In plain words
In the same way, because the dust of mean desires settles in your mind, the rust of impurity forms on it. To remove this rust of impurity, you must put it in the fire called the test. Only when the test is done does your life come to rest. If students want to go up to the higher classes, they must be ready for every examination. Only when they get good marks in the examination can they join the higher class. However dear a Vice-Chancellor may be, he will not give students promotion without examinations.
The test that God sets
In the same way, God too sets you tests now and then only to raise you to a higher level. Setting tests is a fine taste for God. Taking those tests should be a fine taste for you as well. “O God! The sooner You set me tests, the sooner I shall reach a higher level. So set me tests,” is how we should pray. But through the influence of this Kali age, man prays, “O God! Do not set me tests.” Without examinations, how can anyone go up to the higher classes?! What, after all, is the test God sets? How much faith do you have in this impermanent world? How much faith in God? That is what He tests. If you do not have in God even one hundredth of the faith you have in the physical world, how will God bless you?!
God gives the fruit your faith deserves
For the sake of sons, friends, possessions and business, for the sake of wealth, grain, pleasures and fame, you waste so much time. Are you using even one hundredth of it for God? First you must develop faith in God. It is the one who doubts himself who doubts God. So first man must believe in himself; then he must believe in God. Only such a man can reach a high level. How can one who cannot believe in himself believe in God? Once a blind man came to Jesus and asked Him to give him eyes. “Do you have the faith that I can give?” Jesus asked. The blind man said, “I have come because of that very faith.” Then Jesus touched his eyes and granted him sight. In the same way many come to Me: “Swami! Will You give me that? Will You give me this?” they ask. First, do you have the faith that I can give? I give according to your faith.
We must not measure the great with a small mind
As Jesus had a ‘Doubting Thomas’, every guru has many ‘Doubting Thomases’. Once Vivekānanda, to test whether Rāmakṛṣṇa had any desire for money, put some coins under his bed. Rāmakṛṣṇa came and went to sit on that bed, and sprang up as if thorns had pierced him. Then Vivekānanda was ashamed of his own small mind. If you want to recognise great souls rightly, you too must rise to the level of great souls. When an aeroplane is moving through the sky, you who move about on the earth can see the aeroplane, but can you know who the pilot in it is?