The ultimate purpose of all the experiences that our Beloved Lord bestows upon us can be written in the following manner as what Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa achieved, “He could see Divinity where others would least expect it.” When he narrates about an experience, it invariably is connected with a difficulty or trouble he would have faced at the climax of which he would have been thrilled to find the invisible (sometimes visible) hand of our Lord turning the result in his favour. Very often we fail to realize that the trouble or a difficulty was also in His plan so that it might enable Him to bless us with a grand experience.
In addition to the main reason of instilling faith, a Divine experience has many other lessons to teach us. If we are not careful enough, we may often be misled by them. In the words of Paul Brunton, “Deceived by egoism and blinded by passion, there are those who get from experience the very opposite meaning to the one it is intended to yield and fall into wicked ways.”
Let us try to see what the main intentions of the Lord are in giving us the ‘experience’. Firstly, He lets us know that He knows everything of our past, present and future in all the three realms of body, mind and spirit which could be termed as the omniscience of a very high order. Secondly, He lets us know that He has the Supreme power to modify the pattern of our life just by His will which is the all-powerful cosmic one. Thirdly He lets us know that He is present wherever we are, whether we think of Him or not.
These three lessons are only intended towards intensifying our faith in Him which alone counts in the ultimate analysis. All of us would generally agree – whether we have realized it or not - that Love is everything and it is the most important thing which weighs far higher than the entire cosmos itself. But Lord has time and again instructed that the sapling of Love can grow only when the water of faith is poured meticulously. It has been said clearly that where there is no faith, there is no love.
Thus He prepares our heart for occupation by faith firstly. Whenever faith gathers mass, it gives out the perfume of love. The stronger the faith, the stronger is the perfume of love which in turn gives the power to spread the fragrance far and wide. One who is in his senses can never say that he loves Him but has no faith in Him. If anyone makes this statement, then, what he has cannot be considered as true Love. Usually the experiences that He bestows us with, for the sake of instilling the seed of faith in us, would invariably be sweet ones.
After the sowing of the first seed of faith, it is left to us to nurture it and at this stage our efforts count a lot. He also now and then gives us His love and grace in the form of sweet memorable experiences so that we may prod on nurturing our faith in Him. He constantly goes on bestowing on us the chances of experiencing Him. If only we are watchful, we realize the truth of this statement. After we pass this first stage till which time the road was broad and smooth enough to enjoy our drive, we would see in front of us a narrow lane, full of pebbles. We know very well that we can’t drive on a narrow lane with the same speed as we can on a good highway. At this moment we should not lose our heart; we must remind ourselves of what Thomas A. Kempis had said in his ‘Imitations of Christ’. “Do not throw away that confidence you have of attaining spiritual things-there is still time and opportunity.”
The Lord commences conferring on us experiences, which are bitter this time. During this period, He intends to let us know about the true strength of the faith in Him and Love for Him which we have accumulated so far. When we understand that we really did not possess a sufficiently strong faith and love in order to bear the bitterness of the ensuing one, we must offer our prayers to Him and this time He would send us sweet and cool showers of grace and quenches our thirst, in order that we may recoup before we move on. He chooses to do this in our best interests. When a true and sincere teacher who loves his student and seeks his welfare finds that he is faring badly at his internal tests would advise him against his sitting for the final examinations that year itself; he would even give him a better and intensive coaching and give him trial tests more difficult than the ones he wrote the previous year. Ultimately the student would be in a better position to face the final examinations with confidence and the consequent calm.
The moment we blame God for some misfortune then it is a clear indication that we have not learnt from the bitter experience the lesson it was intended to yield. This happens because we fail to see the failure or the misfortune as an experience bestowed on us by none else than the Lord. At this stage, our Lord’s acronym in ‘WATCH’ would be of great help to us. Once we succeed in one such bitter experience, we must be on the lookout for a bitterer one. Through a sweet experience He would definitely indicate to us about our success. As we progress thus, more and more of His Love continues to fill every limb of our spirit with a Divine sweetness and at an advanced stage of our experiences we would not have any classification of experiences as sweet and bitter wants, as all of them would turn out to be filled with Divine bliss. Let us all make endeavour to proceed along His path and His direction and sanctify our lives for He has said: “Do not ask for what is pleasant and profitable to yourself but what is acceptable to Me and tends to My glory; for if you view things in their proper light, you will prefer and follow My direction rather than your desires, whatever they may be.”
- Sankara Subramaniam
Alumnus, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning
Prasanthi Nilayam Campus
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