121. The Significance of One‘s Desire to Grow Spiritually and to Experience
One‘s desire to grow spiritually contributes a lot to the progress of this growth. And that this progress would be according to an evolutionary plan as designed. Without an individual‘s desire such a spiritual growth is impossible. There is no spiritual growth by force or out of duty. Both compulsion and duty to some individuals might be only as benchmarks for pondering but decisions on embarking upon this path of one‘s spiritual growth are voluntary and are always made only by one‘s own free will. Therefore, a desire of an individual can only either increase or diminish the revealing of that very individual‘s potential at one or another moment. However, it is by no means possible that this very revealing of the potential would speed up the individual‘s spiritual growth itself that comprises exclusively one‘s own experience.
I shall tell you that the Father already now does know as to when you, each, reach Him, on Paradise, He already now looks upon you, each, as being on Paradise for time does not exist to Him, He embraces all eternity within the present moment, and does know everything, every beginning from the end. Therefore, you, each, cannot either speed up or slow down your progression to the Father even by merely a single second. The Father does know all your previous, current, and future deviations from your straight way to Him. And these deviations consist of both your doubts and distrust in the Father, and because of this, your distrust in this very path you are walking upon, and at the same time not that very deep experience on this path. But you cannot proceed along this path in some other way. You are proceeding only the way you desire to and the way you are carrying out this desire by your experience at the present moment. And if merely your desire is carrying you away from the present moment to the past or the future then you cannot accumulate your experience up to the very end with all your depth at that very definite moment when you can accumulate it in particular. Therefore, by showing a desire to grow spiritually you must always live at present.
The moments of the past or the future can only either to increase or diminish one‘s desire to accumulate one‘s experience at present. Such moments are not dangerous. They are even welcome for they help one experience pleasant moments and achieve one‘s relaxation from the hard efforts of the present action. Exactly in a similar way the transmigration to the future provides an additional desire to make even the harder efforts within the present acting. A danger arises once attempts are being made to essentially replace the present by either the past or the future.
When I speak to you about an individual‘s desire that can either slow down or speed up one‘s spiritual growth, as well as that of all the creation, in that case I speak to you about one‘s reaching the very depth of one‘s experience that constitutes one‘s spiritual growth in particular. And if you have a bigger or minor desire to grow spiritually it is then that you can experience more or less and by this spiritually grow, more or less, in your own experiences at every definite moment of the present. A spiritual growth of each of you is taking place at the present moment only, and exclusively by accumulating experience by each of you. There is just no other way. And here nothing depends upon your desire to grow faster or better. Your acquiring of experience determines everything. And no experience can be acquired only by one‘s desire, even by a very big one. Experience is being acquired while experiencing. And one cannot experience what one has not experienced at a past moment by trying to replay that moment or another moment in one‘s mind. Neither one can experience anything while trying to envision one‘s life in the future.
Therefore, even the biggest desires of yours, each, for a better life for yourselves and for the others all the same are based on the present moment, on an ever deeper experience with the Father by you, each of you, at the present moment. It is this desire of yours that shall contribute to the fact that you as a personality shall be able to reveal your potential at the present moment translating it into the true part of your own self that is acquiring experience in particular. And by this present experience of yours, you, each, are becoming ever more real. Similar to a child, when he is learning ever more, and finishing one more grade at school he is growing in his knowledge and ability to apply this knowledge ever more and by this ever more becoming his true self that the current education system, even though very much distorted, has been training him for – to be able to adapt himself to the environment and to survive in that ambience. And that child, by progressing from grade to grade, however much he would desire to live by either the reminiscences of the moments of the past or only within the fancies of the future, shall not be able to add anything to his experience apart from the experience he is accumulating at this very moment. It is only his own experience that is making him what he, as a personality, is at this definite moment. Merely a theoretical knowledge is not enough for one‘s own growing. For one‘s growing and for revealing one‘s own self, the true self, the application of one‘s theoretical knowledge – one‘s experience - is necessary. Therefore it is possible to know a lot but in case you are unable to apply the knowledge or you have had no chance of doing it then you must not claim that you have assimilated that knowledge and that you are able to use it and at the same time to know what is your real self. And even if you desired very much to succeed in applying this knowledge in practice yet your desire alone is not suffice though it is very important. An application of the knowledge itself, experience, is necessary. And it is your experience that is revealing the level of the achievement of your true self.
That is why it is important not only one‘s striving for a new knowledge but also its application so that one‘s own self could grow by accumulating one‘s experience.
And all the creation is a marvelous school and a laboratory of the practical application of the knowledge in all the spheres of activity that you have not the slightest idea of since you are only starting your path. Such a splendid stage of the experience-accumulating is in store for you, an endless stage even though possessing its own definite boundaries. But for you it shall still look for long as if it had no limits, it shall look as such within which it is impossible to embrace either the variety of activities going on, or the vastness of its space, or the multitude of its worlds. And during all eternity, you are making the very first step into already now, on this world of your material living, there shall never be a single one moment that you could speed up your spiritual progress by at least one moment. All the process of your development, of each of you, is only that as much you experience, as much you apply the acquired knowledge provided by the marvelous spiritual teachers in a similar way like now you are being provided knowledge by your teachers at school only they shall be using different methods and different content than your teachers are using. And all the acquired information you have to apply in practice, and by this to gain skills for a higher step.
When you, for instance, are learning to drive a car, you do not get into the car right away.. You must learn many other things before you will start to drive. You need to learn the traffic regulations, to know the meaning and position of each device, necessary for driving, in the car to be able to use it already being aware of where to find it and how to turn it on or in. But even when you know the traffic regulations very well, when you also know all the devices necessary for driving in the car very well yet you cannot claim you can drive. It is only now that you start applying this knowledge in practice. And then you begin to realize what has been easy for you to understand, and seemed to be easy of implementing, is not so easy and simple once you must do all this by yourself. The lack of experience makes all your knowledge as such that is not yet awakened to be operating in your daily actions. And it is only after a long and steadfast effort that you are beginning, gradually, to drive this very same car ever better. And the more often you drive it the deeper skills you acquire, the more reliable is your driving. And now look upon my given example from the moments of the past and the future.
You are taking lessons in driving. However, in the past you had a very strong desire to drive a car, only you did not have a chance of doing it. Has this desire speeded up the process of your learning to drive a car? A mere desire alone has not provided you driving skills. It means however much you desire for something this desire does not substitute the very process of driving. The desire itself does not add to the ability of driving if the experience of the moment of the very process of driving is missing. Exactly the same is with a future moment. If you are having lessons in driving a car and if you have a very strong desire to drive it very well just because of this desire alone you cannot drive it very well. You drive it only to the measure you can drive it at that moment, to the measure you have acquired the experience in driving it. And here merely one‘s desire alone cannot add anything to what is being acquired thru one‘s experience.
However, despite the fact that a desire itself cannot substitute experience, still it is a very significant factor in acquiring this very experience. One‘s desire is as a catalyst for a chemical reaction to progress. If one‘s desire is missing the process shall be developing with difficulty and painfully. One‘s desire helps one acquire one‘s experience easier even though it does not substitute the very experience.
Therefore your desire to grow spiritually is very important for this desire is inciting you to seek new experiences with the Father at the present moment.