“Before the God-Hour strikes
Opportunity is meaningless.
After the God-Hour strikes
Opportunity is useless.
Everything must be done
Exactly at the very moment
The God-Hour strikes.”
– Sri Chinmoy
While the “Hour of God” refers to a specific time, very early in the morning, when meditation is most fruitful, the “God-Hour” – or “God’s choice Hour” – can be any time of day: it is the moment when an event or outcome is ripe, ready and meant to occur.
The God-Hour is the moment a seed germinates; the moment an apple falls from the tree; the moment the sun rises; a wave breaks; a volcano erupts; a train departs; the same train arrives; an arrow is released; the bell tolls; the moment of birth, and of death …
The God-Hour marks the decisive close of the old; and the auspicious commencement of the new. The God-Hour does not just happen: it is the result of preparation. This preparation may be inner and hidden, behind the scenes; or it may be all our outer, conscious effort.
By discarding its old, smaller and tighter skin, the snake is able to reveal a new skin which then expands, and thus it grows. The new skin must first develop underneath the old: if the old skin were shed before the new is ready – before the ‘God-Hour’ – the snake would die. Likewise, if the old is clung on to and not discarded at the right time, the expanding new skin underneath would be intolerable. The snake is a metaphor for our own growth from our ‘old’ restrictive desire-life into our ‘new’ liberating aspiration-life – all at the destined, inevitable God-Hour.
We cannot force the God-Hour – yet we must prepare for it, yearn for it, and when it arrives be ready, willing and eager to embrace it.