The jewel of humility

Part I

Childhood tale¹

When I was a child in Shakpura, I had a dog named Bhaga. It means "tiger." We wanted our dog to be in the city with our relatives. Finally, we took him in a boat and he stayed with my maternal uncle.

Bhaga was very devoted. Several miles he used to cover to deliver a message. He went three and a half miles to my aunt's place and gave her a message. Then, from my aunt's place he was so eager to come back. Twice he did that.

Bhaga was big, spirited and very powerful. If you dropped something, if you made any sound, then you were finished; he used to bark for five minutes. When we were studying for our examinations, we never studied silently. To convince the physical mind that we were studying, we used to recite aloud. At that time, when anything went wrong, the dog used to bark. That was Bhaga.

I had a white hare. I had also many, many birds. I had a kite and others. Then we had a few monkeys. One monkey was named Madhu. I was very fond of monkeys. There was a chain hanging down from a pole and at the top was a small round house where they lived. The monkeys' lives were spent climbing up and down the chain and screaming. Then from their own bodies they removed bugs. Every second they used to discover some thing on their skin. We could not see anything, but a monkey sees everything on its own body.

The monkeys used to bite. When a monkey starts running toward you, you have to lie down and stop breathing. If you act as if you are dead, then it will never, never bite. So many times I did that when I was about six years old. Little children of one or two years and elderly people they never bite, but young boys and girls they bite. A few times I was caught. I have at least ten or twelve marks. I used to go near a monkey with such fondness and joy, but then I forgot that the chain was so long. Sometimes, before I brought food for the monkey, it used to bite me. We had a servant who was fourteen or fifteen years old. There was not a single day when he was not bitten by one particular monkey.

When monkeys are tame, they show affection. My mother was not bitten even once. They felt kindness in my mother. My sister once or twice was bitten. The monkey-bite hurts a lot. It bleeds immediately and profusely. How many times my right or left thigh or my elbow was bitten! Their teeth are very small but they grind. My brother Mantu never gave them any bananas or anything else to eat. He didn't like monkeys, he didn't like dogs, he didn't like cats. He was against every kind of animal. Monkeys do something that is really worth seeing. They climb up a tree and from the very topmost branch they jump into a pond. Then they swim across.

I have disciples whose children were once upon a time their pets. In a previous incarnation somebody had a pet dog, and now the pet dog has become a member of the family. Suppose you had a dog; now that dog has become your brother. In your family it has taken its first human incarnation, Like that, we also had maidservants who wanted to come into our family. They pleased us so much and their wish was to come into our family. Just open your third eye and see whether I am telling you the truth!

Part II: Mundane, funny and illumining questions and answers

Question: Is there spiritual significance to body-building?

Question: Was the Vishma of the Mahabharata a bad person for fighting against Sri Krishna?

Vishma felt miserable that the Pandavas suffered so much in spite of the fact that Krishna was on their side. He taught the Pandavas secretly how they could kill him. Now look at this! If you fight against someone, will you tell that person how to kill you? This was Vishma. His heart was all the time with the Pandavas, but he was morality-bound to the Kauravas. In India they say that if you take salt from someone, then you have to be grateful to that person and take his side. The Kauravas assisted him in his own life; they met with his expenses and did many things for him. That is why he took their side, but his heart was all the time for the Pandavas.

Here the philosophy is complicated. Real spirituality will be always for God, for the Supreme. No matter how much you have got from this world, no matter how much help you have received from an individual or from a group of people, when the Hour strikes, you have always to take God's side. It was God who all the time was helping you in and through these individuals at a particular stage in your life. If God changes His Will and wants you to serve Him in a different way, then you have to do it. So Vishma should have taken the Pandavas side when he saw that Krishna was on their side.

Question: Are there individuals among your disciples today who have a soul's connection with Vishma? How does it compare with the soul's connection we'll have with you in our next incarnation?

Question: Who made me a space cadet? Did God make me a space cadet or did I make myself a space cadet?

So God started the game, you continued the game and I completed it. Thirty-three per cent of the credit goes to God, sixty-six per cent goes to your own noble self and one per cent goes to me. So in this way you are a perfect space cadet — a divinely perfect, supremely perfect, one hundred per cent space cadet.

Yesterday you proved it. You got into the car without your books. So, does my mind work, or does only my soul work? When you were inside the car your Master said, "She has come without her books." So the first thing I asked you when you got inside the car was, "Where are your books?" Then you ran. If we had left, the custodian would have gone home and God alone knows where the books might have gone.

Question: Guru, why do you tell us not to touch paper with our feet?

Question: Sometimes the boys fool around in physical ways like in wrestling. Is that okay to do at certain times or is it not good to do at all?

A little bit is good. But there is a great difference between exuberance and violence. Again, sometimes innocent exuberance can lead to destructive violence. Many times it starts in a joking manner. Then somebody's ego is hurt and it becomes a serious fight. It starts with innocence, but that innocence does not remain. If you can maintain the innocent fun throughout, then it is very good. Then all the undivine vital qualities go out of the body.

No one is better than Ashrita in this respect. Ashrita is the best. When Ashrita divine goes into our kitchen and sees Casey, if he tears off Casey's T-shirt, then what are you going to do? Someone will give Casey the money to buy another shirt, so there is no harm. But in the name of exercise, to test his strength, if he presses Casey's thumb and breaks it, that is very bad. The shirt can easily be replaced but if the thumb is damaged, then how can you replace it?

Question: How can we get instant, automatic inspiration? A lot of times, when you are meditating one by one on all the disciples, I notice that my mind is wandering when you are about to concentrate on me. How can I get instant inspiration to be receptive in any situations

Some people say, "Oh, there is a yawning gulf between the highest height and my present state." But my theory is always to think of the highest and the largest. You may see yourself as only a tiny drop, but if you think of the ocean, then immediately you will see that the ocean can never be separated from the tiny drop. The highest height can never be separated from the lowest, because there is no break between the lowest and the highest. If you think of yourself as the foot of the tree and me as the height, then easily you can see that we are one. If something goes wrong with the foot, the foundation, then the tree breaks and its height goes away. So if you think of yourself and of me in this way, then you will know that if something goes wrong with you, then my height also goes.

From inspiration you get aspiration; from aspiration you get realisation. When I am looking at you, immediately think of me as realisation. Realisation means a flood of light. Right now just a little light you have, but you want to go to the infinite effulgence of light.

If you see the ultimate, then immediately you get a kind of inner joy and inner thrill, and this will inspire you. But if you think of yourself as starting to run a marathon race, with the goal far beyond, then you are lost. With your aspiration you are just starting, and you have to go one mile, two miles, three miles, four miles; O God! If you think this way, then you are finished; you will never reach your realisation-goal. No, you have to think of your first goal as one mile, your second goal as two miles, your third goal as three miles and so on. When you start the marathon, take the first mile as your goal, and at that time think that I am also there. Or if even that seems too far away, then feel that I am at the start with you. In this way you will be able to complete the distance between your aspiration and your realisation. Again, you may say, "If Guru is here at the start with me, then what is the use of going there? If I get him here at the start, then I don't have to see him at the finish." That is not good, either. The best thing is to feel my inspiration and aspiration inside you. But don't forget that I am there in the goal, with the goal and as the goal for you.

Question: The other day I was walking by the United Nations and I saw a little baby in a baby carriage. He was about a year or a year and a half old. The baby had sort of a blank expression, but somehow I saw in this expression great anxiety and perplexity, as if the world were a very painful and bewildering place. I was very moved, very pained by this experience, and whenever I think of it I still feel very moved. What can I learn from this experience?

My feeling was that this was an expression of not understanding the world.

Question: It made me feel that I wanted to help the suffering of the world, but I didn't know how.

Question: When you meditate you become very, very still. Even if you are standing up, your physical doesn't move at all. You can become like a statue if you want. How can you do that?

Although the physical is standing still, it is running the fastest. My body, my physical, has become one with my inner self. Outwardly you can see the stillness, but inside the stillness itself is my inner vision, my inner range. To your physical eyes it will appear like stillness, but if you had realised God, then you would see that the stillness is not a static stillness at all. The physical perception is stillness, but the inner perception sees that along with the stillness is the fastest movement of my inner being, which is covering the length and breadth of the world with its inner range and inner vision.

So if you use the physical eye, then it is stillness; and if you use the inner eye, then you see that the inner being is moving faster than the fastest. If you can use both the inner eye and the outer eye, then you will see that my being is at once still and dynamic. It is dynamic and static at the same time. The static aspect you see and the dynamic aspect you do not see with your physical eyes; but they are absolutely interdependent.

I saw it as dynamic, Guru, but I don't think anybody else in the world could do what you do.

Question: May I ask something in relation to that? When you sit on your throne you will be absolutely still and all of a sudden you will move your foot.

Question: You don't really shake it, you just move it up and down once or twice.

Question: The smoke from the fire got into everything in my store and it made everything smell. My question is, did it also get into the soul of the store?

In the case of the soul, if the smell remains for a few days, it is nothing. The soul has the capacity to remain undisturbed and unperturbed. But if you do not clean the place for months, then the soul's compassion will take the smell not as a smell, not as an abstract thing, but as a being. The soul takes it as a solid, concrete being that is helpless. Then the soul shows its compassion and tries to identify itself with the smell. At that time the soul will embody the smell and it will take some time before the hour comes when you can get rid of it. But here I clearly see that the soul will not be affected, because it will be a matter of only a few days before the smell is gone.

Question: Occasionally I see a little flash of light, a tiny light that goes in your eye and travels all around. Sometimes it travels in a definite pattern and I watch it while I am meditating on your picture. What does it mean?

When you think of yourself, think that inside the physical is your inner cry, your aspiration and your dedication. This aspiration and dedication will not go on in vain; they will be crowned with success. They will be garlanded by the physical and the spiritual. The physical inside you is aspiring and the reality from above, from deep within, will come and garland the aspiration of the physical.

Part III: Questions and answers

Question: Guru, you once said that if you come two minutes late to God, then He will not even open the door for you. This makes me unhappy.

Everybody has a special hour of his own. When the hour strikes for you, that is your time. If the hour strikes for somebody else two years earlier, then that is his time. Inwardly you will know when your hour has struck. Let us say that fifteen years ago you inwardly felt a very strong pull toward the spiritual life; you felt that without God, you could not last on earth even for a fleeting second. If you had that kind of aspiration but did not go to any spiritual Master or follow any path, it means that fifteen years you have wasted. Therefore, God will be displeased with you. He will say, "I gave you a golden chance to come out of ignorance, but you did not value it."

But in your case, you don't have to feel at all sorry, because God did not give you that intense aspiration fifteen years ago. But now God has given you the aspiration. Now God has knocked at your door and your time has come. Before you were sleeping, but now God wants you to get up. If you say, "Don't disturb me, don't bother me, I want to sleep," then God will be displeased with you. But you are not sleeping, so you should not feel at all sorry. The time has dawned for you and you have awakened. But if the time comes and you neglect it, if you refuse to accept it, then you are making a very serious mistake.

So do not worry. You have done absolutely the right thing. If I have accepted someone, then it is the proper time for him. Do not feel depressed or deserted. You have God's infinite Love and Blessings. If two or three years ago He did not ask you to do something, it is not your fault. You are listening to the inner request of the Supreme at this time, so you are doing the right thing. Don't feel at all depressed or sorry, That applies to all of you. It is only the one who comes late who will feel that he has missed the boat.

Question: Could you speak a little about how a new disciple should handle the pleasures and problems of daily life?

There are many seekers who complain to their Master, "Before we accepted the spiritual life, we had fewer problems. Now that we have accepted the spiritual life, our problems have increased. But it is not true. They must know that these same problems they did have; only they did not consciously want to conquer them. That's why they were not aware of them. If you don't want to conquer something, then you are fast asleep and the problem is fast asleep. But now that you have entered into the spiritual life, you are challenging all your problems. Since you are challenging the problems, the hostile forces stand with them and try to fight you. They feed the problems so that they can continue the fight. But these forces know that they will not be able to conquer you. Only they will try to delay, delay. So you have to challenge them.

Before you accepted the spiritual life, you thought that the life of ignorance, the life of pleasure, was the right life. You looked around and you saw that everybody was enjoying the life of pleasure. You said, "So what is wrong with me? If my friends, my neighbours, and everybody is in the same boat, then I don't want to be an exception." But now that you have accepted the spiritual life, you feel that the life they're leading is not meant for you. You have got now an inner call, a higher call. You can't be with them. Yes, you stayed with them for fifteen years or twenty years. Now the time has come for you to follow something else, to do something else. If you don't accept problems as such, how are you going to conquer them? If you try to avoid problems, they will come to you with more power. Most vehemently they will come and attack you. So you cannot hide from your problems. You have to conquer them here and now. If you wait and say, "No, tomorrow I will have more strength, and then I will be able to conquer my problems," I tell you that that tomorrow will not come. Each second is a golden opportunity, and if you misuse this golden opportunity, then you are strengthening unconsciously the forces of ignorance.

Now, about the life of pleasure. You have to know what you have received or achieved from the life of pleasure. Immediately you will say, "The life of pleasure has given me one thing and that is frustration." Even if you remain in the ordinary life, the unaspiring life, if you are sincere then you will say, "All I have gained from this life of pleasure is frustration." And then what happens? You see that there is no hope of coming out of this frustration unless and until you are destroyed totally.

What today we call frustration, tomorrow will be destruction. We started our journey with temptation. Then, in temptation there was pleasure. And inside pleasure is destruction. After destruction, what remains? Nothing. So the path of pleasure is the negative way of proceeding.

Then there is a positive way. That positive way is aspiration. What is aspiration? Aspiration is the inner cry that makes us feel that we have come from the infinite Peace, Light and Bliss and that we still embody this infinite Peace, Light and Bliss, only we have to bring these qualities to the fore. Now, unconsciously we have these qualities. Unconsciously we have someone called God. But spiritual life means our conscious awareness of God.

You have the treasure within you, but you have misplaced it. When you misplace something, you search for it, but you may not find it immediately. So you ask your friend, your dearest friend, to help you search: "I have lost something; will you search for it along with me?" The friend comes, and since he is more expert than you in finding things, he finds it for you. Who is that friend? He is your spiritual Master. Once he finds your treasure, he does not take it away from you. He will not dare to take it away from you just because he has found it on your behalf. A spiritual Master is like that. He finds your inner treasure for you, and then his role is over. Your role is only to thank him. He finds it for you, then it becomes your treasure. You just thank him.

The life of pleasure has to be replaced by the life of aspiration. In aspiration is the real treasure, the realisation that you come from the Infinite, that you are in the Infinite and that you are for the Infinite Truth and Light.

Question: Why do we sometimes think that we are in a bad consciousness or a good consciousness and later you tell us we were in a different consciousness?

Question: How can we deal with the discouragement that comes from trying to sustain a lot of activities after we get physically exhausted from the pace?

If we are discouraged, immediately we have to feel that an enemy has entered into us. We are all God's children and we have no enemies. But we have to know that right now there are things that are standing in our way, which can make us helpless. So the best thing is to take them as enemies; in this way we will always be alert. Once we have conquered these forces, at that time they will not be our enemies; they will have no power. But right now discouragement, frustration and depression are more powerful than we are, and we have to consider them as our enemies. When we conquer them, then they become ours.

Very often our good qualities are captured by the undivine qualities. In the morning we have aspiration to get up, but then lethargy comes and we do not get up until seven or eight o'clock. So the bad forces have won. But again, if the good forces increase our aspiration to get up early in the morning, at that time even if the wrong forces come and tempt us to sleep a few minutes more, still we get up. Then lethargy is conquered.

Question: When we set our alarm and we don't get up to meditate, what should we do?

Question: When we meditate you ask us to keep our eyes open and look at you. But so many times the physical world disappears and I have to make an effort to bring it back into focus.

Part IV — The jewel of humility: an interview

NAC: It is a great honour to meet you; we've heard a lot about you over the years. What does your work generally consist of?

NAC: What shape does your activity take in that service?

NAC: Do you relate to the politicians at the United Nations?

NAC: Are there many politicians seeking actively?

NAC: From the point of view of a lot of people, the world is a very cruel and negative place and their consciousness is not in a position to absorb the negativity. What can you say, or what service can we perform ("we" in the largest sense of the word) to help with that situation?

NAC: When one is engaged in a way of life which is not satisfactory to the person and one feels the first tug to begin seeking (I am asking this question because a great many people who will be reading this interview will be in that position), one has the impulse to do something. The philosophy and the ideals and so on make some sense, but here in the West people have the impulse to do something and make it happen. Is there anything practical, direct, that you can suggest for someone to do?

NAC: Most of our minds are so confused and our bodies so tense that we can't listen to the inner self, or even if we can, there are so many conflicting voices that we don't know which one is true. How can we cut through all that?

NAC: Are you optimistic about the future of humanity?

NAC: Do people look to you and bow to you as Master?

NAC: What shall we do with these characters who go around calling themselves "perfect Masters"? How shall we talk to them?

NAC: You appear in the Vancouver Airport as an ordinary, middle-aged businessman in your summer suit. Why is that? Why are you not clad in your Indian robes and all that?

NAC: I don't know if it is possible, but do you feel any sort of urge to create a song right now?

Sri Chinmoy sings a beautiful song in Indian style and dialect. Then he says: I am extremely grateful to you for having given me the opportunity to be of service to the aspiring mankind through your own most exemplary practice and spiritual discipline.