It has been about 13 years. And I still remember that late afternoon as if it was yesterday.
While walking home from the place where I worked at the time, I came across an amazing little beautiful flower, deep pink in colour. It looked like some wildflower or some that we normally refer to as weed, a flower whose name I still don’t know. But what caught my attention was the way it was gracefully revealing its head from within a thick pile of cement rubble, pieces of brick, and other construction garbage heaped together on a street corner.
It is hard to imagine that anything so delicate can grow out of such dark and hard material, yet the flower was standing erect on its little tender stem. Those were the days of phone without a camera, so I couldn’t take any picture. But it is imprinted where it should be.
The resilience with which this flower was blooming in such harsh physical surroundings made me think of the power of opening and receptivity. Within this hard shell created by the cement, clay and pieces of brick there perhaps was some little spot which opened itself to the Light and Force of the Mighty Mother Nature and voila, life was born!
Within that closed, tightly bound stuff, there was something hiding in a little spot which was able to receive the Light and Force, and a flower was born.
How can we open ourselves more and more to the Light and Grace and Force and Calmness? How do we develop within us a greater receptivity to receive this Light, Grace, Force and Calmness?
The Great Masters have emphasized several ways; foremost among them are: sincere one-pointed aspiration which is patient and calm, genuine humility, unyielding faith and complete trust in the Divine, elimination of ego-insistence in all forms, and self-offering and surrender to the Divine.
For me, especially now, remembering the point about unyielding and uncompromising faith in the Divine, and having a complete trust in the Divine Plan is particularly helpful. I feel that with a steadfast faith in the Divine one’s aspiration also gets strengthened and with the force of a renewed aspiration one’s faith also gets strengthened.
While the task of eliminating ego-sense and its numerous little and big demands is HUGE, I also find that becoming more conscious of when we are resisting to something because of our egos can in itself be helpful in increasing our sense of openness. We close ourselves to the Force from above because we fill ourselves tightly with ego and its demands. We carry too much burden and weight of our egos and thereby have very little open space within where the Light and Force from Above can shine. So a reminder about gradually eliminating ego-insistence is very helpful.
The reminder about true and sincere humility is also immensely helpful. We have to go to the Divine in all our nakedness, without hiding any of our imperfections and mistakes, without deluding ourselves in any way, and without any sense of pride at any little progress we might have made on the path. We must never forget that whatever little victories we might have won so far may be totally insignificant compared to the numerous victories yet remaining to be won.
Be humble, be sincere, be honest – this is the key. Like that little pink flower that was happily and humbly growing in the middle of a construction dump, opening itself to the Light above and receiving the Force to help grow and spread its self-existent beauty and joy, even when no one was looking.
“Have you never watched a forest with all its countless trees and plants simply struggling to catch the light—twisting and trying in a hundred possible ways just to be in the sun? That is precisely the feeling of aspiration in the physical—the urge, the movement, the push towards the light. Plants have more of it in their physical being than men. Their whole life is a worship of light. Light is of course the material symbol of the Divine, and the sun represents, under material conditions, the Supreme Consciousness. The plants have felt it quite distinctly in their own simple, blind way. Their aspiration is intense, if you know how to become aware of it. On the plane of Matter they are the most open to my influence—I can transmit a state of consciousness more easily to a flower than to a man: it is very receptive, though it does not know how to formulate its experience to itself because it lacks a mind. But the pure psychic consciousness is instinctive to it. When, therefore, you offer flowers to me their condition is almost always an index to yours. There are persons who never succeed in bringing a fresh flower to me—even if the flower is fresh it becomes limp in their hands. Others, however, always bring fresh flowers and even revitalise drooping ones. If your aspiration is strong your flower-offerings will be fresh. And if you are receptive you will be also very easily able to absorb the message I put in the flowers I give you. When I give them, I give you states of consciousness; the flowers are the mediums and it all depends on your receptivity whether they are effective or not.” (The Mother, CWM, Vol. 3, p. 132)
Beauty Interprets, Expresses, Manifests the Eternal 