Infinity is infinite Vision-Height, and Eternity is eternal Satisfaction-Delight.
— photo by ShraddhaPerfection and satisfaction are one and inseparable. I need perfection. I pray to God to grant me, out of His boundless Bounty, soulful perfection. I want satisfaction. I meditate on God for His fruitful satisfaction. I pray to God sleeplessly not to fulfil my desire-life. I meditate on God for His triumphant manifestation in and through my aspiration-life. My desire-life binds me. My aspiration-life liberates me. My desire-life feeds the animal in me, binds the human in me and blights the divine in me. My aspiration-life silences the animal in me, awakens the human in me and immortalises the divine in me.
Giving and becoming are one and inseparable. I am giving to my Beloved Supreme my ignorance-night. I am giving to mankind an iota of my faith-flame. I am giving to my Beloved Supreme my surrender-heart and gratitude-life. I am giving to mankind my aspiration-cry and dedication-smile. Consciously and constantly I am becoming both God’s messenger and man’s messenger. As a messenger of man, the seeker in me is carrying humanity’s imperfection-sea to God. As a messenger of God, the seeker in me is carrying God’s Compassion-Sky to man.
Becoming and transcending are one and inseparable. I am transcending. At every moment I am transcending, within and without. I am transcending my previous experiences and my previous realisations; I am transcending my earth-bound capacities. At every moment the divine in me, the Supreme in me, is making the impossible possible. At every moment the Singer Supreme within me is singing the song of continuous progress. Continuous progress is founded upon self-giving, and self-giving and God-becoming are one and inseparable.
I am giving. I am becoming. I am transcending. Unconditionally I am giving. Unreservedly I am becoming. Unendingly I am transcending.
The human in us cries for success. The divine in us cries for progress. When we live in the success-world, we see that there is no end to our success-march. Each time we succeed in something, we become dissatisfied, because at that very moment a new goal appears before us and we still feel like veritable beggars. But when we live in the progress-world, although our ultimate Goal is still a far cry, at every moment we are finding satisfaction, because progress itself is all-illumining and all-fulfilling satisfaction. Therefore, a sincere, genuine, soulful seeker will always long for progress and not for success. If he longs for progress, only then will he be able to please and fulfil his Beloved Pilot Supreme in the way that He wants to be pleased and fulfilled. And this is the only way that the seeker himself can be truly satisfied: by pleasing God in His own way.
Each moment the seeker in me is longing for perfection, which is the harbinger of satisfaction. Perfection and satisfaction are always founded upon self-giving, and self-giving is another name for God-becoming. What is God-becoming? God-becoming is nothing other than our conscious and constant realisation of transcending oneness in perfection and transcending perfection in oneness.
Honolulu, Hawaii, 14 March 1980↩
God wants to manifest Himself in and through us. We hope to realise God so that we can liberate ourselves from the meshes of ignorance. God hopes to make us His perfect instruments. We hope to please God eventually in God’s own Way.
You will say that because of life, there is hope. You are right. But I wish to add something. Because there is hope, we live eternally — in the inner world, in the outer world, or in both worlds. You will say that hope sees illumining light in teeming darkness. You are perfectly right. But I wish to add something. Hope is itself the light that illumines darkness.
I love hope. I may not love God, but in the inmost recesses of my being, in the inmost recesses of my heart, I feel that God loves me. Whether I love God or not, God loves me: This is my fervent hope. I may not care for God, but I do feel in all sincerity that God cares for me. Whether I care for God or not, God cares for me: This is my fervent hope.
There is human hope and divine hope. Human hope is desire-bound; divine hope is aspiration-free. Desire-bound and earth-bound are one and identical. Aspiration-free and Heaven-free are one and the same. Human hope inspires us and energises us. Hope divine awakens in us not only infinite possibilities but also immortal realities.
Human hope inspires our outer journey. Hope divine aspires in and through our inner journey. Our outer journey takes us to name and fame, but name and fame will eventually lead to utter frustration. But in the divine world, in the aspiration-world, at the end of our inner journey’s close we see, we feel and we grow into illumination.
When we aspire, we come to realise that hope is a hand, beautiful and powerful, beckoning us for our psychic transformation. When we aspire, we see and feel that hope is the perfect beginning of our God-realisation. When we do not aspire, hope appears before us in a different way. We feel that perhaps it is all mental hallucination; perhaps it is all deception.
Each individual here on earth, whether he is aspiring or not, cannot escape from hope. But hope itself is not an escape. Hope unites us with a higher reality which illumines and fulfils us.
The world is a body. An ordinary human being is not satisfied with the body-consciousness that he has and that he is. He wants to see the body of the future. He wants to see the body-consciousness of the future. If he can see the possibilities, potentialities, realities and inevitabilities of the future, then only will he be happy. But a sincere seeker is not interested in seeing the distant or remote future. He feels that this world is an eternal Now. By virtue of his convincing inner hope, he wants to see, feel and grow into the eternal Now.
Perhaps some of you know that I serve the United Nations. We have a group at the United Nations which meets twice a week to pray and meditate for peace. What we call the United Nations was once upon a time known as the League of Nations. The League of Nations was the vision of Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson was a man of supreme vision. He wanted to unite all the nations. Each nation is composed of human beings and divine souls. By unifying the souls of all the nations, he envisioned that world peace would come into existence.
At the United Nations there are representatives from every corner of the world. They have come with sincere hope that a day will dawn when all the world’s calamities and misunderstandings will come to an end, and mankind will be united as one family. Is this not a hope? It is. But inside this hope, possibility looms large. And inside this possibility, what is looming large is inevitability.
The world is still millions of miles away from world peace. But just because we do not see the reality all at once, that is no reason to become discouraged. Before the day dawns, it is dark. When we look at the darkness that is all around and identify with the darkness, it is almost impossible for us to have faith in light. But at the end of the tunnel there is light. At the end of the darkness there is light. This light that we talk about is not a mental hallucination or deception. This light is our psychic light, our soul’s light deep within us, and it is all the time trying desperately to come to the fore. It is more than eager to come to the fore to liberate us, illumine us and perfect us. It is like a child and the mother. The mother is always trying inwardly and outwardly to make the child perfect. Similarly, our inner light is trying to free our outer existence from ignorance-night.
So, at the United Nations, representatives from many, many parts of the world are gathered together. They have come there for world-unity, but world-unity seems to be a far cry. Yet they still have the inner hope that some day there will be world-unity. Right now the countries of the world misunderstand each other, and some of them are undivine, to say the least. But deep within them there is an inner urge. Each nation has an inner urge to have peace, to have light, to have oneness. Each nation hopes to someday have peace, light and oneness. Peace, light and oneness will definitely come into the world arena precisely because each nation is inundated with hope. This hope of today will be transformed into the abiding satisfaction of tomorrow only when we believe in hope, grow into hope, and breathe in at every moment the fragrance and the beauty of hope.
Honolulu, Hawaii, 15 March 1980↩
First, faith. If the seeker has faith in himself, then he is safe, If the same seeker has faith in God, then the seeker is not only safe, but also progressive. When the seeker has faith in himself, the seeker does not permit undivine thoughts to grow in his life or in his being. If he notices some undivine thoughts, he just uproots the tree that has produced these undivine thought-fruits. When he has faith in himself he allows only the good thoughts to enter into him, and he eventually grows a tree that produces only good thought-fruits, divine thought-fruits.
Now, love. Love is self-giving. When the seeker gives of himself what he has and what he is, God also gives that particular seeker what He has and what He is. What the seeker has is a cry, and what the seeker is is a promise. What God has is a smile, and what God is is an assurance. When the seeker cries, God immediately gives him a smile. When the seeker makes a promise, God assures the seeker that he will be able to fulfil that promise.
Now, oneness. Oneness is composed of oldness, sweetness and newness. Sweetness, when it is intensified, becomes fondness. Sweetness is the hyphen or connecting link between oldness and newness. Oldness is something meaningful and fruitful and, at the same time, lasting. It is a meaningful and fruitful thing which has a lasting breath. Sweetness and fondness we know. Newness is something inspiring and aspiring, illumining and fulfilling. Newness embodies inspiration, aspiration, illumination and fulfilment, continuous fulfilment. Oldness embodies meaningfulness. It is something that has meaning and is worth keeping, something that encourages us to go forward, not to stay where we are.
The human wealth or the finite wealth is one thing, and the divine or infinite wealth is something entirely different. The human or finite wealth wants to be appreciated, admired and adored — nothing else. If we get appreciation from mankind, if we get admiration from mankind, if we get adoration from mankind, we do not need anything else in our life. We feel that we have got all the world’s wealth. This is the human wealth or the finite wealth.
The divine or infinite wealth starts with God’s Compassion, and progresses to a free access to His inner existence, then a most complete intimacy or oneness with His inner Will, and finally ecstasy or delight, which is the universal and transcendental Reality which He is. Compassion, free access to God’s inner existence, intimacy with His Will and divine ecstasy — these are the true divine wealth.
Inside this Compassion, free access, intimacy and ecstasy three things abide: aspiration, perfection and satisfaction. Aspiration is to grow in whichever way the Supreme wants the seeker to grow. Perfection is to please God in His own way. Satisfaction is to see the inner beauty in aspiration and transcending perfection. Aspiration itself is beauty, and perfection itself is beauty. This beauty is nothing but divine wealth. It is not the physical beauty, which is skin deep, but the beauty of infinite Light and infinite Delight.
Before one enters into the spiritual life, one wants only the mundane, finite and human wealth: appreciation, admiration and adoration. When one enters deeply into the spiritual life, one aspires only for the infinite, divine wealth. But when one is a beginner in the spiritual life he tries to have both, which is simply impossible. You cannot have both night and day. Either you have to be in day or you have to be in night. For one fleeting second — because of his sincerity, because of his inner cry — the beginner tries to get the divine wealth, and then for 23 hours the same seeker will cry for human wealth. As the seeker goes farther and makes more progress in his inner life through his intense prayer and soulful meditation, gradually he will cry more and more for the inner wealth, not the outer wealth.
When the seeker comes to the first-class level the inner hurdles become higher and higher, more and more difficult, almost insurmountable. But those few seekers who are going to make continuous progress in the inner life will see that the desire for human wealth will fade away. Human wealth itself will not last; it is bound to fade away. But divine wealth — even in infinitesimal measure — will last. It is bound to last forever. The Supreme tells the first-class, inmost class of seekers, “If you want Me as the Infinite, if you want Me as the Eternal, if you want Me as the Immortal — Me only in your soul, in your heart, in your mind, in your vital, in your body, in your earth consciousness and in your Heaven consciousness — only Me, then My inner Wealth, My infinite Wealth alone will be of value to you. Otherwise, the worldly appreciation, the worldly wealth will satisfy you, but this satisfaction will last only for a fleeting second.”
Always we have to make a choice between human wealth and divine wealth. Your name means inner wealth. If you care for the inner wealth, then your life will be meaningful, soulful and fruitful. At every moment in your life you will see a bridge between Heaven and earth. Not Heaven and Hell, mind you; I am saying Heaven and earth. Earth’s cry, which is so sweet, runs across the bridge and reaches Heaven’s smile. And Heaven’s smile, which is so beautiful, runs across the bridge and touches earth’s cry. A continuous divine game goes on in the seeker’s life when the seeker feels the conscious need for the inner wealth.
To each of you here I am saying all this. I have offered the world my creative wealth in many forms. I have written many books, painted many paintings, composed many songs, participated in many sports. I have become many in one form. But it is only my inner wealth — my love of God — that will forever remain in the earth-consciousness. Other things down the sweep of centuries will be washed away. Everybody will say, “Yes, he was a writer, he was a poet, he was a musician,” and so on. But these things, all the outer things that I have given to the world, will not immortalise me. So many things I have done which people have appreciated and admired. But their appreciation and admiration will not last, as my outer creation will not last. But I as the eternal creator, in silence becoming and transcending, will last. Not what I have given but what I am. And what I am is Eternity’s Love, Infinity’s Love, Immortality’s Love. When the seekers feel the need for Infinity’s, Eternity’s and Immortality’s Love, that will be the time for them to cry and try to grow into the inner wealth which I am.
The outer wealth, human wealth, will not last. Nothing will remain of the finite wealth. Death will level it. But death does not dare to touch the inner wealth. Inner wealth is God’s Compassion, free access to Him, intimacy with His Will, ecstasy or delight, aspiration, perfection and satisfaction — your satisfaction in Him and His Satisfaction in you. If you are satisfied with God and God is satisfied with you, then you are singing and playing with Infinity’s Beauty and dancing in Eternity’s Garden at the foot of Immortality’s Tree.
The following talk was given at Ratna's birthday party on 2 March 1980.↩
Just love a little more.
That’s all.I am happy because I have a mind of trust.
I am happy because I have a life of gratitude.My present boss is renunciation.
My future boss will be God-acceptance in all and God-acceptance for all.A weak and sick smile.
What is death? An imaginary smile.Inside you.
Where to find good? Around you.Man’s aspiring heart.
What has made me ordinary? Man’s doubting mind.I tell you that this is an old story.
Now I tell you a completely new story.My heart is quite progressive.
[To be continued]Look at a flower. When you look at a flower and appreciate the flower, what is it that you are appreciating? You are appreciating the beauty of the flower. The beauty of the flower is carrying God’s Aspiration, God’s Vision, God’s Compassion — many, many good qualities — and that is why you are soulfully appreciating it. But the same beauty that you are appreciating in the flower is also inside you. So when you start appreciating the beauty that you have within, when you start appreciating the aspiration that you have within, at that time your aspiration is bound to increase.
Another thing you can do is imagine that you have a small flame, a tiny flame, inside your heart. Just visualise it. What is this flame doing? It is trying to climb up. It is trying to illumine the unlit part of you. If you can appreciate that flame, then your aspiration will increase.
If you give me something, and immediately I appreciate it and appreciate you, then the capacity of that thing increases, and your own capacity to give also increases. Your daughter garlanded me, and I appreciated it. I thanked her and bowed to the Supreme in her. If I hadn’t paid any attention to her, then the joy that she got from garlanding me she would not have got. Each time we appreciate something, we expand that thing and increase its capacity. If you can imagine inside you a flame that is burning, and if you can appreciate it, then that flame will increase, and its capacity will also increase. Eventually it will become big enough to illumine your heart and your entire being. So, in order to increase your aspiration, please appreciate the burning flame inside you. While you are appreciating it, you will see that your inner cry is increasing.But our enemies want only to bother us, to torture and destroy us. They will wait just for a few minutes. Then, after some time, they will lose all patience and say, “It is beneath our dignity to waste our time here.” These enemies have their pride. They have not conquered pride. They will say, “Who cares? Who needs him? Let us go and attack somebody else.” If we pay no attention to a monkey, the monkey will eventually go away and bite somebody else. It will enter into somebody else’s mind. But our friends will say, “No, we need him and he needs us. We will wait indefinitely for him.” So after a few minutes our enemies will go away. Then we can open the door, and our dearest friends will be there waiting for us.
So, in the beginning, it is best for us not to allow anybody in. We will remain silent for a few minutes and say, “Since I do not know who my friends are and who my enemies are, since I don’t know which thoughts are healthy and divine and which ones are unhealthy and undivine, the best thing is for me to keep my mind totally empty. I will keep my mind’s door shut for a while, and then when I open it, I will see only my friends, the good thoughts, and I will let them enter.”What is a disciple? A disciple is one who has faith in a Master. If he has no faith in his Master, then he is not a disciple; he is just an ordinary individual. So if you have faith in that particular lady, then follow her path. But if you do not have faith, and if you ask me about her, then no matter what I say, your mind will immediately argue with me and doubt me. If I say, “She is extremely good,” then if something happens tomorrow and you lose faith, at that time you will blame me. And if I say, “No, she is not good,” then you will say, “Oh, he is just jealous of her.” The human mind is so tricky. If I say, “good,” in a few days you will be assailed by doubt and you will think that I am totally wrong. And if I say “bad,” you will argue inwardly and you will try to prove in so many ways that she is good, she is divine, she is perfect.
The time you are spending in judging me or in assessing her is simply a waste of your own precious time. Only ask your heart: “Do I have faith, implicit faith, in her?” If your heart says, “Yes,” then forget about me, forget about the rest of the world. But if your heart says, “No, I don’t have implicit faith,” then she is not the right person for you. Your faith is your saviour. What more can I say? Your faith, your inner faith, will always save you. Nothing else can save you.God is manifesting in and through me, in and through you, in and through everyone. In the flower-consciousness God wanted to establish a certain amount of beauty. God did not feel it necessary to make this wall or a piece of wood as beautiful as a flower. But that doesn’t mean that God is unkind to the wood or to the wall. No, only in a game or in a play, let us say, there will be a king and there will be a slave. Also, there will be ordinary people. All these different roles are necessary. You can’t have a play with nothing but kings. No, you will need kings, ministers, subjects and so forth in order to have a good play.
Here, also, many different things are necessary. If you want to appreciate God’s Beauty aspect, then He will put a flower, or the stars, or a most beautiful child in front of you. If you want to appreciate His Power aspect, then immediately God will bring an elephant or a lion in front of you. If you want to appreciate God’s Vastness, then immediately He will bring the vast sky in front of you, or the sea. Again, if God wants you to appreciate His infinitesimal, tiniest part, then He will put right in front of you an atom. So it is up to God what aspect of His He wants you to appreciate. God has all aspects; He has all attributes. But He has decided that He wants you to appreciate one particular aspect of Him more than other aspects. God has already decided whether you will appreciate His Beauty aspect, or Power aspect or some other aspect.
Again, today God may want you to appreciate His Beauty aspect, tomorrow He may want you to appreciate His Peace aspect and the day after tomorrow He may want you to appreciate His Power aspect. But whatever aspect you are meant to appreciate, God will put inside your consciousness that particular aspect.When you concentrate, you try to focus your one-pointed attention on a small object. If you want, you can concentrate on your fingernail. Then, like a bullet or an arrow, your concentration-power has to penetrate into the object.
Meditation is totally different. Meditation is vastness. In meditation, you are dealing with the vast sky or the vast sea — anything that is larger than the largest. In meditation you try to make your mind calm, quiet, tranquil and vacant so that you can become one with the Vast. When you are concentrating, you are concentrating on the smallest possible thing. Like an arrow, you are trying to pierce the veil of ignorance. When you are meditating, you are dealing with what is vaster than the vastest. All around, you are seeing Infinity.
Then, when you are contemplating, at that time you enter into your Supreme Beloved and become inseparably one with Him. One moment you will be playing the role of the divine lover and He will be playing the role of the Supreme Beloved. The next moment you will reverse roles. On the basis of your oneness, and out of His infinite Bounty, He will make you feel that you are the Beloved and He is the divine lover.
During meditation, a softness and sweetness and one-pointed adoration will come forward. But in contemplation, you are merging into something and becoming something. During meditation, you do not become; only you see something that is vaster than the vastest. But when you are contemplating, you become the object of your adoration. Inside contemplation there is concentration and also meditation.First we have an iota of light and peace, and gradually, gradually we increase it until we have infinite Light and infinite Peace. If we take this iota of light, which we had in the beginning, and compare it with the infinite Light we will eventually have, immediately we see a vast difference. Our iota of peace or light can easily be assailed by fear, doubt, anxiety or jealousy because it is so small and weak. But if it makes friends with these unillumined forces, we don’t say at that time that it becomes an evil force.
If I am suffering from worries and anxieties, these are my possessions or I am their possession. But I am still a seeker. Some of the time I am consciously crying for God’s Peace, Light and Bliss. Inside me I have always an inner cry, so how can I be an evil force? But I have not fully realised my divinity. I have very little light, but I do have some light. Anything that has light in a very insignificant measure and, at the same time, does not add to our divinity, we can call evil.
Right now we do not have boundless light or boundless peace at our disposal. We have inside us a tiny drop of light, a tiny drop of peace. If we know that we have or we are a tiny drop, then let us jump into the sea of light and become the sea itself. Let us not be afraid. There is nothing in the sea to devour us or kill us. Others are swimming in the sea, so let us also jump into the sea.
The little forces and big forces that we call destructive we have to throw into the effulgence of light. The part of us that is keeping a sense of separativity, the small portion that wants to enjoy its sense of individuality or personality, is not actually evil. It is creating problems for us because it is unwilling to become unlimited. Anything that is limited, anything that does not aspire to become unlimited, we may see as evil, but the real problem is that it is limited. If we can throw that limited reality into the unlimited by virtue of our inner cry and aspiration, then that limited thing will become unlimited. Once the drop enters into the ocean it becomes part and parcel of the vast ocean. If the limited thing can be enlarged and made unlimited, then where is the so-called evil?Destruction is not the answer. The answer is transformation. We have to transform and transcend. If the body is lethargic, I will inspire and compel the body to get up. To my vital I will say, “Instead of strangling someone, go and help him. You have strength enough; just help him.” If my mind is doubting, I will compel my mind to have faith.
Always we have to take the positive side. Instead of destroying the lethargic body, we will make it active. The destructive vital we will try to make dynamic. And into the doubting mind we will instill faith, implicit faith. Instead of destroying anything, we will only illumine and transform it. We will replace doubt with faith, destruction with dynamism, lethargy with wakefulness. We should never destroy anything. God sent us here to do some work for Him. Everything that we have and everything that we are is imperfect, but God does not want us to destroy ourselves. He wants us to transform ourselves and become perfect. He has given us the message of perfection. If something in us is imperfect, then let us make that particular thing perfect. Only then will God be pleased with us. God created us not for destruction but for perfection, so that He can enjoy satisfaction in and through us.Aspiration is not like that. When we aspire, we cry not only for our own perfection but also for others’ perfection. Aspiration will say, “What I have, I wish to share with you. If I have a good thought, I wish to share it with you. Again, if you have a good thought, I wish you to share it with me. Let us share our capacities and our realities with each other.” Aspiration plays the role of oneness, which is nothing other than perfection itself. Oneness is perfection; perfection is oneness.
Desire enjoys the sense of separativity: “You stay where you are, I will stay where I am, and I will try to show you that I am infinitely more powerful than you, infinitely superior to you. In every aspect of life I will show you that I far surpass you.” This is the message of desire. But aspiration will say, “If I have anything good, I will share it with you. If I have beauty, I will give it to you. If I have power, I will give it to you, because I am always eager to sing the song of oneness.”
Aspiration is always trying to establish its oneness with each and every individual, and to see only the good, divine, supreme qualities that each individual has and is. If aspiration discovers that I have an unlit quality or capacity, it will try to illumine it. It will never give it to you. My difficulties and imperfections, aspiration will not hide. It will try to illumine them, but it will never offer them to you. When I am aspiring, I will pray to God, my Heavenly Father, to inundate me with light so that I can illumine my imperfections, limitations and undivine qualities.
Desire, on the other hand, secretly or openly will try to throw into you only bad qualities. If I have any wrong thoughts or wrong ideas, if I have anything that is undivine and destructive, openly I can’t give these things to you. But secretly my desire will try to inject them into you so that you will also bear the burden and suffer, so that you will carry the heaviest possible load and not be able to surpass me in any way.
Desire binds us; aspiration liberates us. Desire wants to lord it over others. Aspiration always wants to be one with others. Each time desire achieves its goal, another goal looms ahead; so desire is never satisfied. First it wants one house, then two houses, then three houses, and at the end of the road, frustration looms large. But when we aspire, even if we get just an iota of light, we are satisfied, for we know that eventually we will be inundated with the infinite ocean of Light. Right now we are wanting in receptivity. Once we get more receptivity and our inner vessel becomes large, larger, largest, at that time we shall definitely see and grow into infinite Peace, Light and Bliss. These are not mere words or ideas; these are realities that will one day be at our disposal.
The following questions were asked after Sri Chinmoy's talk "Hope" in Honolulu, Hawaii on 15 March 1980.↩
When we remain in the ordinary world, the unaspiring world, the desire-world, we try to please and satisfy only ourselves. But when we are in the aspiration-world, we try to please God. God is the root, and if we can please the root, then the trunk, branches, leaves, flowers and fruits will also be pleased. So let us devote ourselves to the root, to God. If we can please God on the strength of our heart’s inner cry, then we will see and feel inside us God’s Love, Concern, Light and Peace — all that God has and is.
How can we have this inner cry? We can have this inner cry in the same way that we can have the outer cry. When the child cries for food, no matter where the mother is, she will come running. The child may be on the first floor and the mother may be on the fourth floor, but the mother will come running because the child is sincerely crying to be fed. Similarly, if we cry sincerely for divine Nectar, for light and delight, then God is bound to give it to us.
When the child cries, he has the unconscious hope that the mother will come and bring him food. But in the case of seekers, we are conscious. So when we cry for peace, light and bliss, immediately we get an answer. But our cry has to be sincere. When we cry inwardly, we have to feel a sincere need for God. When we have that inner need, then God, out of His infinite Bounty, will come and grant us the things that we need.
If we have a sincere, genuine inner cry, then all our problems will be solved. But if we do not have that sincere inner cry, then no matter how many years we live on earth, we will not find satisfaction, because true satisfaction means the perfection of our nature, the perfection of our life.You will feel, but first you have to have faith. Inside you there are many organs: heart, lungs and so on. You believe this because doctors and others say so. Although you cannot see these things, you know that they are there. Similarly, within your inner body, let us say, there are many things which you may not feel, but which I am aware of, because I have prayed and meditated more than you have. In the spiritual life you have to pray and meditate soulfully, and have faith in what you have heard from spiritual seekers and Masters. Eventually, if you apply yourself to the inner discipline, you will see that they were right. Again, there are many things which you may know better than I do. In these matters I have to have faith in you. Then eventually, if I seriously study these things, I will see for myself that what you say is true.
In the inner world if you do not see something right now, you cannot say that it does not exist. I am not saying that you are doubting or arguing; far from it. But I wish you to cultivate more faith in what I say and in what other Masters have said about the inner world. You have to start with faith — sincere, genuine, sublime faith. This faith is not going to betray you. You read spiritual books, scriptures. Each book embodies light. While reading, you may not feel light inside the book. But you do not discard the book. No, you have faith in the messages that the book contains. You meditate on the words and ideas that the book embodies, and eventually you do get light. Inside the ink, inside the paper, inside the book there was a hidden reality. You believed in that hidden reality while you were reading, and in the course of time you got illumination. But you had to read the book to get the essence, the quintessence, of the book.
Similarly, you have to pray and meditate before you will feel your own divinity. If you cannot feel your inner divinity right now, don’t be sad or upset. It takes time. Pray and meditate sincerely, and through your faith your real divinity will one day loom large. Once you enter into the spiritual life, if you do not have higher experiences or realisations, do not give up. If you do not feel inside the very depth of your heart something divine, illumining, fulfilling and perfect, no harm. It takes time to acquire a free access to the inner world, but once you have it, you will see that it is flooded with light and delight.What is cruelty? Imperfection. What is imperfection? Division. What is division? Self-importance. What is self-importance? The beginning of faultless frustration.
[To be continued]```
I go to God twice a day.In the morning I go to my Beloved Supreme
With the surrender of a tennis ball.He tells me I am on my way to perfection.
In the evening I go to my Beloved SupremeWith a basket of gratitude-flowers.
He tells me I am all perfection. ``````
/Jabar dine pranam kare jabo//Asar dine nutan bhabe pabo/
When the farewell hour strikes
I shall offer You my soulful obeisance.On my return I shall receive from You
Bountiful blessings. ```From:Sri Chinmoy,AUM — Vol.II-6, No. 5, May 1980, Vishma Press, 1980
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