Flame-Waves, part 1

Question: How do we know if it is the proper time for us to enter into the spiritual life? Can the spiritual life help us to overcome frustration?

Now human beings are full of frustration. Every day begins with a new frustration, disappointment and sense of total failure. How can we conquer frustration, despair and other unaspiring and negative forces? We can do so only when we consciously feel that there is something beyond, far beyond these frustrations and so-called failures. Our human life cannot and does not end with failure precisely because the divine in us will never accept failure. The divine in us will eventually manifest the soul’s Light and Truth on earth if we have the conscious cry, or conscious hunger for the Light that can transform our frustrations into radiant achievements.

He who does not aspire is a total failure in God’s Eyes. But his aspiration is only a matter of time. God Himself will aspire in him and through him when the hour strikes. But if we consciously fight on the side of the inner Truth and inner Reality, if we listen to the dictates of the inner voice, then we hasten the progress of our own life and the progress of all mankind.

Question: How can we bring enough perfection into our own lives and into the world to be truly satisfied?

The more we achieve inwardly, the clearer will be our conception of perfection. If we are satisfied with only a little inner attainment, like the mystics and mediums, we will say we have perfection according to our satisfaction. But the perfection that satisfies them need not and cannot satisfy the inner hunger of someone who cries for absolute perfection in his nature and the earth-consciousness. The higher we go, the more we receive and achieve and become aware of the possibility of integral perfection in our nature and elsewhere.

Complete and total perfection will come about only when we feel that our perfection is no perfection when the rest of humanity remains imperfect. If we call ourselves children of God, then others are also children of God. If we do not share with them what little we have, then what right have we to call them our brothers? They may be travelling a few miles behind us, or they may be fast asleep. But they must reach the Goal before perfect Perfection can dawn on earth.

Each individual has to make a decision. Each seeker has to discover within himself at what point he wants to stop his inner quest for Truth and Light. If he is ready to continue, to march on, to dive deeper within, and if he feels that there is no end to his achievement, only then will he be ready to offer the message of ever-fulfilling and ever-transcending Perfection. What you call perfection today, you may call imperfection itself tomorrow. A child’s perfection is the ability to scream and shout and strike others. But when he grows up, his idea of perfection may be just the opposite. And if he enters into the spiritual life then his sense of perfection will be something else. He will try to conquer his fear, his doubt, his jealousy and other negative forces. But when he goes deep within after he has achieved what he wanted for himself, he will feel that only his limited self has been satisfied. His larger self, which is humanity entire, is far, far from perfection. So he will try to remove fear, doubt, anxiety, worries and other undivine forces from humanity.

In our path we feel that perfection has to be total and integral. We know that we have imperfection in our nature, and at the same time we have limited perfection. If the imperfection right now looms large, we have to brave that imperfection and transform it into perfection. Through our conscious prayer, meditation, concentration and contemplation the imperfection of the past can be perfected, and the darkness can be transformed into Light.

The perfection of the body lies in its conscious awareness of the ever-progressive dynamic Truth. The perfection of the vital lies in its acceptance of the Truth in a dynamic form. The perfection of the mind lies in its acceptance of the vast, the infinite, as its very own. The perfection of the heart lies in its acceptance of earth’s cry and Heaven’s compassion as its very own.

Question: Will the process of striving for perfection ever come to an end?

Question: I always felt it was selfish to look for salvation. I thought that this would come of itself if one did the right thing.

Question: What age were you when you commenced meditation?

Question: You say we should meditate in the heart, but I find it easier to meditate in the mind.

You have to be wise. There is a vast difference between what you can get from the mind and what you can get from the heart. The mind is limited; the heart is unlimited. Deep within us is infinite Peace, Light and Bliss. To get a limited quantity is an easy task. Meditation in the mind can give it to you. But you can get more if you meditate in the heart. Suppose you have the opportunity to work at two places. At one place you will earn $200, and at the other place $500. If you are wise, you will not waste your time at the first place. But you have to know that the Source and the Reality is in the heart. Reality is everywhere, but the actual manifestation of the Reality has to be in a particular place. Inside the heart is the soul, and if you meditate in the heart the result is infinitely more fulfilling.

Question: In meditation sometimes the mind stops functioning and there seems to be little information coming.

Question: What do you mean when you speak of unconditional surrender to God's Will, and how can we develop this quality?

As long as we are on earth we are fulfilling God according to our own limited, very limited capacity. Everybody is fulfilling God in this way. But when we do something with the conscious feeling that what we do is being done by God in us and through us, then even if we just give a smile, in that smile there is infinite potentiality, infinite capacity.

Question: While I am in the office how can I control my emotions? There is so much injustice and nothing we can do to help ourselves.

Another way of saving yourself, which is quicker, is to have peace of mind. At our Tuesday meditation we bring down Peace, which is very solid. It is not something imaginary. You can feel Peace; you can swim in the sea of Peace when you meditate with us on Tuesdays. Here, too, on Fridays, we shall meditate and you will feel Peace if you join us. Injustice is undivine power, but Peace is an infinitely more powerful divine weapon. It is solid power. When you are in Peace, no human power can upset you.

When you have to defend yourself or protect yourself, try to use a higher weapon. If people say something and you retaliate on the same level, there will be no end to it. Again, if you simply swallow your anger they will continue to take advantage of you. But when they see and feel tremendous inner Peace in you, they will see something in you which can never be conquered. They will see a change in you, and this change will not only puzzle them but also threaten and frighten them. They will feel that their weapons are useless.

Question: It seems to me that the Will of God for us is not only to be silent but also to be active.

Question: So outer silence or dynamic silence is really divine action — doing the Will of God by serving man?

Question: Inner silence is equated with prayer and meditation?

Question: You say that if fear is our problem we should feel that we are God's chosen children. Do you mean that we are chosen by God to experience fear?

Question: In your talk you said that if we see the problem and if we face the problem, then we have greater force than the problem. Do you mean, then, that a problem is not a problem if we know how to look at it?

Question: I always wanted to ask you what is the spiritual significance of insanity and how it develops.

Question: What do you mean when you say that the unaspiring man's eternity is uncertain?

Question: How can one accept and love one's fellow man?

You must regard the persons around you as limbs of your own body. Without them you are incomplete. You may feel they are less developed, but they also have their role to play. Your thumb is much more powerful than your little finger. But the little finger also has its job. God has created five fingers. Although some are shorter and weaker than others, you know that only when you have five fingers are you perfect. Now your middle finger is the tallest. If you feel that for this reason you don’t need your shorter fingers, then you are sadly mistaken. If you want to play the piano or if you want to type, then you need all five fingers.

Question: What actually is illumination?

Illumination is humanity’s first realisation of God’s omnipotent Power, boundless Compassion, infinite Light and perfect Perfection. It is our illumination that makes us feel what God really is. Before illumination, God is theoretical; after illumination God becomes practical. So illumination is the divine magic power that makes us see the Reality which was once upon a time imagination. When illumination dawns in a human being, God is no longer just a promise but an actual achievement.

Question: How can we develop patience?

Question: During a meditation, if something external to the meditation occurs — such as noise or something unforeseen — is it better to include it in the meditation or to try to shut it out and pursue the meditation?

Question: I have an experience here at the Dag Hammarskjold lectures which I never am aware of at your other talks or at the Tuesday meditation. I know you are bringing down tremendous Peace which I feel in both places, but here at these lectures I have a feeling that I am falling asleep. Yet I hear what you are saying. I try very hard to keep awake but it almost seems an impossibility. Could you explain whether I am doing something wrong?

Question: I once read that if you choose evil, you are not really free. I thought it was an interesting idea. Would you enlighten me?

Sometimes we may have no freedom in our outer life, but in our inner life we have freedom, a considerable amount of freedom. We can pray, we can concentrate, we can meditate even in a prison cell. But when evil possesses us, at that time our inner freedom goes away, and our outer freedom also deserts us. At that time we are bound to seek the fulfilment of our desires or evil impulses.

Everything has a nature of its own. The very nature of evil is to bind; the very nature of divinity is to liberate. The nature of scorpions is to sting. We cannot expect them to behave differently. Therefore, we must not give them the opportunity to sting us. We have to stay away from them at all times. If we stand in front of a scorpion to exert our own freedom, it is foolishness.

Question: When we come to meditate with you, you give us Light. But we have to keep coming back to get refilled. How much of the Light which you give us remains permanently in us?

We sometimes say that a person is doing something, but his mind is somewhere else. Now, instead of the mind, let us say that the aspiring heart is not there. Your mind will take dictation from your boss, but your aspiring heart will keep its oneness with this room where it received Peace, Light and Bliss.

Question: In practical terms, how can we give the world love and concern?

As an individual you are here. You cannot be somewhere else at the same time. But your prayer, your aspiration, can approach Someone who is Omnipresent. All of us have been praying and meditating here in this room, but spiritually we have been spreading Peace and Love into the world. Physically we are bound in this tiny room, but spiritually we are flying like birds; our wings are widespread with Peace, Joy and Love.

When you feel something, when you see something, you may call it a practical experience. Here we have been meditating for fifteen or twenty minutes. During that time our experience of inner Peace and Love was absolutely practical. To us these things were most tangible. While you are praying or meditating here next week look at yourself. Is it not a reality — the Peace, the Joy, the Love that you are getting?

Question: How can an individual truly know what God's Will is for him?

There is a very simple way to know what God’s Will is for us as individuals. Every day when we start our day we build our own world. We make decisions. We feel that things have to be done in a certain way. I have to deal with this man in this way. I have to say this; I have to do this; I have to give this. Everything is I, I, I. We all do this. If, instead of all this planning, we can make our minds absolutely calm and silent, we can know God’s Will. This silence is not the silence of a dead body; it is the dynamic, progressive silence of receptivity. Through total silence and the ever-increasing receptivity of the mind, God’s Will can be known. When the human mind works powerfully, the Divine Will cannot work. God’s Will works only when the human mind does not work. When the mind becomes a pure vessel, the Supreme can pour into it His infinite Peace, Light and Bliss.

We are constantly building and breaking our mental house. But instead of making and breaking the house at our sweet will, if we can empty our mind, make it calm and quiet, then God can build His Temple or His Palace in us in His own Way. And when He has built His Abode within us, He will say, “I have built this for you and Me to reside in together. I have built it, but it is not Mine alone. It is also yours. Come in.”

Question: How can we attain lasting inner peace?

The day I feel my existence, my illumining heart in everyone, is the day I immediately become one in many. When I receive or bring down Peace from Above, immediately I feel that I am many, not one. Then when I assimilate the Peace in myself, I see the Peace has been assimilated in all of us. Then I have a conscious feeling of oneness, of the oneness in the many and the many as one.

Question: Every time I act, I am not certain if I am doing the right thing, and I was wondering if perhaps the best way to find real peace would be to withdraw from the world and not act at all.

But we have to know that if we expect something from our action, peace will never come in our lives. If we expect some particular result from our action we will be frustrated when the result does not meet with our expectations. We will feel that we have failed. When this happens, naturally there can be no peace.

We have to feel that action itself is a great blessing, but the result of action we have to take as an experience. According to our own limited understanding, we see it as either failure or success. But in God’s Eye, failure and success are both just experiences which help to develop our consciousness. When acting we have to expect only the fulfilment of God’s Will.

Whatever happens we should see as the experience that God wanted to give us. Today He may give us the experience of failure. Tomorrow He may give us another experience which will satisfy us outwardly. But if we live a spiritual life, no matter what result comes to us from our action, we shall be satisfied.

Let us look at a river. The river flows constantly towards the sea. It carries all kinds of rubbish — dirt, stones, leaves, sand — that it picks up as it moves towards its goal, but it always continues flowing towards the sea. We should also think of our lives as a river running to the sea. This sea is the sea of fulfilment. If we are afraid to act because we don’t want to get involved with the imperfections of the world, if we become still and inactive, then we will never reach the goal.

You may say that you do not know where the goal is right now. No harm. Just move. If you go in the wrong direction, soon you will realise it and go in another direction. Eventually you will reach your goal. But if you do not move at all, there is absolutely no hope that you will go in the right direction. If you cannot do disinterested work, selfless work, then work with a motive first. If ego and vanity come in while you are helping someone, let them come. A day will dawn when you will feel that the satisfaction that you are getting is not enough. You will realise it does not last more than a few seconds. Then you will try to work in a more divine way.

Activity is always far better than inertia. Even if you run around like a mad elephant at first, eventually you will start acting like a deer and run straight towards your goal. You may start your movement with the crude and destructive strength of an elephant but you will complete it with the grace and speed of a deer.

Question: I have recently felt quite distinctly a force that people throw around themselves for protection, or even when they don't want to speak to someone. I have felt it like a solid object, like a wall. I would like to know how it is built. Is it built consciously or unconsciously?

Question: In the Meditation Group's bulletin you spoke about the importance of meditating on the heart instead of in the mind. Could you speak more about this?

Question: Can you tell if something comes from the mind or the heart, or does something always go from the heart to the mind?

Question: Some people are very absent-minded and they seem to be in another world. Are they meditating all the time?

There are some spiritual Masters and very advanced seekers who appear to be absent-minded and forgetful at times. But with them, it is a different story. At that time their consciousness is not in the physical. They are on a very high plane. Again, a few — very few — Masters can remain on this high plane and still function normally in the world.

Question: Sri Chinmoy, how can we become childlike in spirit?

If a boy of nineteen does not have the capacity to draw something from the world or offer something to the world, if he remains aloof, if he does not care for the world and feels that he does not need anything from the world, then he is ninety-nine years old in spirit. On the other hand, if somebody of ninety-nine wants to learn the inner language, the language of divine love, the language of divine peace, the language of inner wisdom, the language of inner Light, then he is a child in spirit. But if he wants to get only information from the world, this will not help him spiritually at all. For this kind of information is given by the mind and received through the mind. And if a person lives in the mind he will never be able to act like a child. Who cannot act like a child? He who cares more for the intellect than for the heart. He who cares more for outer achievement than for inner achievement. He who cares more for society around him than for God within him.

If you really want to become a child, then you have to feel that there is someone who is thinking of you constantly. You have to feel that there is somebody who is not only thinking of you and meditating on you, but who is also taking responsibility for you. A child always feels that his mother or his father will take care of him. All the time he feels that there is protection, there is guidance, there is assistance. So naturally he has confidence in his life. A child can rely totally upon his parents because of his child’s heart. Because he is always in the heart, he feels that there is no need which his parents will not fulfil. If he lived in the mind he would immediately think, “Oh, perhaps my father will not be able to do this. Perhaps my mother will not be there to help me.” Then he would become fearful. He would become doubtful and anxious. In the spiritual life, no matter how old you are, you have to feel that there is someone with infinitely more wisdom-light who is constantly thinking of you, loving you, guiding you and protecting you, and that this person is God. And you have to rely upon God with a child’s heart. We can have Peace, Light, Love and Bliss in infinite measure only when we feel that we are children.

When a student goes to his spiritual Master he must feel that his Master has infinitely more wisdom than he has. He must maintain his feeling of humility. Whenever we deal with somebody who is superior to us and who has more capacity in the inner world, then we become a child. If we think that our Master is either of our standard or of a lower standard, how can we act like a child? How can we have faith or confidence in him? Immediately our superiority will come to the fore. Our mind will make us feel that we know better. And the moment we feel that we know everything and can do everything, we lose our childlike qualities.

Question: It seems to me that it is easy to have this feeling if one has a spiritual Master, is living in a spiritual community and has all his needs provided for. But what about someone who is a separate individual living in the world?

But even a person who is living in the world can have a childlike attitude towards God. To be childlike does not mean to be childish. We can be simple, sincere and spontaneous in our dealings with the sophisticated world without being stupid or foolish. We can have implicit faith in God’s protection and guidance even while living and working in the ordinary world. For this we must feel that whatever job we are doing, it is God who has given us this job out of His infinite Compassion, it is He who is giving us the necessary capacity to do the work satisfactorily and keep the job, and it is He who will enable us to find another job if we lose the one we have. This kind of childlike faith is not foolishness. Far from it. It is the spontaneous trust of a child in his father or mother. This kind of feeling will never stand as a hindrance in our life in the outer world.

Question: How can a person detach himself emotionally from irritating people and situations?

Question: I read something in one of your books about the control of breath in meditation. Could you elaborate on that?

When you breathe in as slowly as possible, feel that you are breathing in not just air, but cosmic energy. Feel that tremendous energy is entering into you, and that you are going to use it to purify yourself: your body, vital, mind and heart. Feel that there is not a single place in your body that has not been occupied by the flow of cosmic energy. It is flowing like a river inside you. When you feel that your whole being has been washed or purified by the cosmic energy, then feel that you are breathing out all the rubbish inside you, all the undivine thoughts, impure actions, obscure ideas. Anything inside your system that you call undivine, anything that you do not want to claim as your own, feel that you are exhaling it.

This is not the traditional yogic pranayama, which is more complicated and systematised. Pranayama is a traditional yogic discipline. But what I have just told you is the most effective spiritual method of breathing. If you practise this method of breathing, you will soon see that it is not imagination; it is reality. In the beginning you have to use your imagination, but after a while you will see and feel that it is not imagination at all, but reality. You are consciously breathing in the energy which is flowing all around you in the cosmos, purifying yourself, and emptying yourself of everything undivine. But this breathing has to be done in a very conscious way, not in a mechanical way. If you can breathe this way for five minutes every day, you will be able to make very fast progress.

Appendix: these quotes, from other writings of Sri Chinmoy, were included in the first editions.

> Arise! Your Lord Supreme is crying for you.

> Walk! Your Lord Supreme is expecting your sure and safe arrival.

> Run! It is you who will fulfil your Lord Supreme in this life of yours here on earth.

> When your friends say that you are the greatest aspirant, be sure to correct and perfect them.

> Remember, in either case you are not the loser.

> When you make your friends perfect to assess you properly, you don’t lose anything.

> Correct and perfect others; you will fulfil them in God.

> What my mind has is limited learned knowledge.

> An act of sweet pardon helps me to be really brave.

> God exists. We don’t have to invent Him. Our mouth at least dares to prove God’s existence.

> Action is our peaceful realisation.

> Action is our peaceful manifestation.

> Religion and philosophy fulfil and are complementary to each other.

> Philosophy without religion is heartless.

> I thought of God. God smiled.

> I meditated on God. God became my real God.

> After you have enjoyed your life, your name becomes frustration.

> To love man is my only duty.

> To become God the Dream is my only certainty.

Editor's preface to the first edition

The United Nations Meditation Group functions under the inner guidance of its Spiritual Director, Sri Chinmoy, who conducts the Group’s meetings and also delivers the continuing Dag Hammarskjold monthly lecture series at the U.N. It is Sri Chinmoy who best sums up the credo to which the Group adheres:

> WE BELIEVE...