Doubts and hesitations often accompany you in preliminary stages of the spiritual path. Plenty of questions come up, questions such as ‘Is the path I follow not some sort of fraud contrived to draw me into some unpleasant affair?’ … Many are afraid of getting caught up in a spiritual circle and having the surrender their will and freedom to a so-called-spiritual-leader. In this excerpt, The Master clarifies how doubts and hesitations on the spiritual path turn towards fear and darkness and not towards light and love.
(blue text is The Master speaking … )
Doubts and hesitations often accompany you in preliminary stages of the spiritual path. Plenty of questions come up, questions such as ‘Is the path I follow not some sort of fraud contrived to draw me into some unpleasant affair?’
These all are good reactions showing your natural prudence that you should always have when you meet, hear or experience something new. They are a protection against being led astray into the spiritual wilderness. However, they should not keep you from a real turning towards Divinity in your hearts. Nobody and nothing have access to your heart, because the Creator Himself guards it. You may disbelieve this, but nothing stands in the way of you trying to ask God a question, wherever He is, about the value of what you experience or about the value of what is being passed on to you in this book. But first and foremost, nothing stands in the way of turning to Him, so that He guides your life and appears in it the way He wishes.
Doubts and hesitations belong to the domain of the mind. The heart knows the path. The mind usually dominates in your vision of the world. When you are beginning on your path you find it difficult to discriminate. Place your trust in God in such situations. He knows which way to lead you. Trust His wisdom and love, trust His goodness and compassion. Whatever happens to you is the Divine gift intended for your liberation, and serving your life with Him in happiness and joy through all the years, centuries and the whole of eternity.
Doubts and hesitations, if they stay too long, constitute a major barrier in your spiritual life. Keep diverting your attention away from them. Busy yourselves with working, with serving others. Pray to Divinity for help and for removing all the obstacles. Apart from this, if you ever admit you are on the wrong path, you may always come back and seek another. Pray for inspiration and Divine guidance and you will go quickly through the valley of doubts. So much goodness awaits you on the other side that it is a pity to stand still and suffer in darkness. Turn to God asking that He guides you and shows you the path towards Himself every day, every moment. At times of hesitation, doubt and suffering, I am always with you. I love you and I am sorry to see you suffer.
On the other side you will find gifts of love flowing from communing with the most powerful and most loving Being in the Universe. Just get in there and allow yourself to be gifted with them. There is no greater power than the Divine; there is no sweeter love than His love. Get close to His love … and stay this way.
I love, I love, I love. One day you will see who I am and you will experience My love. But why not today — here, now? Turn to Divinity with fervent prayer asking that It embraces you with Itself.
Doubts and hesitations are like thick ropes that keep your ship in a harbour. And you will never learn what it is like to sail the open sea if you are not able to cast off the moorings. Leave the mooring ropes behind and place implicit trust in God, directing yourselves towards Him, towards His love and His compassion. You can always count on these, although sometimes you curse Divinity for sending down on you states and things which seem to be destroying you. This seems so only on the surface, because it is not the loving-you-Divinity who is guilty of these events happening to you in your life. These are the effects of your earlier conduct. But remember, sincere turning to Love and praying that Love enables you to make next step towards it, is able to reduce your loads or even remove them entirely.
You do not have to experience in order to learn. Love does not require that. Love teaches via experiencing love, and not by gathering knowledge or earthly, or even heavenly, experiences. Experience is not so important; Love is most important. The touch of Love will do for many experiences.
Each of you has his own path imprinted on the heart. The duty of religion has been to direct you – everyone, individually – to your own hearts where Divinity resides, in order that you are able to get in touch with It. However, you got directed into nothingness, towards artificially created and needless doctrines. As a result, today you take darkness for light and you are afraid to abandon the known to make a step towards Love. But the time of hesitation slowly passes; the time of love is coming.
There is an Avatar on the Earth, now. Once again, people start asking the simplest of questions: What sense is there in religion? Why is it not possible to check all these doctrines or perhaps it is? What is their purport? Who am I? Who is God?
Love, latent in so many hearts, is beginning to get out and demand its rights. This planet will soon become like the other planets, a planet of love where people live in spiritual unity with the Creator and He is their guide every day. Love will be sweetening each day and each step. Then, also, the gates of the other world will open and you will meet your ‘deceased ones’. They are not going to rise from any graves at all. You will simply see that they are still alive in a world that is right next to yours, and that many of your ancestors, loved ones and acquaintances who passed away came back as your children, grandchildren, friends and neighbours.
These will be days of great discoveries and joy for all of us. There will be no judgement except understanding of the Divine laws and of the necessity of surrendering to them for the common good and happiness of all. Since there will be no judgement, so also there will be no punishment either, and all the more, no hell. There will be love – more and more of it. Love will be present everywhere. Love will pervade every cell of your bodies and everything around you. Humanity will know then that Love has always been here and that the Creator is only this Love. Start right away, begin today, aiming to approach Him as soon as possible and experience life with all the happiness and love that He has got for every one of you.
Everyone should make this step himself. Try, because contrary to what your religions maintain (that the reward would allegedly come only after death), the first effects of your meditations and turning towards love will be seen very quickly. Just learn to see. And do not be afraid. After all, you turn to God, you turn to Love, so why be afraid?
Doubts and hesitations interfere with the flow of Love energy from your hearts into the world, where it is very much needed by others. Giving is your duty, including giving of love. You should allow it to freely flow without disruption wherever it decides. If you are too busy with yourselves and your own problems then you cut off your access to the living stream of Love energy, that otherwise would be flowing freely carrying you off towards God and blessing everything around you. Love in hearts is the Divine fire burning up all the mistakes committed, destroying the causes of suffering located in the psyche and the soul. This energy is very much needed in today’s world, because it is the only power that is able to cope with the mental states that are closed inside you for centuries, with traces of life disasters, suffering and meanness that you have committed. The world and you yourselves need plenty of love and Divine joy. Therefore, strive to open your hearts to Divinity, so that it lifts you towards Itself, cleanses you, bestows on you what it wants and subsequently blesses others while flowing in sweet silence straight from your hearts.
Taken from Conversations with the Master, Book 1, First Steps Towards Love. http://www.loving-divinity.com refers.
The Master invites us to turn toward Love itself than to remain in the valley of doubts and hesitations