Part VI

HDW 18-19. On 13 February 2005 at the Hilton Hotel in Nanjing, China, Sri Chinmoy addressed an inspired seeker and answered a question from one of his disciples.

Seeker: Guru, a gentleman came from the Beijing Municipal Government. I told him, "Sri Chinmoy has students in more than one hundred countries," and he said, "That is like the United Nations!" Then one of your disciples said, "It is only the United Nations of all the hearts." Please, Guru, in your heart's United Nations, do not leave China out!

Sri Chinmoy: My dearest seeker-friend, let me speak most sincerely. You will always remain in my heart of God-realisation. Now, I tell you, each spiritual Master of the highest calibre represents not only the highest Absolute Lord Supreme, but also the spiritual Masters of the past who are no longer in the physical. If you follow a spiritual Master of the highest order, if you are following the path of the Lord Buddha, you will find no difficulty in appreciating our path. Your soul has accepted me and our path, one hundred per cent. Your heart has accepted me one hundred per cent. Many, many, many, many times your soul and your heart have come to me — many, many, many times since I saw you for the first time. That was the time your soul and heart fully accepted me with utmost love and devotion. Now, your mind, your vital and your physical existence need peace, tranquillity.

I have many, many disciples whose heart and soul have accepted me fully, whereas their mind, their vital and their physical existence have not accepted me one hundred per cent. The soul and the heart have accepted me one hundred per cent, but the mind, the vital and the earthly consciousness, the body, may have accepted me only fifty or sixty per cent. Again, their soul's acceptance of me and their heart's acceptance are so strong that they have kept their mind, vital and physical consciousness under control. We have also a few disciples who have accepted me wholeheartedly with their body, vital, mind, heart and soul. The soul, heart, mind, vital and body have accepted me one hundred per cent.

Usually I do not do this, but I am saying in public that your soul has accepted me one hundred per cent and your heart has accepted me one hundred per cent. After having seen me, if you go to different Masters, forgive me to say, you will only make a comparison and you will make your life miserable, most miserable. You may see something nice there, as you have seen something here and the comparison will make your life miserable.

Your soul and heart express their feelings through soulful tears. These are not fake tears; they are not emotional human tears. No, these tears are coming from the very depths of your soul, from the depths of your heart. But right now your mind and vital need a little more poise. If they have poise, if they have peace, then you will be able to accept me in your mind and vital also. I do not want to say that your mind has not accepted me at all — no, no! That would be the height of my insincerity. Your mind has accepted me, but not the way your heart has accepted me. I do not want to give marks, but your mind and vital and your physical, earthly consciousness, have accepted me to some extent, whereas your heart and soul have accepted me wholeheartedly. They have accepted me completely, completely.

Even here there are some disciples who have been with me for many, many years whose soul and heart are one hundred per cent for me, absolutely one hundred per cent, whereas their mind fluctuates. Sometimes the mind has accepted me eighty, ninety or ninety-five per cent. Then again, there are some on the path whose mind has accepted me only seventy per cent or sixty per cent. In some cases, even now, after so many years, their vital and mind have accepted me only thirty to forty per cent.

But there are quite a few who have accepted me whole-heartedly, one hundred per cent, with their aspiration, dedication and self-giving. Their entire existence is only for me, only for me. Their only desire is to manifest my light — which is the Light of the Supreme — here on earth. They do not expect anything from me. There are some disciples in that category. They get boundless joy only by pleasing me and fulfilling me in my own way.

Again, sometimes desire creeps in and when they get this desire, they curse themselves. Why? Each time they have a desire — which may even touch the height of ambition — they become miserable because they feel that they are going away from me. They know that their acceptance of me is complete and whatever decision I make in their outer life or in their inner life is for their good. I do not get any joy by giving orders. I am not a commander. But I have taken them as my own, very own. They are extremely grateful that I have accepted them as my own and I am also extremely grateful that I was able to accept them as my own, very own. I have some disciples like that.

But there are also disciples who are not with me one hundred per cent in every way. The soul and heart are there, but in some cases even the heart at times disappears, because the mind becomes so powerful that it eclipses the heart-sun. There is no guarantee that people who stay on our path for forty or fifty years will be making progress. In some cases, when people were five or ten years old on the path, they made the fastest progress. Now the same people have been on the path for twenty, twenty-five, thirty or thirty-five years and they have descended considerably. Some people feel, after staying for so many years, that they have wasted their life. Some people feel that their mind is fossilised and they cannot go any farther.

I always say that there is no such thing as an age-barrier in the spiritual life. Even until the moment when you breathe your last, you can make progress. If your last breath goes to the Supreme with utmost sincerity, even at that very last moment you can make progress. But some disciples have definitely descended, descended. Some have descended considerably; others, to some extent; and still others, miserably. Again, some have maintained their height and some are continuing to make progress.

On our Christmas Trips, some disciples make so much progress! It is like putting money in the bank. The rest of the year, even if they do not make any progress, they can withdraw money — that is to say, aspiration, dedication and all their good qualities. In three months' time, some people make that kind of extraordinary progress.

In your case, my dear seeker-friend, do not be discouraged. You can dive deep within to see if I am telling the truth. Your soul and your heart have accepted me. You have already been to one or two Masters. Now if you go to other Masters, there will only be serious comparison in your mind. Again, who am I to say these things? But if I have to speak on behalf of the Supreme, your link with my soul and my heart is infinitely stronger, infinitely stronger. I am not flattering you.

My request to all the disciples is not to change boats. Again, if one boat only capsizes time and again and there is no hope for that boat to arrive at the destination, then one has every right to change from that boat to a boat that is sailing fast, very fast and that he feels can fulfil its promise. There are boats like that. If one is fully satisfied with one boat, then my advice is never, never to change. But if one boat enjoys hesitation, then an individual has the right to make the final decision, the faultless decision, to choose another boat.

Some people are in the boat, but they are not active. They are not watching or doing anything. I say that, even if you fall asleep and do not see what is going on around you, no harm; you can remain asleep. Some disciples are not fully committed to the path. They are neither one hundred per cent in the aspiration-world nor one hundred per cent in the dedication-world, but just because they are staying on the path, they are not going downhill. They are holding their spiritual standard.

My friend, my dearest seeker-friend, I am telling you, if it is a matter of your soul, if it is a matter of your heart, then one hundred per cent you have accepted me. But if the other parts of your being are not satisfied, then what can I say? Again, there are people in my boat whose entire being, whose body, vital, mind, heart and soul, still have not accepted me fully.

Every day I tell the secret of secrets: we sing and pray to the Supreme not to give us freedom. Everybody wants freedom, freedom, freedom! Who does not want freedom? But we forget that we misuse freedom one hundred percent. Some countries that advocate freedom are in the vanguard of destruction. Now our philosophy is, "Give me no freedom." I know that, the moment I take freedom from God, I separate myself from Him and I am prone to make mistakes one hundred per cent of the time. If I say, "God, I love You implicitly, unconditionally," then I have no choice of my own. At that time I pray to God, "Give me no freedom." I know if I pray for freedom and if I get freedom, I may make a most deplorable blunder and ruin my whole spiritual life.

I tell God, "Do not give me freedom. Bind me, keep me bound inside Your Heart. I do not need freedom! Real freedom is joy and my joy is to be bound by You." That is my freedom. Freedom means joy. I can enjoy freedom in my life. But again, if I pray to God, "Do not give me freedom," it means, "I want to be absolutely one with You in Your Decisions. Every Decision you make for me is the perfect one." For the last one or two years, I have felt the supreme necessity for the disciples to pray to the Supreme not to give them freedom.

This philosophy is totally different from the philosophy of the outer world. I am praying, "Do not give me freedom." But what does freedom mean? I know my freedom means I will only commit blunders and blunders and blunders, whereas if the Supreme guides me at every moment, is He going to make mistakes? If we feel that He has made a so-called mistake in our life, we will see that we are only climbing up to another height. From one plane of consciousness we may take it as a defeat, but from another plane of consciousness, it is a great achievement.

Sri Aurobindo said, "His failure is not failure whom God leads." God knows the Ultimate Goal because God Himself is the Ultimate Goal. If the disciples take me as their Destination, they will not feel that I have not said the right thing or done the right thing. To those who have accepted me wholeheartedly, I wish to say that your Destination is not somewhere else; it is inside me. It is in my inner existence.

People who are of the highest height, who have reached the most sublime height, represent not only God, the Absolute God, but also their elder brothers — like Sri Rama, Sri Krishna, Lord Buddha, Sri Chaitanya, the Saviour Christ, Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Aurobindo and others. It is all the same light. The highest Supreme sent some supremely chosen individuals to do His Work. Again, the way the Absolute Supreme guided those spiritual figures of the highest order, He will always guide the ones supremely chosen for His Manifestation.

There are many, many Gurus, countless Gurus. Swami Vivekananda once said, "In East Bengal, Gurus grow like mushrooms." He was bothered by so many people from East Bengal. They said, "Please, please come and see my Guru! He is God-realised. He is an Avatar, an Avatar, an Avatar!" That is why Swami Vivekananda said, "In East Bengal, Gurus grow like mushrooms."

Here on earth everybody is not at the same height. With all the sincerity at my command, I wish to say that all spiritual Masters are not of the same height. Again, if we use the term 'representative', each human being is a God-representative — you and I and everyone. Whoever has taken human incarnation is a God-representative, but we have to know that a particular God-representative may have only an iota of God's Divinity to embody and reveal and manifest.

All human beings are God-representatives if they have faith in God, if they are God-believers. And even those who are not God-believers also have faith! I say their "no God" is also my God, because they have faith in their "no God." The most important thing is to have faith. I say, "There is a God, there is a God." My faith is in God. But if you say, "No God, no God," fine! That "no God" is also my God, because you have implicit faith in "no God." If you have faith in "no God," then your faith I accept as God because God is omnipresent, He is omnipotent. But those who believe in God are doing the right thing, absolutely. "No God" is one way of saying the truth. We use the term "Neti, neti" — “Not this, not that" — but I cannot side with those who say "no God."

We do not understand the way the Creation can be threatened by some undivine or hostile forces. These undivine forces are embodied by some individuals. It is something unfathomable and most painful and we shall not go to that side of Creation. We shall try to live with the God of our aspiration, of our dedication. If we think of the destruction of the world by certain forces, by certain individuals, we are totally lost and we shall not be able to find the right way to change the world. We cannot even change our own mind, our own life. How can we change the course of the world? We cannot! So let us not go to the side of the undivine forces.

Again I am saying to all of you, you all are representatives of God. God has given to some individuals the capacity of the infinite ocean. Some are like rivers, some are like ponds, some are like swimming pools, some are like little streams and some are like tiny drops of water. But whatever your capacity, once you take human incarnation, you are definitely a God-representative.