Mr. Saxton: What is your basic philosophy?

Sri Chinmoy: Our basic teaching is love, devotion and surrender. We love God, not in a human way but in a divine way. In human love there is constant demand — I give you something, you have to give me something. It is always mutual give and take. But in divine love we give unconditionally. Then it is up to God to give us what He wants to give us. We know that in reality God has already given us everything; only right now we are trying to feel that He has done this. This is our divine love. Right now I am one individual, but when I try to love the world in a divine way, at that time I grow into the universal heart. Human love ends in frustration and frustration ultimately is destruction; whereas divine love is constant illumination.

Human devotion is attachment. I may be attached to you and you may be attached to me, but this does not serve any divine purpose. Divine devotion is dedication to a higher purpose, to a higher way of life, to an ideal or goal. It grows out of our promise to our inner being to manifest our inner divinity here on earth.

Human surrender is the surrender of the slave to the master. If the slave does not please the master, the master will dispense with his services. So the slave is all the time afraid of the master. But divine surrender is the surrender of our less illumined part to our higher part. Right now we are not fully aware of our highest height. But once we become aware of who we are, we try to surrender our lower self to our higher self. The tiny drop is not aware of the ocean, but when it merges into the ocean, it becomes the ocean itself. As long as it maintains its individuality and personality, the tiny drop is just a tiny drop. In divine surrender, the finite in us surrenders to the infinite in us and we become inseparable.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Flame-Waves, part 10, Agni Press, 1978
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/fw_10