In Luke 19, Jesus says “I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” Passages like this one often leave us in wonderment or, worse, confusion. Such a thing sounds very unjust. It is exactly the way the business world operates, isn’t it? How could religious and spiritual practice be just like business practice? The business world deals with things, property, and money. How could the same rules apply to inner realities, the mind, the spirit?
The fact is that they do, but the significance is quite different. To the one who loves (for example), more love will become possible; to the one who uses the intelligence he or she has, more will be given; to the one who prays, more prayer will be possible. It is by using what is given to us that we become capable of more.
We often tell ourselves that in “the spiritual life” everything is gift, or grace. And that is true. But to say no more than that would be to make it a purely passive thing. In reality we know that nothing deep or ‘inner’ can ever be given to us without our effort or at least our cooperation with God’s work in our lives. A man once asked a wise monk, “Can I bring about my own enlightenment?” The monk responded, “No more than you can make the sun to shine.” “But then, why do I have to work so hard with all these spiritual practices?” he asked. And the monk said, “To ensure that when the sun begins to shine you will no longer be asleep.”
