The Trance-Heights that unveil the Unknowable
— photo by SaramaOur emotional vital is unlit, obscure, impure and unaspiring. There comes a time when sorrow and suffering knock at our door. Then we try to purify, sanctify, illumine and make the vital a perfect instrument of God.
When we are watchful, we do not allow the world around us with its teeming imperfections to enter into our being. When we are careful, we do not allow anything undivine to grow within us. When we are soulful, we are safe both in the outer world and in the inner world precisely because the divine in us takes full care of us. The divine in us protects us, perfects us and immortalises us. When we are soulful, in the inner world we can sing the song of perfection, in the outer world we can dance the dance of satisfaction.
When we widen our hearts, we enter into the universal consciousness. When we widen, we expand ourselves. The finite in us grows into Infinity and the universal Consciousness becomes part and parcel of our aspiring existence. When we heighten our lives, we grow into the transcendental Consciousness. This Consciousness constantly transcends its own height. Transcendental Consciousness is not and cannot be a static consciousness. It is always proceeding, climbing high, higher, highest. It is always transcending its own supernal heights.
We learn from joy. We learn from joy how to love God, how to serve God, how to fulfil God unconditionally in God’s own way. When we are happy, we give everything that we have and that we are. It is in our soulful self-giving that we eventually become perfect prototypes of our Inner Pilot, the Absolute Supreme. From joy we come to discover what we eternally are: God’s Golden Dreams. We are His Dreams; we are His Dream-Boats. Again, it is in and through us that He will manifest His Reality-Shore. Either He will carry us to the Golden Shore of the Beyond or He will carry the Golden Shore to us. From joy we learn how to become God-seeds and God-fruits. When we become God-seeds, Heaven treasures us. When we become God-fruits, earth treasures us.
We learn from Heaven; we learn from earth. From Heaven we learn how to smile divinely and compassionately. From earth we learn how to cry ceaselessly and soulfully. From Heaven we learn that God is all Beauty. From earth we learn that God is all Duty. From Heaven we learn why God is, where God is. From earth we learn who God is, how God is. Why is God? God exists to satisfy Himself divinely and supremely. His divine Satisfaction is far beyond the domain of our mind; the mind will be sadly baffled by it. But the heart, on the strength of its identification with God, can and will realise what God-Satisfaction is. God-Satisfaction is the Nectar-Life in God’s Silence-World, in God’s Sound-World. Where is God? God is where His children are. God is all-where in His creation. God is the Creator; again, He is Creation itself. In silence-life He is the Creator. In Sound-life He is the Creation. He is at once the Creator and the Creation.
Who is God? God is eternally our Beloved Supreme and our Lover Supreme. When we aspire, when we cry from the inmost recesses of our hearts, when we grow into the burning flames that climb high, higher, highest, at that time God becomes our Beloved Supreme. When we consciously, devotedly and unconditionally participate in God’s cosmic Drama, Him to satisfy, Him to fulfil, Him to manifest in His own way, at that time God becomes our Lover Supreme. How is God? God is fine; God is happy. He tells the seeker in us that He is eternally happy because He feels that it is through happiness, it is in His happiness-life that He can create, preserve and immortalise His creation. There is no other way. He cannot be otherwise. Only through joy can He create, preserve and immortalise His creation.
We learn from the real in us. The unreal in us tells us that we were nothing, we are nothing and we will be nothing. We came from ignorance, in ignorance we dwell and at the end of our journey’s close to ignorance we shall return. The real in us tells us that we are everything — not only are we everything to ourselves, but we are everything to the Supreme Pilot. The real in us tells us that we came from delight, in delight we grow and at the end of our journey’s close into delight we shall retire. The real in us goes one step ahead. It tells us that our life has no end, our life-march knows no halt. It tells us that life is an eternal journey. There is no final destination. The real in us tells us something more. It tells us that when we reach any destination, that destination becomes the starting point for tomorrow’s journey. Today we are at the starting point. Tomorrow we reach our destination. The day after tomorrow the destination becomes the starting point for a higher goal, a more fulfilling goal. There is no absolute Goal. The Goal is always transcending its own supernal heights.
We learn from man; we learn from God. Man has only one message to offer us: “The future is all darkness. The future is ruthlessly frightening. There is no certainty, there is no reality in the heart of the future. Stick to the past, we live in the past, we know about the past. No matter how deplorable the past was, the past is the only reality. Don’t look ahead. If you look ahead, you are bound to notice the dance of destruction. Stick to the past.” God has a different message, and this message we must try to learn from God. God tells us: “There is no such thing as future, children, My sweet children. There is only here, there is only now, there is only here and now. Try to grow in the immediacy of today. Try to live in My Vision-Boat and My Reality-Shore. Like Me, try to remain always in the eternal Now. Grow in Me. Glow in Me. Flow in Me. The eternal Now is the only Reality. He who aspires discovers the Reality of the eternal Now.”
Saturday, 12 July, 1975 The Theatre, Southampton College Southampton, New York↩
I have come here to share with you soulful meditation and also I have come here to be in the company of a supremely holy man, Pir Vilayat Khan. I am extremely grateful to all the seekers of truth and light who have given me the opportunity to be of dedicated service here for an hour or so. Nothing gives me greater joy and fulfilment than to become a server of truth and light in the hearts of aspiring mankind. With your kind permission I will hold meditation.
Pir Vilayat Khan and his students offer a prayer.
Sri Chinmoy and his students offer a prayer.
Pir Vilayat Khan: Sri Chinmoy, it is my privilege to say how open our hearts are to receive you in this temporary abode, where you bless us by your presence. You said so many nice things about me. I wish to say that your presence here is a blessing to our gathering. You are a true representative of the spirituality of our home, India.
Ever since I met you for the first time, the link between us has always grown in strength, although we have seen each other only three or four times. But I want to say how greatly I value the meaning of that bond, because it is the one of true dedication to the service of God.
[Sri Chinmoy meditated with the assembly.]
Sri Chinmoy: I wish to offer a soulful song of mine to our sweet and beloved spiritual brother, Pir Vilayat Khan. I wish to dedicate this song to you.
Pir Vilayat Khan: I feel very deeply moved.
Sri Chinmoy:
> Tell me only once
> That You are mine> And I am Yours.
> Your smile of love-nectar> Is the companion
> Of my life> And the light of my death.
> In Heaven and on earth,> Tell me only once
> That my heart is Your Beloved Supreme.[Sri Chinmoy’s disciples sang Ekbar Shudhu Bhalo, whose translation Sri Chinmoy had just recited. Musical notation for this song appears at the end of this issue. Sri Chinmoy then welcomed questions from the seekers.]
Pir Vilayat Khan: Does the path of liberation lead to service or does the path of service lead to liberation?
Sri Chinmoy: When we are in the ordinary life, the unaspiring life, the path of service leads us to liberation. Through gradual progress, from the desire-life we enter into the aspiration-life. From service we gradually enter into spiritual freedom, which is liberation. Once we are liberated, once we are freed from the meshes of ignorance, we serve mankind in God’s own way. Before we attain to liberation we serve God according to our capacity and according to our necessity. Once we have been liberated by His infinite Bounty, we serve Him again, but this time we serve Him in His own way. And it is He who manifests Himself in and through our service with His infinite capacity.
So the path of service leads us to liberation and the path of liberation leads us again to service. But after liberation the service is totally different. At that time we serve the Supreme unconditionally in His own way. Before liberation we serve in order to enter into liberation; our service is conditional. It is our feeling that we are giving God ninety-nine percent and He is giving us only one percent. But when we realise God, we feel that God has given us ninety-nine percent and we have given Him only one percent. And when we go deep within, we come to realise that He has given us one hundred percent. We realise that He has given us the whole, for there are many who have not cried for God, who are not awakened at all. Awakening has taken place inside us because of the infinite Grace of the Supreme operating in and through us. In the beginning, while we are trying to liberate ourselves from ignorance-net, we feel that we are working extremely hard. God, perhaps, has turned a deaf ear to our inner cry. But gradually, gradually we come to realise that the reality is totally different. It is God Himself who has awakened us. It is He who is liberating Himself in and through us. Who is God, after all? God is the descending Smile. And who is man, after all? Man is the ascending cry. They need each other badly.
[other questions followed]
Sri Chinmoy and Pir Vilayat Khan present each other with copies of their books.
The farewell
— photos by Pranavananda
Pir Vilayat Khan: Sri Chinmoy, our thanks go to you for having granted us the blessing of your presence here. It has meant very much to all of us, being here in your presence. We shall always treasure this visit. And we wish you every blessing and every success and every joy on the mission that you are carrying out in the service of the Masters, saints and prophets.
Sri Chinmoy: Once more I wish to offer from the depth of my heart my soulful and ever-increasing gratitude to the supreme Sufi Master, Pir Vilayat Khan, and also to his dear and beloved disciples and students, for having granted me the opportunity to be of dedicated and devoted service. There may be many roads, but there is only one Goal. At God’s choice Hour we shall reach the selfsame Goal. Now we are not consciously aware of our inseparable oneness, but when we reach our destination, we realise that we have eternally been in one boat, the Boat of the Supreme, going to one Goal.
As I said before, we are perfectly safe, your Master and I, in our hearts’ oneness, in our hearts’ love for Truth, in our hearts’ love for God’s Vision and Reality. Both of us have established a most significant inner inseparable oneness. We complement each other and fulfil each other in the Heart of the Supreme Pilot.
To you all who are his spiritual children I wish to say that my heart is inseparably one with you, for I am inseparably one with your source, with your Master.
```
Faith is God’s mighty power in man.Devotion is man’s mighty power in God.
Faith carries man into the Heart of God.Devotion carries God into the heart of man.
```Sri Chinmoy was invited by the Sufi Master Pir Vilayat Khan to conduct a meeting at the Sufi encampment in Willow, New York on Tuesday, 8 July. These are excerpts from that meeting.↩
Representatives of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha’i and Muslim groups at prayer ceremony at the Church Center of the U.N.
Sri Chinmoy is standing at far left. Channel 11 T.V. news covered the event on their midnight broadcast that night.Leaders Mark National Day of Prayer at the U. N.
By George Dugan
Leaders of six of the world’s major religious bodies marked this country’s National Day of Prayer yesterday at a ceremony attended by 100 people in the chapel of the Church Center for the United Nations, at First Avenue and 44th Street.
The Rev. Dr. Dan M. Potter, executive director of the Council of Churches of the City of New York, called it the “most representative gathering of religious leaders ever held in the city.”
Sri Chinmoy, a Hindu and director of the United Nations Meditation Group, presided at the hour-long ceremony. He opened the meeting with silent prayer, standing behind a plain white marble altar.
Then, in brief comments, the leaders representing Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha’i and Muslim groups — called upon Americans to renew their “dedication to the eternal” in prayer and asked God to lead all the nations in “paths of righteousness.”
The speakers, in addition to Dr. Potter, included the following: Rabbi Samuel Geffen of the New York Board of Rabbis, Lozang Jamspal of the Buddhist Monastery of America. The Rev. Robert Kennedy of the Brooklyn Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church. The Rev. Stephen Kyriacou of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America. Catherine Mboye of the Baha’i International Community, Muddassir Ali Shamsee of the Muslim Prayer Group. Sheik Shahabu-d-din of the Sufi Order. The Rev. Grant Anderson of the Queens Federation of Churches. The Rev. Kenneth Folkes, president of the Council of Churches of the City of New York.
Dr. Potter said there was much for which “we can thank I God, but, we see so many shortcomings, so many failures, so many examples of injustice, inequality, discrimination, brutality, pain, suffering and interminable degrading violence to human dignity.”
“We cannot celebrate this Bicentennial,” he added, “without feeling the compelling need to sit in sackcloth and ashes, in penance for our failure to God as well as our disappointment to fellow citizens.”
Following the commentaries, excerpts were read from President Ford’s statement proclaiming yesterday as a National Day of Prayer, the late President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address and the writings of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The Sacred Fire, a 30-member choral group, sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “America the Beautiful."
Love is oneness. Love is the completion of perfection. If I love my country, I have to know that the country also has a soul, the country has a body, the country has a reality. If I love the reality in anything, that means I am loving the source. The source is spirituality; the source is divinity. If I become one, inseparably one with something, that means I have established a higher, a deeper, a more meaningful reality within me. It is like this: if I really love the creation, then I have to love the Creator; if I really love the Creator, then I will definitely love the creation. God is the Creator and the country is the creation. We cannot separate the two. Even if the creation has millions of defects, just because we love the Creator, we love the creation.
The Creator is also bound to love his creation, and vice versa. If we identify ourselves with the Creator, we will definitely feel love for the creation. If we identify ourselves with the creation, then it is our bounden duty to love the Creator. A child may be born blind and deaf, but the mother feels he is the most beautiful child on earth. Why? Because the child is the mother’s own creation. The world will say that he is blind, he is deaf or he is ugly, but according to the mother he is most beautiful, he is most perfect. The mother’s sense of perfection or beauty does not depend on others’ judgement or others’ way of seeing the reality. The mother will see according to her own understanding, according to her own awakening, according to her own standard. She will love her child no matter what. In the case of a country, if we take God as the Creator and become identified with the Creator, then naturally what the Creator has created — our country — we will love. And if we love the country — the little child who is deaf and blind — then we will be able to go to the Source, God.
Either we appreciate the source and then learn to appreciate the creation of the source, or we appreciate the creation and then learn to appreciate the source. Our country is the creation and God is the Source. Either from the seed we go to the fruit or from the fruit we go to the seed. In this way if we develop love for our country, then spontaneously we shall develop love for our Source, the Supreme Creator.BRISTOL, CONNECTICUT 06010
Office of the MayorJuly 14, 1975
The Honorable Sri Chinmoy
Sri Chinmoy Centre85-45 149th Street
Jamaica Hills, Queens, N.Y.11435
Dear Sri Chinmoy:
Thank you for your letter of June 6 and kind words regarding the chrysanthemum cutting named in your honour. If ever I am in Hew York, I would most assuredly try to attend and view the Art Exhibit.
I regret I was unable to meet with your protege, Alan Singer, and personally accept your invitation to the opening, but I was scheduled at the time to be at the Mayor's Conference in Boston.
I sincerely appreciate your thoughts and kind words and the thoughtfulness of Mr. Singer. Our very best wishes to you in this new and worthwhile venture.
Cordially,
Frank J. Longo, Sr.Mayor
cc. Mr. Alan Singer
c/o Sri Chinmoy CentreBiren Palit, Madal’s spiritual brother-mentor
To dear Madal,
A few lines on his paintings;
The Artist of Heaven through the artist-soul of this mortal world has been pouring the Immortal Fountain in colours.
Where music is mute of words and cadence speaks — in these paintings lines are invisible, colour is full of speech.
Wishing well affectionately,
BirendaTell me only once
That You are mineAnd I am Yours.
Your smile of love-nectarIs the companion.
Of my lifeAnd the light of my death.
In Heaven and on earth,Tell me only once
That my heart is Your Beloved Supreme.```
Ekbar shudhu bhaloTumi je amar ami je tomar
Ekbar shudhu bhaloTaba prema shudha hashi
Jibaner sathi maraner bhatiEkbar shudhu bhalo
Tumi je amar ami je tomarEkbar shudhu bhalo
Swarge martye bhaloAntara mama taba priyatama
From:Sri Chinmoy,AUM — Vol.II-2, No. 7, 27 July 1975, Vishma Press, 1975
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/aum_98
