Sri Chinmoy answers, part 10

Part I

The seeker, the aspirant and the God-lover¹

There is also a difference between the seeker and the God-lover. The seeker prays and meditates most devotedly and soulfully to reach the highest Height, where he will be able to see God face to face. But the God-lover wants God to come and stay in his heart-garden so that both of them can sing, play and dance there.

The difference between the aspirant and the God-lover is this: the real aspirant has a set goal, but if he becomes a victim to unaspiring forces and comes down one step from his level of consciousness, then his whole world collapses. He wants to overcome all the unaspiring forces in his life. But if he fails, he does not want to be exposed in front of others; he does not want them to see his shortcomings. He wants to maintain his spiritual height in their eyes and keep his spiritual dignity. So if he makes a mistake, if vital forces attack him and he descends, then he is miserable and embarrassed to the extreme.

The sincere God-lover also has his highest Goal. But unlike the aspirant, the God-lover is always happy and cheerful no matter what happens. Even if he fails every day in various things, he does not get sad and depressed. As long as his love of God is solid, he is happy; his love of God is more important to him than anything else. He is running fast, faster, fastest. If he stumbles and injures himself because of his carelessness or negligence, he does not give up. He knows that in due course his injuries will be cured and he will be able to run again. So no matter how many times he fails, no matter how many times he does stupid things or enters into undivine worlds, his love of God is so great that he is ready to stand up again. He feels that his only job is to love God devotedly, self-givingly and unconditionally. He knows that if he really loves God, then his millions of failings and shortcomings will never make God sad, for it is God’s bounden Duty to perfect him.

The aspirant does not feel this way. If the aspirant is injured, he curses and blames himself. If something goes seriously wrong with his aspiration, if he has not achieved his goal by a certain date that he has set, then he becomes displeased with himself and angry with God; he feels that God has not been just to him. Then he is ready to leave the spiritual life and enjoy a short or a long vacation. But the real God-lover goes on and goes on, no matter how many mistakes and Himalayan blunders he makes, because his love of God is infinitely stronger than his multifarious weaknesses. In every possible way, the God-lover is far superior to the God-seeker and the God-aspirant. We should all try to be God-lovers.

Part II

Question: Could you please tell us a little about your philosophy and your way of life?

There are many good things and many undivine, unaspiring things in our nature. We try to increase and multiply our good qualities and, at the same time, on the strength of our prayers and meditations, we try to decrease and eventually eliminate our undivine qualities. We are not trying to destroy our bad qualities; only we want to transform and illumine them. Darkness has to be transformed into light. The ignorance that we have been cherishing from time immemorial must be illumined.

According to our traditional Indian philosophy, God is the Creator, God is the Preserver and God is the Destroyer. But we feel that God, being the Author of all Good and the Source of Compassion infinite, cannot and will not actually destroy His creation. We feel that, at His choice Hour, He transforms anything within us that is not aspiring and makes it divine, illumining and fulfilling. So there is no such thing as destruction, but only illumination and transformation, which take place at God’s choice Hour.

Question: Most people in this area of South Africa suffer a lot because of daily violence. I am interested to hear your views on the causes of violence and any message that you might have as to what we can do about it.

Question: Are your Peace Concerts political in any way?

Question: As a Hindu, I believe that the ultimate Truth is God-realisation. How do we reach our goal?

In the outer life there are many obstacles that we have to surmount. Every day, in the hustle and bustle of life, we face many challenges. If we do not accept all the challenges, no harm. If we do not like athletics, for example, it is not necessary to play soccer or to try and become the world’s fastest runner. We do not have to participate in the outer race for our evolution or for our individual growth. But even if we do not consciously participate in the outer race, we have to know that our mind is always racing and racing aimlessly — like a mad elephant. It goes this way and that way and, at the same time, it builds solid walls that divide us from others.

There is also an inner race — to our inner goal. Christians call that goal salvation. Buddhists call it illumination. Hindus call it God-realisation. We believe that each individual shall realise God at his own special time. When my hour strikes, God will definitely bless me with God-realisation; when your hour strikes, God will bless you with God-realisation.

If God-realisation is our goal, then the first and foremost necessity on our part is to pray and meditate regularly. Again, we have to know what we are praying for. Are we praying to God for money to buy one house, two houses, three houses? If we have a car, are we praying for a second car or a third car? If we are praying to God to bless us with more material possessions, then we are still in the desire-life and God-realisation remains a far cry.

There is another way, which we call the life of aspiration. In the aspiration-life, we pray to God to give us only what we truly need, not what we want. The highest form of prayer in the aspiration-life is to say: “God, You know what I actually need. If it is Your Will to bless me with the things that I truly need, then at Your choice Hour do bless me with those things. If You do not want to give me anything, that also is up to You. I want only to please You in Your own Way.”

Question: Do you work also in a political way to bring about peace?

Question: Do you feel that people in the world are moving further away from leading a spiritual life, or do you feel that there is a gradual awakening towards spirituality?

Question: What inspired you to follow this path of peace?

Question: You mentioned the struggle between the heart and the mind. In an area such as KwaZulu Natal, where so many people have been killed and where people's hearts have actually been hardened or broken, is it much more difficult for them to follow the right path than for others who are leading a more peaceful or ordinary life?

But the question arises whether someone is really hungry for peace or whether he has simply surrendered to his fate. Some individuals lose faith in God or in their inner existence when their relatives are killed by undivine human beings. They say, “My dear ones did nothing wrong. If God has infinite Compassion, why did He allow them to be killed?” These individuals may inwardly revolt and say God is not active or dynamic, that God is perhaps sleeping. Again, they may become furious that their dear ones have been attacked and go to the length of saying: “There is no God!”

Question: I have found that music can change people, although I am not speaking about political change. I would like to hear your views on music.

Part III

Question: Do messages that people receive from their departed ones have any value for us here on earth? And can you share with the general public any such messages that you may have received?

Question: What does a spiritual teacher or learned person such as yourself say to a Western-trained scientist who dismisses the idea of receiving messages from the dead as imaginary or hallucination?

Part IV

Question: When you play different instruments, are you expressing different qualities?

Question: Do you feel this when you play?

Question: As a pianist, sometimes I am so caught up with technique that I lose the soul or forget what I am trying to say.

If the owner or manager of a restaurant asks one of his workers to do something, immediately the worker will try to please him. Similarly, when you embody light, the light within you will command the technique to perform for you, and you will go far beyond the domain of technique. Now you are thinking about technique; you are begging it to serve you. But at that time, technique will be dying to serve you and please you because you are the boss.

Spending a minute or two in silence is like putting money in your pocket. If you have money in your pocket, in the supermarket you can buy anything you want. When you meditate for two or three minutes, you accumulate inner wealth — peace, light and bliss. Then, as soon as you stand in front of the audience — before you play even — spontaneously you are sharing this wealth with them. So before you even start to perform, you have already pleased your audience. Then, even if you play wrong notes, they will be sympathetic towards you.

It is like a mother and her child. The child makes a million mistakes when he plays an instrument, but the mother thinks, “Oh, it is so excellent!” The mother’s love for the child makes her feel that whatever the child does is perfect. So if you distribute your inner wealth before you play, the audience is not going to judge you because it is already satisfied. You can play anything you want and the audience will be pleased.

When I play for my students, they do not care how many mistakes I make. Why? Because before I play, I meditate with them and we establish our oneness with one another. So right from the beginning there is mutual satisfaction. At that time, they are so inwardly happy and satisfied that no matter how bad my outer performance is, their mind and heart are happy. And when you are happy and filled with inner delight, you do not see any mistakes. When you are in a very high state of consciousness, nothing affects you; everything is joy.

Question: All of us before going on stage are so nervous, but we don't show it.

Question: I have trouble organising my life. It takes so much time to pay bills and do the everyday things in life that there is not enough time for music. There is so much junk in my life; it is just like my mind. I would like to have a much more simple life, but to live in this world I need to do so many things.

You are talking about paying bills and so many other things that you have to do. You have to think of these things as monkeys that are biting you; they are not biting your body but your mind. If you pick up a big solid stick, the monkeys become frightened and stop biting you. In this case, the stick is your inner silence. When you keep your mind absolutely quiet, you will know what is most important. You are a musician and not a secretary or a politician. If you do not answer certain letters, your world will not collapse. But if you do not pay attention to your music first and foremost, then you will be the real loser. Again, you have to be practical and pay your bills. But the money for this comes from your music. So always you have to go to the source. Music is the source of your inner life and also the source of your outer life.

If you pay utmost attention to your music, from your music-world you will get tremendous joy. Then, if you are happy, you will pick up a particular letter that came three months ago or six months ago and answer it. But if you are unhappy, you are not going to touch anything. So first you have to derive joy from your music. Then, once your mind is inundated with joy, everything else will come easily. But if you do not do first things first, which in your case is music, then everything will go wrong.

Question: How do you have the same amount of inspiration every day?

Question: Some days I feel so down and other times I am up high.

Question: Is giving as important as achieving?

When we follow the spiritual life, we come to realise that we never give anything to a third party; the giver and the receiver are the same person. God is in everybody. This moment God is playing the role of the giver inside me, and the next moment He is playing the role of the receiver inside you. Then it is reversed. It is like taking from the left hand and giving to the right hand. Again, God the giver cannot be happy unless God the receiver takes what is offered. When the father gives something to the child, if the child does not take it, the father will feel sad. But when the child takes and is happy, the father is also happy. So it is reciprocal happiness, in which the giver and the taker are of equal importance.

Question: So sharing gives joy to everybody, and I am the one who has to start activating this?

Question: So many people in this country do not care for music or poetry or dance anymore. They do not see value in it. Do you think it will change?

Question: That is how we have to deal with our own mind, too!

Part V

Question: Guru, did you have many high experiences before God-realisation?

I also had a high experience just three months after I entered the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The young boys and girls in the Ashram had to do selfless service, and my job was to work in the paddy field. While I was working in the paddy field, I noticed that one of the mango trees was bending down. I just looked at the tree and everywhere in the tree — in all the fruits and leaves — I saw my Lord Krishna. Krishna was here, Krishna was there; everywhere I was seeing Lord Krishna! Before that, I was not thinking of Krishna at all; I was meditating on Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. But when I saw Lord Krishna everywhere, I was so thrilled. My dearest boyhood friend was right beside me. I was telling him, “Look, look, look at what I am seeing!” He had such love for me that he did not think of challenging me or saying that it was a mental hallucination. But he himself did not see anything. This experience I will never forget.

Another time, while I was meditating inside the Ashram meditation hall, my inner being was going up high, higher, highest. I was absolutely swimming in the sea of ecstasy. I said, “I can never go higher than this.” I was so satisfied with that height. O God, then I saw that this height was only the starting point! In a fleeting second, I went even higher. Like this, it went on for about twenty minutes or half an hour. Each time I reached a new height, the human in me was so satisfied. The human in me said, “It is enough, enough, enough!” But I was still going up. Each time I reached a particular height, which more than satisfied the human in me, the divine in me gave me a push to go again higher. That particular experience I will also never forget!

I have told many times about how Mother Saraswati gave me all her wisdom and inner capacities. She came down and played for me and then broke her vina into pieces and emptied it into me. I was in my very, very highest consciousness at the time.

Question: Are inner experiences a prerequisite to God-realisation or are they not at all necessary?

Again, some people get major experiences that last for days or weeks, and then their consciousness descends and for a long time they do not get any high experiences. At that time they feel absolutely miserable. Vivekananda used to go through dry periods that lasted for as long as six months. But he used to play a kind of trick on himself. He used to remind himself of the highest experiences that he had in the past, when Sri Ramakrishna had touched him on the head, and he would make himself feel that he was having those experiences again. For a half hour, an hour or two hours he was only imagining, imagining and imagining. He had such tremendous will-power that those experiences became vivid and alive, and he was able to live inside them once again.

So if you are not getting any inner experiences now, try to remember the experiences that you have already had and use your imagination-power to bring them back. Then, not only will those experiences come back, but they will help you go forward into another experience, which will be infinitely stronger, more illumining and more beautiful.

One does not need fifty or a hundred inner experiences to achieve God-realisation, but experiences definitely help. While we are walking along Eternity’s Road, if we see some shady trees and beautiful flowers, then we get tremendous joy. Some people feel that those beautiful flowers and trees are only temptations. They say, “If I smell the flowers, I am afraid I will get caught or stuck there. While I am appreciating the beauty of the flowers, my fellow travellers will go far ahead of me. I do not need this kind of experience.” But some are wise. They say, “If here the flowers are so beautiful, the flowers at the destination will be infinitely more beautiful and fragrant.” So they appreciate the flowers and then go forward.

Question: One of the disciples told me that the longer she practised spirituality, the worse her bad qualities got. How is this possible?

Question: Can the mind help us discover God's Will?

The mind is like a primary school teacher. There are many questions that the primary school teacher cannot answer. The heart is like a high school teacher. Then comes the soul, which is like a college teacher, and the Supreme, who is like a university professor. The mind is so bad; it does everything it can to prevent us from learning from the heart. It says, “Only after you have learnt everything from me should you go to the next class.” Then, when the mind sees that somebody is a good student and is ready to go on to high school, the mind deliberately fails the student in order to keep him longer. Then after a few years, the student gets disgusted; he feels he will never get past primary school. This is the time when many, many seekers give up the spiritual life. They give up because the mind makes them feel that they cannot go even to high school, whereas college is out of the question.

Many times the mind-teacher does not know the answer, but it makes us feel that it does know the answer. A question that comes from the depths of our heart, the mind can never answer. But the mind makes us feel that it knows everything. So it is all the time giving us faulty lessons. In spite of this, the mind tells us, “My answers are perfect, perfect, perfect!” At every moment we are making mistakes because we are entrusting the mind with our whole life.

The mind wants to get joy in a specific way. The mind says, “This is the only way. There is no other way.” Like a dictator, the mind has spoken! Then the soul or the Master comes along and shows us another way. Immediately the mind says, “O my God, it is impossible, impossible!” The mind keeps one door open and says we must pass through this door; it does not allow us to see other ways. There may be many doors in a big mansion, but the mind does not allow us to use them; it keeps those doors under lock and key. But when the soul sees that we are desperately trying to go beyond the mind, then the soul opens up this door and that door for us. It does not have to be a door, no! When the soul opens up even a new window, at that time how happy we are!

When we cannot go beyond the boundaries of the mind, we are completely trapped. It is like being under arrest. The only thing we can do is pray to someone to come and release us, and that someone is either the Master or the Supreme. It does not matter to whom we pray, because the Supreme’s Grace is also acting in and through the Master.

I have always said that there cannot be any higher prayer than the Saviour Jesus Christ’s prayer: “Let Thy Will be done.” But if a farmer only sits in his cottage repeating, “Let Thy Will be done,” he will never get a bumper crop. No, the farmer has to plough his field, bring water and manure and do the needful. Only then, after he has done as much as he can, after he has done his best, is he entitled to say, “Let Thy Will be done!”

Question: Most spiritual Masters have said that without renunciation one cannot get realisation, but your philosophy is that we have to accept and transform life.

So we have to know what acceptance truly is. If we want to accept the vastness, there are a few things that we have to renounce. But we are not actually renouncing them; we are only keeping them in their proper place so they also can aspire for light. At this moment, let us say, I am ready to aspire for light. But if I wait for my brother or my sister or my dear one, then God will say, “You fool! I have called you; your hour has come. Why are you delaying? When it is your dear one’s hour, at that time I will call him.”

When God’s Hour strikes, at that time we do not even choose to take God’s side. No, God just takes our side. He has dropped the atom bomb of light, and we become so happy that we become one with His Will.

Question: How can we overcome insecurity?

Part VI

Question: What is the future of religion?

I strongly believe that when people worship in the future, they will be more aware of the fact that we belong to one spiritual family. There was a time when even this idea was too much for the world. Now at least we are able to speak about it. It is like the idea of peace. Fifty years ago the word ‘peace’ was not used as it is now; they used other words. But in the last nine or ten years everybody is speaking about peace. Although one country may be dropping a bomb on another country, ‘peace’ is still our mantra! A day shall come when not only will the rest of the world laugh at this particular country, but even this country will start laughing at itself. It will realise that it is only talking about peace but doing just the opposite. At that time it will try to correct itself.

Question: Why have you travelled to so many countries and appreciated so many countries and individuals?

Question: How do you want the purity and essence of your path maintained in the future?

Question: You say that yours is a path, not a religion. But after the Master leaves, it becomes a religion — like Buddhism, for example — and it stands against other religions.

Question: Should your disciples only try to see and meditate on the Supreme inside you?

Part VII

Question: Did you have any inner experience when you arrived in Myanmar?

Question: Do you feel the Buddha's consciousness in Burma?

Part VIII

Prayer to Lord Buddha⁸

> O Lord Buddha, O Light of the world, O new pathfinder of humanity’s liberation, we have just invoked your blessingful presence. We have felt and are still feeling the blessings divine and supreme that you have bestowed upon us — upon our heart of aspiration and our life of dedication.

Over the years, I have been to a number of countries that follow the teachings of the Lord Buddha. But here, in Myanmar, I feel that the Lord Buddha has a very, very special eye of compassion and a very, very special heart of universal love. Myanmar, I feel, has a most special place in the heart of Lord Buddha. The depths of silence, the beauty of simplicity and the hunger for life’s perfection I see and I feel in the aspiring and self-giving soul of Myanmar — blessed child of the immortal world-liberator, Lord Buddha.

> Lord Buddha, to your life as a human being I bow. To your supreme attainment of nirvana, parinirvana and mahaparinirvana I bow. You blessed us with the message of continual transcendence in the physical when you attained nirvana and, right after leaving the mortal sheath, parinirvana. Then, at the choice Hour of the highest Transcendental Supreme, you entered into mahaparinirvana.