Lectures and public meditations
Always before each university talk, I look around to see if there are sincere seekers in the audience. I enter into the soul of each true aspirant there and offer my love, devotion and surrender at the Feet of my Lord Supreme. Unfortunately, sometimes the souls of only very few aspirants respond and enter into my consciousness. These seekers open their hearts’ door to me and allow me to raise their aspiration and consciousness and then place it in the Heart of our Lord Supreme. They may not know consciously that their hearts are responding, but at least there is some response.The mouth is not the proper organ for communicating divine feelings. My English, with its Indian accent, is poorly understood, but my heart is vast, boundless. The heart is the best medium for true communication. The mother speaks with her heart and understands immediately with her heart her infant son’s requests. He says only, “Mother,” and immediately she knows what it is he wants. Similarly, the son says, “Father,” and immediately the father understands. But after the children have grown up, they can stand in front of their parents for hours trying to explain themselves, and still the parents don’t have the slightest idea of what they are trying to say.
Or perhaps the son is in the military. He knows he has a mother who cares for him. She may write a letter every few weeks, but because this is of the mind, he reads it and it is all washed away. But he knows that his mother loves him and speaks to him through her heart, even from thousands of miles away. Similarly, I do not have to speak to or touch a seeker; this communication is of the senses. My heart communicates infinite love even if the person is far away.
When I give lectures, to be very frank with you, I am not in trance. During my talks I am below the trance consciousness, although I do move from one plane of consciousness to another. There are seven higher planes or worlds and seven lower worlds. The bird in me, which we call the soul, moves from one plane of consciousness to another. Even as I am talking, my soul is flying up, up, up: and I am fully aware of my soul’s flight. At that time it is the soul that brings to the fore the knowledge, wisdom and light that I am supposed to offer to you all. If you have seen me in trance, which I can easily enter, it is infinitely superior to what I show you when I am speaking. Trance is something unique and, by God’s Grace, I have the capacity to enter into trance any time I wish.
I have given talks at over a hundred universities. I have lectured at the Ivy League universities, and at Cambridge and Oxford, and I wish to say that I have inspired and awakened the consciousness of many seekers. At all the universities, according to their capacity and understanding, the students have accepted the divine inspiration that I have offered. But recently we have started offering our inspiration and aspiration through silence. I have been holding meditations at Columbia University and at various other places in the United States and in Europe. At these meditations I do not talk, but through inner silence, inner communication, I bring down Peace, Light and Bliss from above. The seekers then receive it according to their own receptivity and capacity.
Let me tell you an amusing incident. You know that quite often when I meditate my eyes flicker. Once, when I was on television in Puerto Rico, a Hatha Yoga teacher who had previously seen me several times on television, happened to meet disciples who were at the studio with me. She said to them, “Of all the spiritual Masters Sri Chinmoy is the best, but I feel so sorry for him because, from his eyes, I can see he becomes really nervous. He is very devoted, very sincere, but he becomes very nervous during his meditation.” I have told you people that when my eyes flicker I am flying like a bird, going from one plane of consciousness to another. But ordinary people don’t see it that way. They feel I become nervous!
A few days ago I watched the film of my performance of the first scene from The Son, my play about the Christ, and I was observing my eyes flickering. How can people think that that movement is from nervousness? I am in such a sublime consciousness! At that time even my physical consciousness is not on earth. I may be sitting or standing, but my physical consciousness has left the body, my physical consciousness is not even there. Yet some people think that I have become nervous!
When a person has come late to a meditation, I look at him and with a side glance I give him something; otherwise, he may not get much. If the room is surcharged with divine consciousness and he arrives in an ordinary or a bad consciousness, he will not be able to receive anything. People in a bad consciousness have very thick skins. They do not feel pain or anything when they come where there are good vibrations. Again, the good forces will not enter into them because they know it will be of no use. But if good people go to where the vibrations are bad or where there are bad people, it will be a very painful experience because the bad forces will attack the good people. Good forces will never do this. They will see if they are in a position to transform, and only then will they enter.
Sometimes I rub my eyes or scratch my face during meditation if I am exhausted or if some insect is biting me. But when I am in trance, at that time no matter how many insects sit on my nose or my eyes, I forget about them. At Thousand Island Park I entered into nirvikalpa samadhi when I sat at the place where Vivekananda meditated. Seven or eight mosquitoes were biting me, but I was in a very high consciousness, so they didn’t bother me at all. It is not that I was pretending. I didn’t have to prove anything. No matter what kind of torture I go through, if I am in trance I don’t notice it. Otherwise, if I had been in an ordinary consciousness, I would not have been able to stay there for even five minutes.
