Question::
Why cultivating certain “Divine qualities” is indispensable for spiritual life?
(or)
What qualities does a ‘complete life’ necessitate?
(or)
Why ‘patience’ and ‘persistence’ are necessary for spiritual life?
(or)
Why ‘forbearance’ and ‘moral courage’ are necessary for spiritual life?
(or)
How come a ‘spiritual aspirant’ is MORE SENSITIVE than a worldly-minded person?
(or)
How come “Self-Confidence” is a MUST on the Spiritual Path?
(or)
Why do we worry? What is the cause of worry? How is ego-mind involved in this task of worrying?
(or)
Why ‘freedom from worry’ is necessary?
(or)
Why should an aspirant develop qualities like cheerfulness and equipoise?
(or)
Why should one control one’s senses?
(or)
How does ‘Master’s help’ help on the Spiritual path?
(or)
Does ‘time’ count on the path?
Answer::
(Extracted from Meher Baba’s literature, which is a copyright of Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust(©AMBPPCT), Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, Bharat/India)
If the ‘inner life’ of an aspirant is to be harmonious and enlightened, he has to DEVELOP and EXPRESS many “divine qualities”, while he is engaged in his daily duties. Each quality by itself may not seem to be extremely important, but to consider it apart from its necessary relationship with other important qualities is not correct.
In spiritual life, all these qualities implement and support each other, and their interconnection is so vital that not one of them can be completely ignored without detriment to many other essential qualities. So considered in its true function, each of these ‘divine qualities’ turns out to be absolutely indispensable for a complete life.
Divine Qualities to be cultivated:
1. Patience & Persistence
Every person is a rightful heir to the Truth! But he who would inherit it must be spiritually prepared for it, and this spiritual preparation sometimes takes several lives of patient and persistent effort. Therefore, one of the first requirements of the aspirant is that he should combine unfailing enthusiasm with unyielding patience.
Once an individual is determined to realize the truth, he finds that his path is beset with many difficulties and there are very few who persist with steady courage till the end. It is easy to give up the effort when one is confronted with obstacles!
This might be illustrated by a story of a man from Poona, India. He once read a spiritual book that impressed him so deeply that he felt like renouncing everything. He left Poona and went to a forest near the city; and sitting under a tree with prayer beads in his hand, he began to repeat God’s name. He kept doing this all day in spite of much inconvenience and dwindling enthusiasm.
After sunset he heard from all sides the cries of animals; and though these cries grew louder and louder in the gathering darkness of the night, he persisted in his determination. However, when he saw through the darkness a huge bear coming toward him, he fled for his life and ran at top speed until he fell unconscious in a shop back in Poona. As he regained consciousness, he related his adventure to those who had gathered around him, much to their amusement and that finished his mood for renunciation.
2. Forbearance & Moral Courage
Spiritual effort demands not only physical endurance and courage but also unshrinking forbearance and moral courage.
The world is caught up in Maya and is addicted to false values. Therefore, the ways of the world run counter to the standards the aspirant has set for himself. If he runs away from the world, that does not help him. He will again have to come back to the world to develop that quality which would enable him to face and accept the world as it is. Very often, his path lies through the world that he has to serve in spite of NOT liking its ways.
If the aspirant is to ‘love’ and ‘serve’ the world that does not understand him or even is intolerant toward him, he must DEVELOP ‘infinite forbearance’.
As the aspirant advances on the spiritual path, he acquires through his contact with a Perfect Master – an increasingly deeper understanding of ‘true love’. This makes him painfully sensitive to the impact from outside actions that not only do not taste of love, but actually bring him into contact with
- cold contempt,
- cynical callousness,
- agonizing antipathy, and
- un-abating hatred.
All these encounters try his forbearance to the utmost!
Even the worldly person suffers in a world he occasionally finds indifferent or hostile, but he is more thick-skinned and his suffering is less acute. He does not expect anything much better from human nature and thinks that these things are inevitable and incurable!
The aspirant who has tasted a deeper love, knows the hidden possibilities in every soul. thus, his suffering is more acute because he feels the gulf between that ‘which is’ and that ‘which might have been’, if only the world had even faintly appreciated the ‘love’ he has begun to understand and cherish.
3. Self-Confidence
The task of forbearance would be easy if the aspirant could become reconciled to the ways of the world and accept them without challenge. Having seen the higher truths, however, it becomes his imperative duty to stand by them even if the whole world opposes him. Loyalty to the higher truths of his own perception demands
- unshakable moral courage and
- readiness to face the criticism, the scorn, and even the hatred of those who have not yet begun to open up to these truths.
Although in this UNEVEN STRUGGLE he does get unfailing help from the Master and the other aspirants, he has to develop the capacity to fight for these truths single-handedly without relying upon external help all the time. This supreme moral courage can only come with supreme confidence in oneself and in the Master. To love the world and serve it in the ways of the Masters is no game for the weak and faint-hearted!
4. Freedom from Worry
‘Moral courage’ and ‘self-confidence’ should be accompanied by ‘freedom from worry’. There are very few things in the mind that eat up as much energy as worry. It is one of the most difficult things not to worry about anything.
- Worry is experienced when things go wrong, and in relation to PAST happenings it is idle merely to wish that they might have been otherwise. The frozen past is what it is, and no amount of worrying is going to make it other than what it has been.
Nonetheless, the limited ego-mind identifies itself with its past, gets entangled with it, and keeps alive the pangs of frustrated desires. Thus worry continues to grow into the mental life of a person until the ego-mind is burdened by the past. - Worry is also experienced in relation to the FUTURE, when this future is expected to be disagreeable in some way. In this case, worry seeks to justify itself as a necessary part of the attempt to prepare for coping with the anticipated situations.
But things can never be helped merely by worrying. Besides, many of the things that are anticipated never happen; or if they do occur, they turn out to be much more acceptable than they were expected to be.
Worry is the product of feverish imagination working under the stimulus of desires. It is the living through of sufferings that are mostly of one’s own creation.
Worry has never done anyone any good; and it is very much worse than mere dissipation of energy for it substantially curtails the joy and fullness of life.
5. Cheerfulness, Enthusiasm, Equipoise
Among the many things the aspirant needs to cultivate, there are few that are as important as cheerfulness, enthusiasm and equipoise.
When the mind is gloomy, depressed or disturbed– its actions are chaotic and binding! Hence arises the supreme need to maintain cheerfulness, enthusiasm and equipoise under all circumstances. All these are rendered impossible unless the aspirant succeeds in eliminating ‘worry’ from his life.
Worry is a necessary result of attachment to the ‘past’ or to the ‘anticipated future’, and it always persists in some form or other until the ‘mind’ is completely detached from everything.
6. One-Pointedness
The difficulties on the spiritual path can be overcome only if the aspirant has one-pointedness. If his energies are dissipated in worldly pursuits, the progress he makes is very slow.
‘One-pointedness’ implies– dispassion concerning all the allurements of the phenomenal world! The mind must turn away from all temptations, and complete control must be established over the senses!
Thus ‘control’ and ‘dispassion’ are both necessary to attain ‘one-pointedness’ in the search for true understanding.
The supreme condition for sure and steady progress on the path is the benefit of guidance from a Perfect Master. The Master gives just that guidance and help which is necessary according to the immediate needs of the aspirant.
All the Master expects is that the aspirant will try his best for spiritual advancement. He does not expect immediate transformation of consciousness except where the ground has been previously made ready.
‘Time’ is an important factor in spiritual advancement, as it is in all material endeavors! When the Master has given a spiritual push to the aspirant, he waits till the help thus given is completely assimilated by him.
An over-dose of spirituality has an unhealthy reaction, particularly when it is unopportune. The Master therefore carefully selects the moment when His intervention is assured of maximum results; and having intervened, he waits with infinite patience till the aspirant really needs further help.
– Meher Baba
Source ::
Discourses, Pg:: 365- 369
© AMBPPCT, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, India/Bharat
