The Brightest of Futures
Even if from time to time we feel a bit lost, looking back we can see how the positive influences in our lives have affected us. It seems that from early childhood we always had a tendency to run away from the things we should be doing, and run after those we would be better off leaving alone. For most of us, that is the norm. Yet a desire for a higher, purer experience always seems to linger below the surface. For each of us, there are times when this desire emerges with full force, and a deep yearning for pure love and peace overwhelms us. We cry out instinctively for God’s love. And that is when the Master actively, consciously, comes into our lives.
Our contact with the Master is like being pinpointed by a searchlight on a dark night. At first we are amazed by the conscious attention that the Lord so generously turns in our direction. With his help, our yearning for the Lord can become focused. Through him we are conscious of a power awakened within us, yet we quickly learn that it is only partially awakened – until such time as we are able to exercise it. And whether we accept it readily or not, we eventually come to understand that the process of meditation is the only way to take the spiritual currents and focus them inwards with full concentration, thereby increasing their force and intensity.
Our destination is determined
Once the process has begun, we may wander a little from time to time, but our destination is now determined, and we are slowly but surely drawn into his sphere of attraction. As our feelings for the Master increase, they begin to propel us beyond the sphere of our material inclinations. Our soul is searching for the light. In meditation we become connected with a well of luminous energy inside ourselves.
The inner radiance we find inside has all the qualities of the Master we have come to know and love. Through it we are absorbed in powerful currents of spirituality emanating from the Lord himself. Whether we are conscious of it or not, we are gradually experiencing his benign energy at higher and higher levels.
Though the spiritual call may appear to come and go, we are actually progressing all the time. Like a tree whose branches grow in the summer and become dormant in winter, there are times of great devotion and other times when we are totally apathetic. Yet every year the tree grows taller.
On occasions we get flashes of understanding: we feel that we are spirit, trapped in the body, yet separate from it. And we yearn for deliverance – though it is a slow but natural process. In the same way that electricity and magnetic and other forces exist in nature, we possess soul currents of our own. When our attention is focused on the world, they bind us to the objects of our love and affection. In this way our energy is always being dissipated and we have to continue to experience the world at this level.
A touch of the soul
But as soon as we manage to loosen our ties to the world, and turn our attention inward, a wonderful thing happens: the currents flow out and touch the ocean of love within. It has been said that the result of this inward focus is that a mighty torrent of intense love issues forth from the ocean in response, striking the earthly lover so that the two become the lover and the beloved of each other. Initiation is not the spoken word but a touch of the soul, from the soul of the Master to the soul of the initiate.
But the need to exert effort on our own part in order to achieve our objective is also very clear. From time to time, we each should look into this matter in the privacy of our own hearts. There can be no deceit here. We know what we should be doing and what we are actually doing. Perhaps we should just remember that we are now tied to a powerful current, whose force is constantly working to uplift us. We will be badly hurt if we resist too hard. Better to suffer the small hurts of self-sacrifice and detachment than to be battered by resistance. Peace is within our reach, the end of suffering in sight, if we can just keep tuning in to our dear, beloved Master.
So although we are blessed by contact with a mighty power that will inevitably draw us upwards into itself, we should not be satisfied with an entirely passive attitude towards this divine love. We cannot afford to be complacent. And we should never have a misplaced sense of superiority simply because we are satsangis. We must close our eyes and ears and focus inwards on the Master in meditation. This is the best thing that we can do with our time. Love responds to every effort we make, and love’s response is the fuel for our spiritual experience.
We really must invest time in the practice of meditation. Each effort we make in this direction produces results. Master assures us that our negative tendencies diminish in proportion to the attention we give to the current. Like blowing on embers, attending to our meditation ignites the fire of spirituality. We should be in no doubt that we have the brightest of futures before us. We should embrace our good fortune wholeheartedly, and try to struggle as best we can to be worthy of it.