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 imagine that one day you will have. Instead, you look at the hard facts 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: "To one who already has, God will give even more-to overflowing." Its significance is that if you will make do with what God has given you, then automatically the supreme wholeness 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 use. You have not been neglectful. You have not treated with scant respect what you have already been endowed with, which means that you have recognised the worth of what the cosmic being has already given you. This is no small thing!
Taking whatever we have, taking everything together, we apprise our present situation, our present endowments, abilities and faculties, and say, "Yes, this is what I am at this point in time, so let me put it to the highest and best use with all possible sincerity and enthusiasm." If this is done, what can you not achieve? Right at the very beginning, you will start progressing, moving forward. You will not just look forward to something, but start moving forward. This is the great thing that is needful. This is the working of grace.
So, in the light of this truth, how do we look at what we have? It is not to be disdained, but looked at in totality. "Yes, this is what I have. God has endowed me with this thing called life with all its pluses and minuses. 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 have 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. 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. I will not categorise things, nor try to fight or reject anything. 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. Even when I commit some blunder and have to pay for it, I will make use of it, for I know now what should and should not be done." If that is so, the blunder has given you a valuable insight into life and equipped you with new knowledge. It has alerted you to something that perhaps until that time you had not been aware of, and it is a positive factor helping your spiritual life. What is more, you should recognise that you are something more than this life you are leading. You are something apart from this 'me' that seems to be all you have. 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 these are factors that the real you, the eternal you, can make use of. Here we come ultimately to the great saying; 'You are what your mind is.' If you take this mental attitude, this new vision, 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 things in a way in which they become assets, not liabilities.
Herein comes the necessity of your thinking being backed up by the wisdom of reasoning. By a little reflection, you can go on making minus into plus and not even think of it as minus. "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." Thus should be the wise, discriminating seeker's approach to life. May God's grace and the blessings and benedictions of Gurudev give you the key to this, guide your footsteps and enlighten your mind at every step.
