WITH WHAT YOU HAVE, MAKE THE HIGHEST AND BEST USE

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

79. WITH WHAT YOU HAVE, MAKE THE HIGHEST AND BEST USE
There is an expression in the West: “Make do.” It means that whatever we have, good or
bad, we must make the best use of that. You must make do with what you have and not lament over
what you do not have or fantastically imagine that one day you will have—and then you will be
tops. Instead, you look at the hard facts, the ground reality, and make the best of what you have. You
don’t go on waiting for some fanciful future when everything is perfect. This is one of the defects of
the mind—always looking for a time when everything will be ideal.
There is also a significant saying: “That to one who has, God will give even more—to
overflowing.” Its significance is that if you will thus make do with what God has given you, then
automatically the Supreme Plenum, the purnam, starts giving you more and more, because having
done the best that you can with what you already have, you have created conditions for being given
more and for receiving more. Some mysterious cosmic law seems to start working and providing
you with more and more, because you have deserved it by putting what you have to the very best
and highest use.
You have not been neglectful. You have not treated with scant respect what you have
already been endowed with. You have given it due recognition, due respect, due value and started
making use of it in the best possible manner, which means that you have recognised the worth of
what the Cosmic Being has already given you. This is no small thing!
Therefore, taking whatever we have, good or bad, in a holistic way, taking everything
together, we apprise our NOW situation, our NOW endowments, abilities, capacities and faculties
and say: “Yes, this is what I amat this point in time. In God’s own eternity, this is what I am. This is
what I am and what I have, so let me put it to the highest and best use with all possible sincerity,
keen interest, earnestness, dedication and enthusiasm.” If this is done, what can you not achieve?
There is nothing that you cannot achieve.
Right at the very beginning you will start progressing, moving forward. You will not look
forward to something, but start moving forward. This is the great thing needful. This is the working
of grace. In the context of Indian philosophy it is called purushartha.
So, in the light of this truth, how do we look at what we have? It is not to be disdained, turned
away from, but looked at in totality. “Yes, this is what I have. God has endowed me with this thing
called life with all its plus and minus. Yet, I have it. So let me sit up and see in what way I can make
the very best use of myself and in what way I can make the very best use of life.”

This means that you start looking at things in a totally different way: “Everything that I am
and everything that life holds for me has some value in this approach I have now decided to take. So,
let me no longer analyse and divide life into things that are helpful and not helpful, that are sadhana
and not sadhana, that are spiritual and contrary to spiritual. No, I will take one hundred per cent of
my life and see in what way I can turn each per cent to my advantage, how I can look at it in a
different way and see in all of it a means of attaining the Goal, a means of Self-unfoldment,
illumination and enlightenment. I will not classify or categorise things, nor try to fight against,
reject or throw something away. I will take life as a whole and see everything in it as a possible plus
factor kept there by God in His all-intelligence to help me.
“Yes, even when I commit some blunder and have to pay for it, I will make use of it: ‘Now I
know what I should not have done and what it is I should do if such a situation arises tomorrow.’”
So, the blunder has given you a valuable insight into life and equipped you with new knowledge.
Therefore, even when you think something is to be very much regretted, a most unfortunate
happening, it has great value for the future. It has alerted you to something that perhaps until that
time you had not been aware of. So it has a plus value, it has a positive purpose, and, therefore, it is a
factor helping your spiritual life and not the contrary.
In this way, everything, both the sum totality of what you are and the sum totality of what
you feel have to be looked at in this way. Our entire dealing with both these factors, and when I say
our entire dealing with both, I exactly say what I mean—that you are something more than life. You
are something apart from this me which is all that you have.
So, when you know that you are something apart from this me, you don’t get caught up in
the me and say I. You know that this is also an endowment, and you begin to think in what way I can
make use of this me and this life of mine. Both of them are factors that you, the real you, the eternal
you, the essential you, can make use of.
And here we come ultimately to the great saying: “You are what your mind is.” So, if you
take this mental attitude, this new vision, this new way of looking at and approaching things, you
say no to nothing and all things stand before you with a new meaning. Everything is a plus factor
and you have to deal with them in a way in which they become endowments and assets, not
liabilities and problems. You make use of them.
Herein comes the necessity of your thinking being backed up by the wisdom of your
reasoning, your buddhi. By a little reflection, by a little discrimination you can go on making minus
into plus and not even think of it as minus. “This is a plus point. At the moment I don’t see the plus
point, but let me see where I can identify the plus point in this seemingly minus situation, both
within me and in the life in which I am.”
Thus should be the wise, discriminating seeker and sadhaka’s approach to life and the living
of life. May God’s grace and the blessings and benedictions of Gurudev give you the key to
this—give you the key, guide your footsteps and enlighten your mind at every step.