Sri Chinmoy's birthday offering⁸

Dear ones, today is the day that I need you to exercise all the compassion at your command for the coming two hours. I need your sympathetic ears, not to speak of your sympathetic hearts. I shall play on twenty-seven instruments. Your mind may say it is the height of stupidity, a waste of time and so forth. Your heart will sympathise with me in its own way and say, “Poor Guru, why does he want to become a jack-of-all-trades and master of none?” But your loving, illumining and manifesting soul will have a different story to tell. Your soul, which always sees eye-to-eye with my soul, my existence, knows that I would like to be an eternal child. God Himself is an eternal Child. It is only a child that can make constant progress within and without, so I want all my spiritual children to act like divine children.

There is a great difference between a childish attitude and a childlike attitude. A childish attitude consciously or unconsciously tends toward destruction, whereas a childlike attitude consciously or unconsciously tends toward construction, perfection and satisfaction in fulfilling the Supreme in His own way. It is my childlike heart that will play and, as you know, I shall make mistakes in all the instruments that I shall play. But your compassionate heart will forgive me and will see eye to eye with my soulful message: that I wish to be eternally a divine child in my consciousness. I am forty-four years old today, and I look like an octogenarian. But in my consciousness I always feel like a four year old child; therefore, I do make progress in my inner life, inner consciousness, every day, and that inner consciousness I wish to offer today on this most auspicious occasion, to all those on our path, who are in our boat, who have formed this small sweet family.

[_After the concert_]

At the beginning of my journey’s start I needed your compassion. At the end of my journey’s close I need the same thing: compassion. Forever and forever I wish to remain a divine child, an eternal child in my searching and illumining consciousness. And those who are in my boat, I do hope will do the same, for the eternal, the Supreme Pilot in me and in you all wants us to remain eternally as divine children. It is only the divine child in us that can grow, will grow into perfect Perfection. This perfect Perfection is nothing short of constant transcendence of one’s own climbing cry.

Now I wish to invite all my teachers, starting from Dulal, Arun, Nadeshwar, Vinaya. If you have helped me in any capacity, please come up. And those who have offered me instruments, please come up. I offer my soulful gratitude to all these divine instruments who have helped me considerably in today’s performance. Soulfully, most soulfully, I am offering you my gratitude from the very depth of my heart.

When I live in the body, it is all unaspiring.
When I live in the vital, it is all challenging.
When I live in the mind, it is all amusing.
When I live in the heart, it is all illumining.
When I live in the soul, it is all fulfilling.