Capacity

Dear sisters and brothers, dear seekers of the highest Truth, I wish to give a short talk on capacity. Capacity is something that everybody is familiar with; it is not something new to any human being. God grants us capacity the moment we take human birth. In fact, the soul is inundated with capacity in the soul's world before we ever take human birth. The soul then assumes a physical body and uses this capacity to reveal and manifest God here on earth.

A child that is one day old knows how to move his hands and legs and how to cry. These are some of his capacities. As the child grows up, his capacities increase. When he becomes a full fledged man, either he misuses his capacities or he uses them properly. If he properly uses his capacities, he eventually realises the highest Truth on earth. If he misuses his capacities, then here on earth he lives in the world of ignorance and death.

Since we are all seekers, we all have some capacity to love God, to serve God and to surrender ourselves to God's Will. If we love God, then we are doing the first thing first; we are watering the roots of the tree. If we serve God, we come closer to God and God comes closer to us. If we surrender ourselves to God's Will, then we feel that we are complete.

Yesterday we cried and cried for God's Love. Today we are smiling and smiling with God's Love. Tomorrow with our smile we shall bring down the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. When we bring down the Kingdom of Heaven to earth, our Beloved Supreme will enjoy His rest on earth and all human beings will at last find their all-nourishing, all protecting nest.

We must try to serve God in every human being. This service of ours has to be unconditional. If it is conditional service we will never be happy. Whenever we serve God or love mankind we have to do it unconditionally. Then only can we be continuously happy.

Two thousand years ago the Saviour Christ taught us the supreme lesson: "Let Thy Will be done." Millions, billions and trillions of prayers have been offered to God, but there can be no better, no greater, no more fulfilling prayer than this. If we love God we become happy. If we serve God we become happier. If we surrender our individual will to God's Will we become happiest.

There is a special way to become happy. If we know how to follow the inner guidance, then we can really be happy. This guidance comes directly from the soul. Unfortunately, quite often our vital being cleverly deceives us. It makes us feel that its own message is actually coming from the soul How are we going to know whether a message is coming from the vital or from the soul? There is an easy, most effective way to know this. If it is the voice of the vital, then we will know immediately from the way we feel after we complete the action. After we act, the result of our action will come in the form of either success or failure. If we fail in something and then feel miserable, we can know that it was not the voice of the soul that told us to do that thing; it was the voice of the vital being. If we are successful and then become extremely happy and proud and try to dominate the world with our happiness and pride, again we can know that it was not the soul's voice. The moment we get a message from the soul or hear its voice, we get an inner thrill. Whether we succeed or fail, we have an inner joy. This joy does not make us want to dominate the world; rather, it makes us feel our oneness with the world. With this joy we can enter into others' hearts and help them to lead a better and higher life.

A life of peace is a life of tremendous capacity. How do we get peace? There are many ways to achieve peace but I wish to tell you of two main ways. One way is to minimise our desires. Since we are seekers, a day will come when we shall have no desires at all. But before that day dawns, our peace of mind will increase if we try to minimise our desires every day. The second way to get peace is to feel that we are not indispensable here on earth for anything or for anyone. Long before we came into the world, the world existed; long after we leave this world, the world will still exist. So how can we be indispensable? We stay here on earth for sixty, seventy or eighty years. Then we see our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren carry on where we left off in the supreme process of evolution.

In our daily life, sometimes we see good in others and sometimes we see bad. This is a form of capacity that we exercise every day. But we have to know that when we see bad in others we multiply our own bad qualities. When we see good in others we find that we can bring forward our own good qualities and see our own Source. This Source is the Unity which is trying to manifest itself through multiplicity.

Life is a constant battle between good forces and bad forces, between divine forces and undivine forces. When we lose in the battlefield of life we feel that we are doomed to disappointment. This disappointment is itself a negative force. During the fight we have already spent a considerable amount of energy. But if we pay attention to our disappointment and despair, we lose even more of our precious energy. To pay attention to anyone or anything is to expend energy. If we pay attention to the right people or the right things, then we get energy back from them in abundant measure. We offer our capacity to the human in them; then the soul or the divine in them gives us back even more capacity, out of gratitude. In the outer life, the more we offer knowledge to others, the more there comes to us a higher and deeper knowledge to illumine our mind and heart. In the spiritual life also, the more we serve others, the more capacity God grants us for service.

When we have earthly power, physical power, we feel that we shall be able to dominate the earth. When we have spiritual power, we feel that we can be of service to mankind. Spiritual power is the power of our inner cry. Spiritual power climbs high higher, highest and brings down from above God's Light, Peace and Delight. Then it distributes these qualities in the physical world. Spiritual power is the power of inseparable oneness. Physical, earthly power is the power of division and destruction. But when physical power is illumined and guided by spiritual power, then the physical power adds to the spiritual power in the tug of war against ignorance. Physical power, the younger brother, takes the side of spiritual power, the older brother, and together they battle against ignorance. When two strong persons are on one side and only one is on the other side, naturally the side that has two persons will win. In the spiritual life there is a special way to increase our capacity every day, every hour, every minute. It can be done through gratitude. When we offer our soulful gratitude to God, our capacity for receptivity immediately increases. Our receptivity is like a vessel. This vessel can be enlarged. Naturally, the larger the vessel the more it will be able to hold of God's Light and Delight.

The life of a seeker is the life of inner faith. Faith is something that constantly brings us the message of the Beyond. Faith is the foundation of our real life. We must have faith in God; we must have faith in ourselves. If we have faith only in God and not in ourselves, or if we have faith only in ourselves and not in God, then we cannot go very far. What is our faith? Our faith is our inner cry for God's Light and Bliss in infinite measure. Our faith is God's transcendental Smile, which transforms our life and carries us from the sea of ignorance to the sea of Wisdom. Our inner faith in God constantly helps us to run the fastest and constantly makes God run toward us in the fastest possible way. Because God's speed is far greater than our speed, when we take one step toward God we see that God has taken ninety nine steps toward us. Then we meet together.

Capacity means to give and to receive. What can we give God? We can give Him only what we have. What we have is a sea of ignorance. What He has is a sea of infinite Light and Delight. God is anxious and more than eager to give us what He has and what He is. It is we who do not want to give our ignorance to God. We feel that if we give our ignorance away to God, then there will be nothing that we will have or be able to claim as our own. But when we pray and meditate, we realise that we can claim God's treasures as our own.

An unaspiring person feels that he can create a better universe. God not only feels that He can create a better universe but He actually has the capacity to do so. Seekers can help God in creating a better universe through selfless, dedicated service and through constant aspiration. If God wants me to be perfect, if I cry most sincerely and most devotedly, one day God will make me perfect. Then there will be one less imperfect person in this world. Tomorrow, if you also try most sincerely the way I have tried, then there will be two persons on the side of perfection. If every day one person takes the side of perfection, then this world of ours will eventually become perfect. The process goes from the one to the many, from the individual to the universal, from the earth bound consciousness to the Heaven free consciousness, from the finite reality to the infinite Reality which is God's Song of the ever transcending Beyond.

We can do something for everyone: for earth, for God and for Heaven. We can bring down Heaven's Smile for earth. We can offer our earth cry to Heaven. We can offer our surrendered life to God. Finally, if we really want to love earth in a divine and supreme way, then we must remind ourselves of the long forgotten promise that we are here on earth to embody God consciously, to reveal God devotedly, to manifest God unmistakably. Our embodiment of God, our revelation of God and our manifestation of God must be unconditional. If we do this, God's infinite capacities will shower on us. At that time we become God's ambassadors, His most perfect instruments on earth. And it is in and through us that He will then sail His Dream Boat to the Golden Shore of the ever transcending Beyond.

---

July 11th, 1974
St. Thomas's Church Hall
Vasteras, Sweden