that our hopes are smashed into millions of fragments. Why does this happen? It happens precisely because we do not feed our hope with aspiration, with our inner cry. We hope for something, but when difficulties arise we just calmly and peaceably give up our hope. Instead of hope's deserting us, very often we desert hope. We do not give hope a full chance to continue its journey.

In the spiritual life we become aware not only of the animal and the human life, but of the divine life as well. In the divine life we get constant opportunities. We are told that opportunity does not often knock at our door, but when we try to live the divine life, we come to realise that opportunity knocks at our door at every second. We are told that God's choice Hour dawns once in a blue moon, but this is not true. When we enter into the spiritual life we see that God's Hour strikes at every moment. We have only to avail ourselves of each glowing opportunity and of each golden moment.

When we follow the spiritual life we have to make friends with joy. God is constantly offering us this joy, but we are rejecting it ruthlessly at every moment. We prefer to wallow in the pleasures of ignorance. Now, there is an easy and effective way in which we can inundate our being with real joy. It is through our constant inner cry. Outwardly we cry for name and fame, outer achievements and material possessions. But when we cry inwardly, when we cry from deep within, from the inmost recesses of our heart, what we are crying for is Light, Delight, divine Illumination, divine Perfection. The inner life tells us that Delight in infinite measure is at our disposal, that it is our birthright. But because we do not consciously try to claim it as our very own, Delight is still a far cry.

Now what is the difference between pleasure and Joy or Delight? Pleasure is something that is bound to be followed by frustration, and inside frustration what looms large is destruction. We can confidently say that today's pleasure will be tomorrow's frustration and the destruction of the day after tomorrow. But when we follow the spiritual life we see deep within us the fountain of Joy and Delight. This Delight continuously increases in our awakened being. The seeker in us knows perfectly well that our origin was Delight. Anandadd hy eva khalv imani bhutani jayante… "From Delight we came into existence. In Delight we grow or expand our consciousness. At the end of our journey's close, into Delight we retire." Delight is our origin, and our goal is to go back consciously to the Source, which is all Delight.

What is Delight or Bliss? It is inner freedom, nothing else. This inner freedom, when properly used, brings to the fore the outer freedom. If the inner freedom does not energise or instruct or illumine the outer freedom, the outer freedom will often act like a mad elephant. In today's world we see how freedom is misused by millions and millions of people. But when the inner freedom comes to the fore and inspires the outer freedom, the outer freedom will reach the destined goal safely and, at the same time, most convincingly and most satisfactorily.

The immortal Life is the life that contains the divine life in its fullest measure. At the same time, it has destroyed the binding rope of the animal life and energised the human life to enter into the divine life. When we enter into the immortal Life, the animal in us is either destroyed or totally transformed, as night is transformed into day. Our human weakness is transformed into strength. Our imperfection is transformed into perfection. All human frailties are illumined and transformed into an ever-growing, ever-fulfilling Light and Delight.

How can we make steady progress, convincing progress, in our spiritual life? We can make satisfactory, conscious and fulfilling progress only by smiling — smiling at the world, smiling at our reality, smiling at Heaven. Each time we smile at any particular reality, if it is a divine reality, our smile immediately increases our capacity, and if it is something undivine, then our smile weakens or destroys its undivine possibilities and potentialities. Now, this smile is not just an ordinary human smile. This smile comes directly from the depths of our heart and from the full awakening of our soul. It immediately makes us feel that we have pleased and fulfilled our Inner Pilot.

We get this inner smile through prayer and meditation. When we pray, we feel that sooner or later God will come to us and fulfil our prayer. Or very often we go to God through our prayer, and then God fulfils us. Either we go to God or God comes to us. Here in the Western world, we give more importance to prayer than to meditation. There is nothing wrong with this. If I like my right eye more than my left eye, and if you like your left eye more than your right eye, there is nothing wrong in it. Prayer and meditation are like two eyes. Both eyes are eager to show us the Light and offer us the Light.

There are many people in the West who go to churches, synagogues and other spiritual places to pray. But their prayers have become mechanical. They are a monotonous routine. You have to eat your breakfast; you eat it, but there is no joy in it. It has become a daily routine. But I wish to say that when we pray, we must pray with a feeling of intensity, with the idea of working for the thing we want to have. If we do this, there is every possibility that our prayers will be sanctioned and granted. We have to envision the result while praying. If we do not envision the reality we are praying for, then immediately there will be a yawning gap between our prayer and the result we are seeking, between the dream and the reality.

But it is only the beginner who will pray in this way, always wanting what he calls satisfactory results from his prayers. When we grow in the spiritual life, in the process of our inner evolution there comes a time when we see that what counts most is not the fulfilment of our prayer at all. We want good results, but if good results come in the form of defeat or failure, so to speak, we accept them with equal joy. In fact we get enormous joy when we can offer our so-called defeat at the Feet of God. In the spiritual life, victory and defeat are like the obverse and the reverse of the same coin. This is the second stage of our development, when we can offer the same joy to God whether our prayer is fulfilled in our own way or not.

The third and last stage is when we pray to God constantly, but do not care for the result whatsoever. We feel that our business is only to pray, and the rest is God's business. We have the inner urge to pray unconditionally, and we feel that it is the divine responsibility of our Inner Pilot to sanction our prayer or not. If He does not sanction it, we do not mind at all. When we can pray unconditionally we make the fastest progress.

There is another way to make the fastest progress, and that is through conscious and constant surrender to the Will of the Supreme. Now, surrender is a very complicated word. An idle human being surrenders to ignorance, to the world. He does not want to make any progress. He has surrendered to his fate, and he will not lift a finger. But that kind of surrender is no surrender. That is only self-deception, and self-deception is nothing other than self-destruction.

Then again, there is the surrender of a slave to his master. A slave surrenders to his master out of fear or outer compulsion. But in the spiritual life there is no outer compulsion, none whatsoever. It is our inner being that compels us from deep within to offer our surrender to the Supreme Pilot. It makes us feel an inner urge to surrender. We feel that we are right now just an iota of the infinite Truth. But when this little iota of truth merges into the Sea of Truth, it loses its individual personality and becomes the Universal Reality, the Universal Individuality, the Universal Immortality.

In the spiritual life, we have to offer our aspiration, our prayer, our concentration, our meditation and our contemplation consciously to God. We have to make a conscious personal effort and, at the same time, we have to offer our inner surrender to God. We must feel that we can sincerely say, "Lord, this much I can do with my hands. This much I can do with my eyes. This much I can do with my physical capacity. The only thing more than that which I have is the capacity to surrender, and this I am giving to You."

In the spiritual life, conscious and divine surrender is the only way to realise the Highest, to grow into the Highest, to reveal the Highest and to manifest the Highest — the Transcendental Reality. When we consciously try to offer all our capacity to God, and to offer Him also our divine unconditional surrender, then in return He will offer us His infinite Joy, Light, Peace and Power. At that time He offers us the message of His divine Victory and gives us the capacity to become His chosen instruments to establish the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.

Dear brothers and sisters, dear seekers of the infinite Truth and Light, I wish to speak about confidence from the spiritual point of view. We are now in Oxford University. The seeker in me feels that Oxford first embodies and then represents the art, culture and glory not only of Great Britain, but of the entire European consciousness. Oxford represents world-culture and world-history in the highest form of mental light, knowledge and wisdom in the outer world. Oxford is confidence. It is in the confidence of Oxford that all these supernal qualities are playing their respective roles.

We all know that there are two types of confidence: human and divine. Human confidence is very often founded upon our little “I”, our ego. Ego means ignorance-pleasure and sense-enjoyment. This little ego binds us, imprisons us. But divine confidence is founded upon our transcendental Self: the Self that liberates us, the Self that brings us the message of universal Consciousness, the Self that helps us transcend our earth-bound consciousness and enter into the Infinite. I wish to speak about divine confidence.

Confidence is the unification of God the Compassion and man the reliance. Confidence is the expression and revelation of God’s Will through the human heart, mind, vital and body. Confidence is the God-Beauty in us. Confidence is truth-unity and truth-multiplicity in us. Confidence is truth-recognition in us, Heaven-vision by us and God-decision for us. Confidence is our life-acceptance and life-transcendence, our earth-transformation and God-manifestation.

Confidence is not pride; it is the conscious awareness of our own height and depth. Confidence is not the aggrandisement of our ego; it is the awareness of our developing strength in the battlefield of life. Confidence is not the precursor of destruction; it is the precursor of achievement, of abundant divine achievement for the Absolute Supreme.

Confidence is our divine contentment which knows what to enjoy, how to enjoy, where to enjoy and why to enjoy. What to enjoy? God’s Smile. How to enjoy? Through selfless service, through self-offering. Where to enjoy? In pure consciousness; in the inmost recesses of our aspiring heart, mind, vital and physical. Why to enjoy? Because we need the expression of the inner Self.

In the inner world we feel that divine confidence is housed in our aspiration. Aspiration is the harbinger of Peace, Light and Bliss in infinite measure. He who embodies aspiration in the purest sense of the term can reveal and manifest light, truth and delight. According to the world’s receptivity the world receives these qualities from the supreme seeker who embodies confidence in the form of aspiration.

Confidence is like a divine muscle. It can be developed slowly, steadily and unerringly if we know the secret of disciplining our body, vital, mind and heart. In order to discipline ourselves what we need is an inner cry, the cry that carries our entire being into the highest realm of Silence. In this way we develop confidence and with this confidence-muscle we can be strong, stronger, strongest.

Each human being represents the physical world, the vital world, the mental world and the psychic world. In the physical world he is hunting after pleasure. He achieves a little pleasure and feels that his achievement is his confidence. In the vital world he brings the message of Julius Caesar. He declares, Veni, vidi, vici: "I came, I saw, I conquered." In the mental world, if his mind is illumined to a certain extent, he feels that through his mind's light earth can be illumined, perfected and liberated. He feels that earth can be a conscious receptacle of divinity, that divinity can be housed in the earth-consciousness. And when he is in the psychic or heart's world he soulfully offers this unique message to the world at large: "I came into the world to love God in mankind and to be of unconditional service to God in mankind."

In our spiritual life belief is of importance, but we have to know whether this belief is mental or psychic. If belief comes to the fore from an inner realm of consciousness, then it is a superior type of belief, psychic belief. This type of belief abides in the silent home of our soul’s light, and it is synonymous with divine confidence. It is powerful and unassailable. This type of belief, this divine confidence, inspires and energises us to fight for truth, for light, for world harmony, for world peace and for world salvation. But mental belief can be battered and shattered in a moment by doubt, suspicion and other hostile forces in the world.

In the spiritual life we have two giant friends: faith and confidence. Faith can hear the message of the highest Silence. Faith can guide us and lead us to our soul’s Goal of goals. Confidence can hear the message of the cosmic Sound. Confidence can act like a hero-warrior in the battlefield of life. It can change today’s world of darkness, imperfection and bondage into a world of light, perfection and freedom.

Frustration is the cloudy day. Satisfaction is all sunshine. Frustration can be in the physical body, in the vital, in the mind and in the desiring heart. But satisfaction is always in the soul. It is the soul's satisfaction that we are trying to bring into our aspiring heart, our searching mind, our expanding vital and our crying body. Frustration and satisfaction are like two neighbours, like the obverse and reverse of the same coin.

Frustration is due to our uncontrolled and uncontrollable desires. Satisfaction is due to our self-giving life. When we are frustrated, we should either make ourselves feel that we are utterly helpless, or we should energise ourselves for a new dawn, inspire ourselves to make a new beginning, a new start. If we feel that we are utterly helpless, like children left alone in the forest at night, then God’s Compassion descends into each breath of ours. And if we make a new start, if we inspire ourselves to make a dynamic new beginning, then God’s divine Pride enters into us. With His infinite Compassion, God illumines our frustration into satisfaction. With His boundless Pride, God grants victory to our effort, our determination, our willingness to divinise our life.

When we are frustrated, we can ask God hundreds of questions with regard to our frustration, and God is more than willing to answer our countless questions. But we have to know that when God answers our questions, we have to listen to His Answer. His Answer comes in the form of Concern. But when we hear God’s Answer, God’s Message, we do not listen to it. And when we don’t listen to God, God withdraws — not His Compassion — but His constant Pride in us. He withdraws His Oneness-Satisfaction in us.

When we are frustrated, we can adopt a rebellious attitude. This we do quite often. But we forget that our rebellious attitude is consciously or unconsciously directed at God, who is infinitely more powerful than the rebellious attitude which we have hurled at Him. When we are frustrated, if we cannot have patience, if we cannot grow into patience-tree, God tells us that the next best thing is to offer our animal anger, our ego, vanity, pride or anything that is negative and destructive, to our soul. We should not offer these things to the individual human being or to the incident that has frustrated us. Only if we throw our frustration into God will He, out of His infinite Bounty, be able to illumine us.

Frustration and satisfaction are in human life. In human life, they are the obverse and reverse of the same coin. But in divine life, which is the life of aspiration and dedication, there is a divine coin. Here satisfaction and perfection are the obverse and reverse of the coin. We are satisfied at one moment; therefore, we have become perfect. We have become perfect at one moment; therefore, we are satisfied. We have reached the top of the mountain and the depth of the sea. From the mountain’s height we plunge into the depth of the sea, and from the depth of the sea we fly up to the highest height of the mountain. For both going up and going down, what we needed was satisfaction.

Satisfaction is our inner cry. Satisfaction is our constant progress. But this satisfaction is not a self-complacent attitude. This satisfaction is an inner hunger, an eternal hunger which is constantly being fed and which is constantly increasing in infinite measure. Inside this divine hunger there is constant joy, and this constant joy makes God feel that His Vision is right, His Reality is right. His Vision we are, when we are in our highest spiritual consciousness. His Reality we are, when we are in our earth-life. When we are in the body, He wants to manifest His Reality in and through us. When we are in the soul, He wants to reveal His Vision to us.

Here we are all seekers. Our satisfaction and our perfection will be only in seeing God in God’s own Way, in feeling God in God’s own Way, in becoming the embodiment of Truth, Light and Bliss in God’s own Way.

How can we please God in God’s own Way? We can please God only by knowing and feeling that we are consciously for Him and that we are contributing to His Vision and His Reality according to our capacity. What is our capacity? Our capacity is not our greatness, which is valued here on earth. Our capacity is not our goodness, which is valued both here on earth and there in Heaven. Our capacity has to be something beyond both greatness and goodness. Beyond greatness and goodness is our conscious, constant feeling of oneness with God.

Our greatness does not add anything to God’s Vision or to God’s Reality. Our goodness — when we are kind and loving to others — quite often demands something in return. The moment we consciously or unconsciously expect something in return, goodness does not remain in its positive form. But there is something infinitely more valuable than greatness or goodness, something extremely important, and that is oneness. Oneness with God’s Will, God's Vision and God’s Reality we achieve only when we know and feel that we are of God in our growing life and we are for God with our glowing life. This glowing life we get only when we live for God the ever-compassionate Reality and God the ever-just Reality. God the compassionate Reality and God the just Reality are one. When we are helpless, we cry for the compassionate Reality, and when we are brave, we invite and welcome the just Reality. God s compassionate Reality and God’s just Reality can alone make us perfect.

The infinite Compassion of God has created us, and the infinite Justice-Light of God can make us strong, stronger, strongest. If we want to become God’s Perfection-Light, then let us inwardly cry and outwardly smile. If we inwardly cry, God’s Compassion will descend in boundless measure and we will become perfect. If we outwardly smile, God again will grant us satisfaction and perfection. For our smile is our strength, the strength of our life-breath.

A seeker is he who discovers satisfaction in the heart of perfection, and perfection in the body of satisfaction. The body’s self-giving and the soul’s God-becoming, the soul’s self-giving and the body’s God-becoming, are God's Satisfaction and God’s Perfection in the heart and in the reality-existence of the seeker.