121. The Significance Of One’s Desire To Grow Spiritually And To Experience

One’s desire to grow spiritually contributes much to the progress of this growth. And this progress would be according to the evolutionary plan as designed. Without an individual’s desire, such 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 they are always made only by one’s free will. Therefore, an individual’s desire can only either increase or diminish the revealing of the potential of that very individual 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 which is exclusively comprised of one’s own experience.

I shall tell you that the Father already now, knows when you, each of you, will reach Him on Paradise, He already regards you, each of you, as being on Paradise because time does not exist to Him; He embraces all eternity within the present moment, and knows everything, each beginning from the end. Therefore, you, each of you, cannot either speed up or slow down your progression to the Father, even by just a single second. The Father knows all your previous, current, and future deviations from your straight path to Him. And these deviations consist of your doubts and distrust of the Father, and the resulting distrust in your very path and consequently diminished experience on this path. But you cannot proceed along this path in some other way. You proceed only in the way that you desire and in the way in which you carry out this desire by your experience at the present moment. And if your desire just carries you away from the present moment, to the past or the future, then you cannot add this experience to the sum of your growth in all its depth at this very definite moment, when you particularly would gain it. Therefore, moments of the past or the future can only either increase or diminish one’s desire to accumulate one’s experience at present. Such moments are not hazardous. They are even welcome, because they help one experience pleasant moments and achieve one’s relaxation from the hard efforts of the present action. It is exactly similar to the way the transmigration to the future provides one with an additional desire to make even greater efforts within the present activity. The danger arises when attempts are made to essentially replace the present by either the past or the future.

When I speak to you about an individual’s desire which can either slow down or speed up one’s spiritual growth, as well as that of all creation, in this case I speak to you about one’s reaching the very depth of one‘s experience which constitutes one’s spiritual growth in particular. And if you have a greater or lesser 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 in every definite moment of the present. Spiritual growth in each of you takes place only in the present moment, and exclusively by accumulating experience. 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 great desire. Experience is being acquired while experiencing. And one cannot experience that which one has not experienced at a past moment by trying to replay this or that moment in one’s mind. Neither can one experience anything while trying to envision one‘s life in the future.

Therefore, even your greatest desires for a better life for yourselves and for 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 will contribute to the fact that you as a personality will be able to reveal your potential at the present moment and translate it into the actual part of yourself which is acquiring experience in particular. And by this present experience of yours, you, each of you, are becoming ever more real. Similar to a child, when he learns ever more, and finishes one more grade at school he grows ever more in his knowledge and in his ability to apply this knowledge. And by this, he becomes ever more his true self that the current educational system, even though very much distorted, has trained him for – to be able to adapt himself to the environment and to survive in this ambience. And this 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, will not be able to add anything to his experience apart from the experience he accumulates at a particular moment. It is only his experience that is making him that which he is as a personality at this particular moment. Only theoretical knowledge is not sufficient for one’s growth. For one’s growth and for revealing one’s self, the true self, it is necessary to apply one’s theoretical knowledge, to have one’s experience. Therefore it is possible to know a lot, but if 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 capable of using it and at the same time of knowing your true self. Even if you have a great desire to succeed in applying this knowledge in practice, your desire alone is not sufficient, though it is very important. It is necessary to apply this knowledge, to have one’s experience.

That is why not only one’s striving for a new knowledge is important, but also its application, so that one’s inner self can grow by accumulating one’s experience.

And the whole of creation is a marvelous school and a laboratory of practical application of knowledge in all spheres of activity of which you have not the slightest idea since you are just starting your path. Such a splendid stage of accumulating experience is in store for you, an endless stage, though possessing its own definite boundaries. But for you, all the same, it will long seem as if it had no limits. It will look as though it is impossible to embrace either the variety of activities going on, the vastness of its space, or the multitude of its worlds. And during all eternity into which you are making the very first step already now, on this world of your material living, there shall never be a single moment in which you could speed up your spiritual progress even by a second. The whole process of your development, for each of you, is only as much as you experience, as much as you apply the acquired knowledge provided by the marvelous spiritual teachers, in a similar way as you now are provided with knowledge by your teachers at school. Only they will use different methods and different content than your teachers. And all the acquired information, you must apply in practice, and in order to gain skills for a higher step.

When, for instance, you learn to drive a car, you do not get into the car right away. You have to learn many other things before you start to drive it. You have to learn traffic regulations, to know the purpose and position of each device in the car necessary for driving, to be able to use it, being aware of where to find it and how to turn it on. But even though you know traffic regulations very well, even though you also know very well all the appliances in the car necessary for driving it, you cannot claim that you can drive a car. It is only now that you start applying this knowledge in practice. And then you begin to realize that what has been easy for you to understand, and what seemed to you to be easy to implement, is not so easy and simple once you have to do all this by yourself. The lack of experience makes all your knowledge 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 begin, gradually, to drive this very same car ever better. And the more often you drive it the greater the skill you acquire, the more reliable is your driving. And now look upon my example from the perspective of the moments of the past and the future.

You take lessons in driving. However, in the past you had a very strong desire to drive a car but had no chance of doing it. Has this desire speeded up the process of your learning to drive a car? Just desire alone has not provided you with driving skills. It means that however much you desire something this desire does not substitute for the very process of driving. The very desire does not add anything to one’s ability of driving if the experience of the moment of the very process of driving is missing. It is exactly the same with a future moment. If you have 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 extent you can drive it at this moment, to the extent that you have acquired your experience in driving it. And here, just one’s desire alone, cannot add anything to that which is being acquired through one’s experience.

However, despite the fact that the very desire cannot replace 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 proceed. If one’s desire is missing, the process will be developing with difficulty and painfully. One’s desire helps one acquire one’s experience easier, even though it does not replace the very experience.

Therefore your desire to grow spiritually is very important because this desire is stimulating you to seek new experiences with the Father at the present moment.