Question: Guru, I think that we all have the same goal and I am deeply at peace with the roads that Jonnie and Cherie walk down. But I think that one of the problems parents may face when their children embark on roads that they themselves haven't walked on can be one of competition. I think there was one issue that touched me very deeply, and that was when you changed their names. I really felt then that you were trying to take a very precious place in their lives which, until that time, only their Father and I had had. I felt that if we were accepting your grace, then you also should have recognised a very special place that we hold in the children's lives, too.
Sri Chinmoy: I am most grateful to you for giving me the opportunity to answer this question. At the outset I would like to tell you that I am not the doer. As I told you, I listen to the dictates of Somebody who is infinitely superior to me: God. As you have divinity within you and everyone else has divinity, I am also a humble student, an instrument of the divinity within me. Here I am not fooling myself or trying to escape from hard-and-fast reality. You may say that in the name of God I am exploiting your children. You can say something and I can say something else. But it is not that I was enjoying malicious pleasure and trying to take them away; it is not that I gave them the spiritual names Hashi and Kanan so they would have no earthly connection with their parents — far from it! When I gave names to your children, it was not my doing. I entirely depend on the command from within. I am a perfect slave, let us say, to the inner Authority. When the inner Authority tells me, "Give this name to that particular person," I just listen. The Supreme who is within, who is my Pilot, who is your Pilot, who is everybody's Pilot, commanded me to give names to some of the disciples. There are many, many disciples who do not yet have spiritual names; their names have not yet come to me.To get a spiritual name means they get great joy, as if they were on the verge of reaching their goal. This is not a justification. Only I wish to tell you why the Supreme wanted me to give spiritual names to some of the disciples who were in a position to receive them. Forgive me, but when their parents gave them names, to be very frank with you, they were not in the highest plane of consciousness. The parents heard some name that they liked, or the children had to get the father's name or the mother's name or a relative's name. But the names that their parents and grandparents had came only from human experience. Is there any parent who meditated for hours and hours to get a name for his children? No, not even one!
Here in the West I have come across some names like Buffy and so forth. By using the term 'Buffy' or some other name, do you get any inspiration? But if you get a spiritual name which embodies peace, light and bliss in abundant measure, naturally that will bring forward all your good qualities. I have an immediate free access to your children's souls, and when I give them a spiritual name that embodies their souls' qualities, immediately these qualities come forward. These spiritual names immediately change their inner outlook on Truth and Light.
Kanan means grove, lotus grove. The lotus is the emblem of India's spiritual consciousness. If you use the name Kanan, you think of a lotus blossoming petal by petal. Then what happens? Your love for God keeps growing, your gratitude keeps growing, your appreciation of Truth keeps growing. So these are the things that the Supreme in me, the Supreme in Kanan and Hashi, the Supreme in all my students, wants me to do.
When your children get their spiritual names, I make a bold statement. I tell them they don't even have to repeat the name of God if they repeat their souls' names, because their names have come from God. Instead of repeating 'God', if they repeat their souls' names, automatically God comes to the fore. You may say it sounds absurd, but I know the inseparable oneness that their souls have with God. Their father is called Mr So-and-So in the office; at home he is 'Dad', and his friends call him by some other name. But he is the same person. Similarly, the soul and the Supreme are totally one and the same.
You may ask what is wrong with their previous names. Nothing is wrong. You are always at perfect liberty to call them by their American names. I will never tell my students to hang up or not speak to their mothers if their mothers phone them and call them by their American names. On the contrary, their Indian teacher is fond of cutting jokes with them. Sometimes I call them by their American names, although it is very difficult for me to remember them. Once I give them Indian names, then I forget their American names and it takes me a long time to remember. Sometimes I ask others to tell me what their other names are.
As I said before, anything that gives us inspiration or increases our inspiration we shall do. Let them make a comparison between their previous names and their present names. They are seekers and followers of Truth, and they know that they receive light and delight and tremendous joy when they repeat their spiritual names. It is not because they have got them from an Indian, but because they feel that there is infinite reality and light in what is inside their names.
Dear mothers, I have not taken and I will never take your children away from you. The only thing is that the Supreme in me wants them to appreciate you, value you and admire you on a very, very high plane of consciousness. Otherwise, on the physical plane if they have to appreciate and admire their parents, they may not subscribe to your views all the time. You may say, "This is black," and they may say, "No, this is white," or "This is yellow." If they come to your plane or you come to their plane and you find fault with each other, then there will be arguments and no end to your misunderstandings. But if you and they both climb up to a very high plane of consciousness, which belongs neither to you nor to them, and then approach each other, at that time what you see as truth, they also are bound to see as truth; and what they feel as truth, you also are bound to feel as truth. If you climb up just one step on the ladder of aspiration, you will feel at every moment that what they are doing is right, and what you are doing will be right according to them. They are trying to realise you, to help you, to serve you on a high plane of consciousness. So if you go deep within, you will see that they are perfectly at one with you.
