AUM — Vol. 1, No. 8, August 27, 1974

1.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Washington, D.C. 20520

August 26, 1974

Mr. Sri Chinmoy

Spiritual Director

United Nations Meditation Group

United Nations

New York, New York 10017

Dear Mr. Chinmoy:

The President has asked me to thank you for your letter of August 9. He is deeply aware of the need for prayer and meditation in the affairs of men and nations. He appreciates your good wishes.

Sincerely,

William B. Buffum

Assistant Secretary for

International Organization Affairs

God's new philosophy1

There was a spiritual Master of a very high calibre who was usually quite happy and cheerful. He always asked his disciples to be as children, telling them that if they were happy they would be able to make fast progress. According to his philosophy, this happiness had to be the happiness of the entire being. He often warned his disciples not to fool themselves and others with false happiness.

“You must pray and meditate to acquire inner happiness,” he would say. “This happiness cannot be bought or sold. Inner happiness increases only through constant self-offering to God’s Will and soulful gratitude to God’s Compassion.”

Some of the Master’s disciples were successful in acquiring true inner happiness, while others were unsuccessful. Among the unsuccessful ones there were many who tried to fool themselves and others by displaying false happiness. And among those who had acquired happiness, most found it difficult to maintain their happiness because of the intervention of doubts, anxieties, jealousy and insecurity.

The spiritual Master used to tell his disciples that he was a garbage can. He said he was more than ready, more than eager to accept all their inner impurities and imperfections. These he would empty into the universal Consciousness as soon as possible so that he could also remain happy, and then he would immediately fill his inner vessel with Light and Delight from his Inner Pilot.

It happened that on a certain occasion, after the Master had received the teeming imperfections of his disciples in the form of worries, doubts, jealousy and other undivine qualities, he deliberately kept them inside himself in order to see what would happen.

In two days’ time the Master found that he had become as undivine as his disciples were. Their imperfections had become part and parcel of his life, and these imperfections became so powerful that he was compelled to doubt even the very existence of God. He became depressed, destructive and doomed to disappointment because of his tremendous failure in the spiritual life.

When God finally came to him and blessed him with His infinite Love and Concern, the Master was so sad and angry that he said to God,“God, I have been fooled by you, and I have been fooled by my disciples. You promised me that you would help me to manifest you here on earth, but now it seems that you have totally forgotten your promise. And you are not the only culprit. My disciples have also promised me that they will help me in every way to manifest you. Now, either they have totally forgotten to help me, or they are deliberately avoiding me and evading their responsibility.

“I am now helpless. Both Heaven and earth are against me. What is worse is that I am always being fooled by the world’s flattery and its cleverness. My disciples stand before me with folded hands. They prostrate themselves before me and take the very dust of my feet. In every way they demonstrate outwardly how spiritual they are, how humble, how devoted and how totally surrendered they are. But God, you and I know how insincere most of them are.

“It is said that the disciples have to make surrender to the Will of the Supreme inside their Master. But in my case I see that I have made practically complete surrender to the ignorant demands of my disciples. I have been asking them to be happy, and I thought that if I could add to their happiness by pleasing them they would be able to make progress. But now I see how easy it is for them to fold their hands and bow down to me with utmost hypocrisy, and how difficult it is for me to please them sincerely in their outer life.

“Lord, you have repeatedly asked me to make my disciples happy. Well, I have tried in every possible way, and the result is that now I am completely bound by their ignorance. I am totally surrendered to their ignorance. They have more freedom than I have.

“Before I realised you, Lord, I had only one possession, and that was you. Now that I have realised you, you have blessed me or cursed me with many possessions in the persons of my disciples. These possessions of mine are binding me badly. At every moment they make demands on my life, consciously or unconsciously, and all these demands I literally kill myself trying to fulfil. Yet, whenever something good happens in their lives, they feel that it is because they have worked so hard, aspired so sincerely. They feel it is themselves who are responsible for their successes. But when anything goes wrong, immediately they blame me. They feel that my inner or outer guidance was not correct, not wise, and that it came not from you, not even from my own soul, but from my vital being, from my ego-personality. They never think that perhaps they themselves have not followed my directions, or that their ideas of success and failure are not necessarily yours.

“Lord, you know I always execute your Will. It is you who give success or failure, and it is you who enjoy this so-called success or failure as an experience of yours. But my disciples never see you in me. They only see me with their earthly human eyes. Sometimes outwardly they speak ill of me; inwardly they curse me. Always I am mercilessly caught by them. I am torn to pieces between your compassion and their frustration.

“Before I realised you, Lord, I had more freedom. I used to think of you only, as the tree, the main trunk, the root. Now that I have realised you, you have asked me to pay attention to all the branches, leaves, fruits and flowers. But these branches, leaves, fruits and flowers misunderstand my self-offering constantly. I am totally helpless. Your compassion is saving my life, but I feel that I am the worst possible fool on earth. I am always at the mercy of my disciples.

“You asked me to inspire my disciples and illumine them by advising unconditional surrender. I have executed your express wish and loving demand for them. Now I wish to say that it is I who have made unconditional surrender both to you and to the ignorance-king inside my disciples. Why? Just for one reason: because you have asked me to make them happy. Unfortunately, even this tremendous sacrifice of mine has not made all my disciples happy. So you see, Lord, how love-power and compassion-power can be mercilessly exploited.”

“Son, better late than never I have come to tell you that force is also a manifestation of true love. Love is force, and force can also be love. If you really love humanity, then if force is required to do what is best for humanity, you will use it. From now on your philosophy will explain love in more detail. Divine love is the most powerful force, and divine force is also the most powerful love.

“Human love and human force are the precursors of destruction. But divine love and divine force are the precursors of perfection. Divine love is inner will. Divine perfection is the perfection of one’s entire being, of one’s larger part, one’s extended self. This self is illumined and perfected through my justice-light as well as through my compassion-height.

“My son, until now you have used only my compassion-height in accordance with my Will. But from now on I want you to use my justice-light as well. From now on I want my justice-light and my compassion-height to act in you like two complementary souls. My compassion-height will awaken the sleeping souls, and my justice-light will illumine the aspiring souls. I now entrust you with a new responsibility, a new capacity and a new opportunity to manifest me perfectly on earth.”

“Lord, since you want me to play the role of your eternal server in your cosmic Game, I am more than ready to be of totally dedicated service to you.”

“Son, you are more than a server, infinitely more than a server to me. You are a real partner, in whom I can have perfect faith. Together you and I shall challenge the pride of ignorance-night, conquer ignorance-night, illumine ignorance-night and make it one, inseparably one with my ever-transcending light.

“Son, give me the joy of feeling that you are my partner and my server. When you are my partner we share our experiences equally. But when one of us becomes the Master and the other one becomes the server, the experience cannot be on the same plane of consciousness. So, son of my heart and soul, son of my silence-height and sound-might, you are my eternal partner as well as my server. Do you agree with my philosophy?”

“Father, the human being in me agrees with your philosophy with all the love and gratitude which it can offer you. The divine in me is praying to you to grant me something infinitely more divine than gratitude to offer you. I feel that my gratitude is not the answer to your Infinity, Eternity and Immortality. I need something infinitely more meaningful, fruitful and significant to offer in praise at your lotus-feet.”

“Son, it seems you will never understand my philosophy. Who will praise what at whose feet? Once and for all I am telling you that you and I are one. We are eternally equal. We are immortally partners.”

“Lord, I wanted consolation from you. You have consoled me. Now I wish to spell the word consolation for you. Please tell me if I am correct. I-L-L-U-M-I-N-A-T-I O-N. Am I correct, Father?”

“Yes, my son, you are.”

AUM 1202. July 15, 1974, Brighton, England↩

2.

Delight was our inner past.

Delight is our inner present.

Delight shall be our inner future.

Poems

The following poems are selected from Sri Chinmoy’s book. My California Redwoods, which he wrote on the bus returning to New York from Sports Day in New Paltz, August 21. 1974.

Confidence

```

My beloved Father-Lord,

I need ceaseless confidence

To claim You as my Eternity’s own.

"My daughter,

Your life-river

Has already claimed Me

As its Eternity's own,

But you have to do something more:

You have to constantly feel

That My Vision-height

Loves you infinitely more

Than you love your earth-existence-life

And Heaven-transcendence-light.” ```

Humility

```

My Lord Supreme,

Do tell me the secret of Your Greatness.

“My son, to you I reveal the secret of My Greatness:

My earth-cry is humility-light.”

My Lord Supreme,

Do tell me the secret of Your Goodness.

“Son, to you I reveal the secret of My Goodness:

My earth-smile is humility-light.”

My Lord Supreme,

Do tell me the secret of Your Perfection-oneness.

“Son, to you I reveal the secret of My Perfection-oneness:

My Silence-vision and My Sound-creation

Have a common source:

Humility’s satisfaction supreme.” ```

Leadership

```

My Divinity’s Father Absolute,

Do tell me the difference

Between my leadership and Your

Leadership.

“My son,

Your leadership is a battleship

That surrenders to your ignorance-sea

Long before your life-battle starts.

My Leadership has been starving from time immemorial

Because you have not been willing to dine with Me

On My Infinity’s transcendental Height.”

```

Love

```

I love God

Because He alone loves me.

I love God

Because He alone claims me.

I love God

Because He alone needs me.

I love God

Because He alone tells me

That I am none other than Himself.

```

Purity

```

What is purity?

Divinity’s younger sister.

Where is purity?

Inside the heart of oneness-life.

Why is purity?

To fulfil God’s eternal Necessity. ```

Security

```

Divine Father Supreme,

My heart-cry devotedly, unreservedly and constantly

Needs the flood of Your security.

“Son, My son,

What you need is not My security.

What you need is My ceaseless proclamation:

You are of My Eternity’s Silence-Height

And you are for My Infinity’s Reality-Light.”

```

Selflessness

```

Father, my Father Supreme,

Tell me how far my selflessness

Can carry me.

“Daughter, My daughter,

As far as My perfect Perfection carries Me.”

Father, my Father Supreme,

Tell me the difference between

My selflessness and my self-discovery.

“Daughter, My daughter,

The same as the difference between

My divine Pride in you

And

My Concern Supreme for you.” ```

3.

CITY OF BRISTOL,

CONNECTICUT 06010

Office of the Mayor

August 20, 1971

Mr. Sri Chinmoy

Sri Chinmoy Centre

85-45 149 Street

Jamaica Hills, Queens, N.Y.

11435

Dear Sri Chinmoy:

It was with great pleasure that I received your copy of our visit last May.

As long as men can meet on the grounds of brotherhood and mutual respect, there is hope for our very troubled world.

Your thoughts and writings are very beautiful and portray a soul very sensitive to the Will of God and His "Divine Plan" for all of us. Your achievement and magnitude of spirit in meditation are evident in the depth of your thoughts. There is no doubt in my mind that you are a true and dedicated disciple of God. I believe God works through all men — in different ways — giving to each of us a portion of Eternal Truth, asking us to draw from His light as well as all peoples in our quest for "Truth".

Respectfully,

Frank J. Longo, Sr. Mayor

Illumination

In this world there is only one thing worth having and that is illumination. In order to have illumination, we must have sincerity and humility. Unfortunately, in this world sincerity is long dead and humility is yet to be born. Let us try to revive our sincerity and let us try, on the strength of our aspiration, to expedite the birth of our humility. Then only will we be able to realise God.

Illumination is not something very far away. It is very close, it is just inside us. At every moment we can consciously grow into illumination through our inner progress. Inner progress is made through constant sacrifice. Sacrifice of what? Sacrifice of wrong, evil thoughts and wrong understanding of Truth. Sacrifice and renunciation go together. What are we going to renounce? The physical body, family, friends, relatives, our country, the world? No! We have to renounce our own ignorance, our own false ideas of God and Truth. Also, we have to sacrifice to God the result of each action. The divine vision no longer remains a far cry when we offer the result of our actions to the Inner Pilot.

In our day-to-day life, we very often speak of bondage and freedom. But realisation says that there is no such thing as bondage and freedom. What actually exists is consciousness — consciousness on various levels, consciousness enjoying itself in its various manifestations. In the field of manifestation, consciousness has different grades. Why do we pray? We pray because our prayer leads us from a lower degree of illumination to a higher degree. We pray because our prayer brings us closer to something pure, beautiful, inspiring and fulfilling. The highest illumination is God-realisation. This illumination must take place not only in the soul, but also in the heart, mind, vital and body as well. God-realisation is a conscious, complete and perfect union with God.

We want to love the world; the world wants to love us. We want to fulfil the world; the world wants to fulfil us. But there is no connecting link between us and the world. We feel that our existence and the world’s existence are two totally different things. We think that the world is something separate from us. But in this we are making a deplorable mistake. What is the proper connecting link between us and the world? God. If we approach God first and see God in the world, then no matter how many millions of mistakes we make, the world will not only indulge our mistakes but will soulfully love us as well. Similarly, when we see the defects, weaknesses and imperfections of the world, we will be able to forgive the world and then inspire, energise and illumine the world just because we feel God’s existence there.

If we do not see God in all our activities, frustration will loom large in our day-to-day life. No matter how sincerely we try to please the world, no matter how sincerely the world tries to please us, frustration will be found between our understanding and the world’s understanding. The source of frustration is ignorance. Ignorance is the mother of devastating frustration, damaging frustration and strangling frustration. If we go deeper into ignorance, we see it is all a play of inconscience. Frustration can be removed totally from our lives only when we enter into the Source of all existence. When we enter into the Source of our own existence and the world’s existence, we are approaching the Reality. This Reality is our constant Delight, and Delight is the Breath of God.

This world is neither mine nor yours nor anyone’s. Never! It belongs to God, and God alone. So we have to be really wise. We have to go to the Possessor first and not to the possession. The possession is helpless; it can do nothing on its own. It is the Possessor that can do what He wants to do with His possession. So first we have to become one with God and then we shall automatically become one with God’s possessions. When we become one with God and with His possessions, we can certainly and unmistakably feel that the world is ours and we are the world’s.

Ignorance and illumination are like day and night. We have to bring illumination into ignorance-night. If we try to illumine ignorance the other way around, then the transformation of ignorance will be difficult, slow and uncertain. To enter into the field of ignorance is a negative path. If we pursue the path of darkness and try to find light in darkness, we are taking the negative path. The best way, the positive way to find light is to follow the path of Light, abundant Light, infinite Light. If we follow the path of Light, then illumination will assuredly dawn in us.

Let us look up and bring down the Light from above. The moment we look up, God’s Grace descends. The very nature of God’s Grace is to descend upon each individual on earth. When we want to go up to God with ignorance, it is like climbing up a mountain with a heavy bundle on our shoulders. Naturally it is a difficult task. Instead of doing that, we can remain at the foot of the mountain and cry for God’s Grace, which is ready and eager to come down to us from the highest. Needless to say, for God to come down into our ignorance is infinitely easier than for us to carry our ignorance up to God.

Questions and answers

Question: What does God-realisation really mean?

Sri Chinmoy: God-realisation means Self-discovery in the highest sense of the term. One consciously realises his oneness with God. As long as the seeker remains in ignorance, he will feel that God is somebody else who has infinite Power, while he, the seeker, is the feeblest person on earth. But the moment he realises God, he comes to know that he and God are absolutely one in both the inner and the outer life. God-realisation means one’s identification with one’s absolute highest Self. When one can identify with one’s highest Self and remain in that consciousness forever, when one can reveal and manifest it at one’s own command, that is God-realisation.

Now, you have read books on God and people have told you that God is in everybody. But you have not realised God in your conscious life. For you this is all mental speculation. But when one is God-realised, one consciously knows what God is, what He looks like, what He wills. When one achieves Self-realisation, one remains in God’s Consciousness and speaks to God face to face. He sees God both in the finite and in the Infinite; he sees God as both personal and impersonal. And in his case, this is not mental hallucination or imagination; it is direct reality. This reality is more authentic than my seeing you right here in front of me. When one speaks to a human being, there is always a veil of ignorance there — darkness, imperfection, misunderstanding. But between God and the inner being of one who has realised Him there can be no ignorance, no veil. So at that time one can speak to God more clearly, more convincingly, more openly than to a human being.

As ordinary human beings, we feel that infinite Peace, infinite Light, infinite Bliss and infinite divine Power are all sheer imagination. We are victims to doubt, fear and negative forces which we feel are quite normal and natural. We cannot love anything purely, not even ourselves. We are in the finite, quarrelling and fighting, and there is no such thing as Peace or Light or Bliss in us. But those who practise meditation go deep within and see that there is real Peace, Light and Bliss. They get boundless inner strength and see that doubt and fear can be challenged and conquered. When we achieve God-realisation, our inner existence is flooded with Peace, Poise, Equanimity and Light.

Question: What part of man achieves realisation?

Sri Chinmoy: When realisation takes place, it is the entire being that realises God. The soul has already realised God, but the soul is bringing to the fore its realised consciousness. It is entering into the heart and trying to permeate the heart with its divine consciousness. Then, from the heart it comes to the mind, from the mind to the vital and from the vital to the physical body. When it envelops the physical, the vital, the mental and the psychic, realisation is complete. Real realisation makes one know that one is neither the body nor the mind nor anything else, but the soul plus the Divine, which is in manifestation. Each person, when he realises God, will feel that he is a conscious portion of God. The physical is limited; the soul is unlimited. When we speak of realisation, we are referring to something unlimited, infinite. When we realise God we go beyond the body-consciousness and become one with the soul’s unlimited capacity.

Question: When we reach liberation, does the physical body change?

Sri Chinmoy: The physical, vital and mental enter into the psychic consciousness when we are liberated. We do not discard them, but the physical, vital and mental aspire along with the soul. The physical, before liberation, is obscure and impure. In order for liberation to take place, the physical has to be purified. The vital is usually aggressive; before liberation it must become dynamic. The mind is usually suspicious; before liberation it must become vast and loving. These divinised parts of man enter into the heart when liberation takes place, and remain there permanently. The appearance of the physical body will be basically the same, but it will have infinite purity and luminosity which it did not have before.

Question: There are some paths which speak of the goal as enlightenment, and there are other paths which speak of the goal as God-realisation. What is the difference between enlightenment and God-realisation?

Sri Chinmoy: Full enlightenment, complete and all-illumining enlightenment, is God-realisation. But sometimes, when a seeker is in his highest meditation, he gets a kind of inner illumination or enlightenment, and for half an hour or an hour his whole being, his whole existence, is illumined. But then, after an hour or two, he becomes his same old self; he again becomes a victim to desire and undivine qualities. Enlightenment has taken place, but it is not the Transcendental Enlightenment which occurred in the case of the Buddha and other spiritual Masters. That kind of all-fulfilling, all-illumining enlightenment is equivalent to God-realisation. God-realisation means constant and eternal enlightenment, Transcendental Enlightenment. When we get God-realisation, automatically infinite illumination takes place in our outer as well as our inner existence.

The enlightenment that is spoken of here in the West and also in Japan is only a temporary burst of light in the aspiring consciousness. After a short while, it pales into insignificance because there is no abiding reality in it. Abiding reality we will get only with constant, eternal and Transcendental Illumination, which is God-realisation.

Sometimes when we speak of enlightenment, we mean that we have been in darkness about a particular subject for many years and now we have inner wisdom, or now that particular place in our consciousness is enlightened. But this is just a spark of the boundless illumination, and that little spark we cannot call God-realisation.

Banshi tomar nahi baje

/Bengali transliteration/

```

Banshi tomar nahi baje

Amar ushar hiya majhe

Hashi tomar nahi raje

Amar ushar hiya majhe

Tabu daki bhore sanje

Amar ushar hiya majhe

Na ashile morbo laje

Amar ushar hiya majhe

```

/English translation/

```

I hear not Your flute

In my barren heart.

I see not Your Smile

In my barren heart.

Yet I invoke You morning and evening

In my barren heart.

If You do not respond I shall die in utter shame

In my barren heart.

```

Aphorisms on bliss

1.

The love that commands soulfully and the love that obeys unconditionally enjoy the selfsame Bliss of the Supreme.

2.

Love has the power which transcends separation. Bliss is the power which transcends union.

3.

Power is the most precious life-blood of man’s aspiration. Bliss is the most precious life-blood of man’s realisation.

4.

The inner experience of Bliss is the achievement of liberation and perfection.

5.

A seeker envisions Infinity’s Bliss.

A Yogi becomes Infinity’s Bliss.

An Avatar is Infinity’s Bliss. The Supreme is the Source of Infinity’s Bliss.

6.

Without Bliss, man is an external superficiality. With Bliss, man is a fulfilling inner and outer reality.

7.

Without Bliss, man is a song of frustration and destruction. With Bliss, man is constant fulfilment and constant perfection.

8.

A surrendered disciple is his Master’s growing Bliss. An unconditionally surrendered disciple is his Master’s ceaseless Bliss.

Bliss

```

I thought ignorance was bliss;

Therefore I stayed with my mind.

Alas!

Alas!

I thought incapacity was bliss;

Therefore I stayed with my heart.

Alas!

Alas!

But now I know what bliss is;

I know where bliss is.

Bliss is my God-manifestation,

Bliss is my God-satisfaction. ```

From:Sri Chinmoy,AUM — Vol. 1, No. 8, August 27, 1974, Agni Press, 1974
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/aum_87