Sri Chinmoy answers, part 18

Part I

On Mother Goddess Mahalakshmi¹

Mahalakshmi is the Mother of affection, Mother of fondness, plus Mother of, to a great extent, indulgence. At every moment from the earth-consciousness She expects only one thing: harmony, harmony, harmony. Disharmony tortures Her creation-heart. Therefore, She always expects harmony in Her human children. Her Lotus-Consciousness-Heart Universal is for all, especially for those who are weak, slow, unfortunate and deplorable in various aspects of their lives.

Some of the Cosmic Goddesses are worshipped only by the brave. They also have Compassion, but their standard is very lofty. They expect or demand a certain amount of self-discipline. And according to the evolution, according to the progress of each individual seeker, they demand self-giving, more self-giving and most self-giving. But Mother Lakshmi is for all. Her message is: “I am ready; I shall always remain ready. No harm if you are weak, no harm if you are slow. You are My child. You can claim Me and do claim Me as your own, very own. My sweet, sweeter, sweetest children, come to Me with what you have and come to Me with what you do not have. I shall give you My Heart’s bounty. You just come to Me with your purity, with your impurity, with your strength, with your weakness, with your willingness. And if you fail to bring Me your willingness, just come, come to Me, even with your unwillingness. I shall transform your unwillingness into willingness, your weakness into strength, your impurity into purity. Your insufficiency in your heart, in your mind, in your vital and in your body will be replaced by My Heart of Plenitude and My Transcendental Vision and My Universal Reality of Infinitude.

Part II

Question: How can America awaken?

Question: Does age deter strength training?

Question: Is it possible for mountain climbers to conquer altitude sickness spiritually?

Question: How can Americans help the Russians most?

Question: Is cleverness bad for spirituality?

Question: Can we hurt your third eye?

Question: What is God's Secret?

Question: Who is God's best friend?

Question: What is God's favourite spiritual quality?

Question: Can a soulful smile be meditation?

Part III

Question: Now that I have become your disciple, should I continue with some of my outer activities, such as flying and tennis?

Question: Sometimes I have my most powerful meditations when I am teaching meditation classes. I am wondering, do you intervene there? Are you always present in the classes?

Again, you may not be in your highest consciousness, but you are inspiring someone else to be in their highest. In this way, you can also get the blessingful gratitude of my inner beings, by being the instrument to raise somebody else’s consciousness. If you were not there to offer the class, then perhaps those people would not have come to meditate. They would have spent their time in a restaurant or somewhere else. So my inner beings are always observing, guiding and helping all my disciples.

It is not only my disciples who are being helped. There are many, many people who are not my disciples and perhaps will never become disciples, but just because they are praying and meditating and doing the right thing for the same God, our Supreme, my inner beings help them considerably. Countless times my inner beings have helped people who are not my disciples and will never become my disciples but who are doing something good for mankind. But if you are my disciple, then I will take more responsibility, infinitely more responsibility for you, and you will also have more feeling of responsibility towards me. So we depend on each other. I depend on you to serve and manifest God, and you depend on me for your highest realisation. Like this, we shall grow together.

Question: What is the correct spiritual response to homeless people when they ask for money?

Part IV

Question: How would you describe today's world?

Question: This celebration is so beautiful. I see so many open hearts and open eyes. But what do you say to those who are not fortunate enough to be in a community or an environment as harmonious and as loving as this?

Let us say someone has a beautiful, self-giving heart. When a good thought or a loving, illumining and fulfilling feeling enters into his mind directly from the inmost recesses of his heart, it does not have to be outwardly expressed. This inner message is so tangible, so powerful, that immediately it will go out and touch many parts of the world. Naturally, those who are consciously aspiring will receive infinitely more from this good thought than those who are unconscious.

If today you can consciously awaken or help some aspiring human beings to become better citizens of the world, then you are successful in a divine way. Let us say that you awaken somebody today. Then tomorrow, that person will be in a position to awaken others. In this way, the number of people who are awakening others will slowly, steadily and unerringly increase. Eventually they will build up a tremendous force that will inundate the entire world. At that time, even those who are now sleeping and snoring will be forced to awaken.

God is everything and God has everything. That is why we can say that God also has a mind. But God’s Mind is entirely different from our mind. Our mind knows only how to think ill of others. It gets malicious pleasure from negativity. But when God uses the mind, He only offers Revelation. Our minds are made of confusion, but His Mind is made of Revelation. Since we are praying to God consciously, devotedly and soulfully, one day we are going to have the same mind that He has.

I am an optimist. A God-lover is an optimist at every second, because he knows that God’s Wisdom created this world. God created the universe with the tremendous hope that His children, His creation, would become an exact prototype of Him. This was His Vision, and how can His Vision be wrong?

In our case, vision and reality are two different things. Sometimes our dreams blossom into reality, but most of the time our dreams remain in the dream-world. But God only deals with Vision, and His Vision and reality go together like the obverse and reverse of the same coin. If you look at the Vision, you are bound to see the reality inside it; again, if you look at the reality, you will also see the Vision.

Question: There is a segment of the population that has a high crime rate, a high infant mortality rate, a low standard of education and a high death rate: the black community. What can you say to someone who lives in Brownsville or Harlem and feels he cannot expose his heart without being taken advantage of?

Early in the morning, if we pray most soulfully to God, then we will be able to avoid problems. In our prayers, first we have to pray for the fulfilment of God’s Will: “Let Thy Will be done.” There cannot be any prayer higher than this. God’s Fulfilment must be first and foremost. Once we pray for the fulfilment of God’s Will, then we can pray to God for special protection, so that when bad things occur, we will be somewhere else. If somebody comes from behind and hits me with his car, we say that an accident took place. But why should it have taken place? I should have been somewhere else! That very minute, with God’s Grace, I could have been somewhere else — in another lane or four cars ahead.

We pray to God early in the morning for fifteen minutes. During those fifteen minutes, perhaps five times we say God’s Name. But even while saying ‘God’, we are usually fast asleep in our mind and in our entire being. We boast, “Oh, I prayed and meditated in the morning.” But what kind of prayer was it? What kind of meditation did we have? If we had soulfully prayed and meditated for protection, we would not have been in that unfortunate place when the accident occurred.

There are inner attacks and outer attacks. We see only outer attacks. Outwardly we see that some calamity has taken place and somebody is a victim. But inner attacks always come before outer attacks; anything that happens outwardly has its seeds in the inner world. Inwardly we are attacking others with our wrong thoughts and allowing others to attack us. That is why outer calamities take place. At every moment undivine thoughts are attacking us; if it is not somebody else’s wrong thoughts, then it is our own. So we pray to God to protect us, not only from others but also from ourselves. If we pray to God to save us from inner attacks, then the outer attacks will diminish.

Even if we are attacked by others, we should not attack them back. We do not follow the philosophy of tit for tat. But if somebody wants to attack me, I have to use my wisdom. Let us say a dog wants to bite me. If I climb up a tree, the dog can only bark. Then, after some time the dog will lose all its patience. Meanwhile, I am there enjoying mangoes at the top of the tree. When the dog goes away, I come down.

So people who are outwardly suffering are not doing the first thing first. They are not praying to God, who is omnipotent, to raise their own consciousness and the consciousness of others. We know that bad thoughts will lead to outer calamities, but still we cherish bad thoughts. We know that a flame will burn our fingers, but still we touch it just to see what happens, like children. We feel some kind of magnetic pull towards bad things. Instead of being drawn towards good things, we always go and touch wrong things. Then there can be so many destructive results.

God is definitely going to save us if our prayer is absolutely sincere. Unfortunately, instead of praying to God for inner wealth, which is illumination, we pray for material prosperity. But if we do not have inner prosperity, if we do not have peace, love and light, then even if we get outer prosperity, we will not have inner joy and inner security, for in the inner life we will be poverty-stricken. Similarly, if we pray to God for outer power, we may get it, but the more outer power we get, the more insecure we become.

Question: Everyone asks Narada how to make it, what they need to do in order to be a success. How would you answer this?

Success does not come overnight. When I tried to lift up 300 pounds, God knows how many times I failed. But I did not give up. Similarly, if you want something, you must not give up. Today you have failed miserably, but tomorrow or the day after tomorrow you are bound to succeed, for the idea to achieve something has come directly from God; that you have to know. It is not a mental hallucination when you think of achieving something. The dream comes from a very high plane. So you have to offer your entire being to fulfilling this dream until you reach your goal. Again and again and again, every day you have to try. First you sow the seed and then you water the ground. Only in this way will you value what you achieve. You are not going to create more hurdles along the way, but if you encounter hurdles and cross over them, you will be truly happy. It is only when you work for something that you really value it.

Question: I see so much joy here at the tennis court. While playing tennis, you were making so much noise — "OK, I got it! I got it!" — great screams of joy. What is happening inside you at that point?

When I play, at that time I feel inside me the heart of a child. A child is always happy in his own way. He can be miserable if he does not get the toys that he wants. But if he remains in the heart, he is always happy. Anybody who remains inside the heart is a divine child, and he feels only joy.

Question: What would you say to a thirteen-year-old child who says, "Because of the condition I find myself in, I don't know if I am going to make it."

A thirteen-year-old or a twenty-year-old should not use his outer eyes to look at the world and see how many people have failed and how many people are suffering. He should use his inner eye to feel what he is. Let him not look with his outer eye to see what the outer world can give him, but instead use his inner heart to feel what he can give to the world. If he is only concerned with taking from the outer world, then he will get frustration at every moment and never have satisfaction. Even if he gets something, he will feel miserable that someone else has received more.

Question: Would you make that same comment if you took the subway this evening and were robbed by a homeless person?

Let us say somebody comes and takes away the five dollars that I have in my pocket. Outwardly I feel miserable because they have taken away my five dollars. But inwardly if I say, “All right, God wanted me to have this experience,” then I will be happy. The robber got happiness by stealing my money, and I am getting joy by becoming one with God’s Will.

We do not know what God’s Will is — whether God wanted me to be robbed or not. Only let us say, “Let Thy Will be done.” Then we will feel only joy no matter what happens. I have faith that God is not going to give me an experience that will lower my consciousness. If I have that kind of love for God and faith in God, then no matter what outer experiences I get, my inner experience will always be positive.

Question: During the twenty-seven years that you have been in this country, what has been the biggest change that you have seen?

Part V

Question: What do you think about the disaster in Chernobyl, and what do you think about the near future of the world, about peace?

This inspiration comes from prayer and meditation. As we sow within, so we become without. Early in the morning if we pray, if we meditate, if we offer our good thoughts to humanity, then we establish a feeling of oneness. Once we can consciously and cheerfully establish our oneness with the whole world, then this world of ours is destined to be inundated with peace. Previously people talked about peace. Now they feel it as a supreme necessity in the inmost recesses of their heart.

I am an optimist. God the Omniscient, Omnipotent and Omnipresent created this world. When we create something, we feel that it is our obligation to see happiness and perfection in our creation. When an artist creates something, he is not satisfied unless and until his painting gives him satisfaction. In art, in music or in any activity that we undertake, we always long for satisfaction, and this satisfaction comes from perfection. Similarly, this world of ours is created by God Himself. He feels that His creation has to be perfect. Perfection is a very simple dictionary word. At the same time, perfection is misunderstood. Everybody has a sense of perfection according to his inner wisdom-light. According to my inner conviction, my own realisation, perfection is self-transcendence. Perfection has no set goal.

Our perfection is in satisfaction. When I was in kindergarten, I wanted to go to primary school. Then afterwards I wanted to go to high school, college and so forth. Self-transcendence is perfection, and in self-transcendence we get the message of joy. People are now trying to transcend themselves. How? By feeling deep within the supreme necessity of peace.

Question: I feel and many of my compatriots feel that this disaster opened a new page in the history of our country. The fallout which fell on the fields of my country was ten times more than in Hiroshima after that nuclear bombardment forty years ago. Would you please tell me what are your wishes for the people of my country who are now suffering badly?

Of course, it is quite reasonable to feel sad if somebody has struck me or I am injured or some very serious thing has happened in my life. But then the question is, shall I continue thinking of the past? If I think of the past, then I am carrying a very, very heavy load on my shoulders, and it is difficult to go forward. I have to act like a deer and run fast, faster, fastest towards my goal. Night there is; night there will be. But I am a lover of the dawn, I am a lover of the sun, I am a lover of light. Now this room is illumined, but in an hour they will turn off the light. Then it will be all dark. Let me search for the light that will remain permanent to illumine not only my consciousness but also my country.

Your country has suffered tremendously, and it breaks my heart because, as I said before, I am a seeker. As a seeker, I pray not only for myself but also for all of humanity. On the strength of my oneness with all human beings, I suffer. I am an Indian; I come from Bengal. But for me there is only one country, and that country is the country of our heart. In my heart-country, you are there, she is there, everybody is there — each and every human being. When I say you are my brother, I mean it. When I say she is my sister, I mean it. The heart is oneness. The mind is division. As soon as I think of you, my mind tells me that you come from another country. But in my heart you are absolutely, inseparably one with me.

God is our Father, God is our Mother, God is everything to us. If we claim the Creator as our own, very own, we are bound to claim the creation — which includes each one of us — as our own, very own.

I wish to tell you not to look behind. Let us look forward. The destination is right in front of us, not behind. The past has not given us satisfaction. Anything that has not given us satisfaction, anything that has not fulfilled us, is not the answer. The answer comes from our inner awakening, inner illumination, inner perfection. Once we get inner illumination and inner perfection, then our outer life becomes a life of satisfaction.

Suffering there is. But if we think all the time of how much we have suffered, it is not going to serve any purpose. We have to look for light, we have to look for love and the feeling of oneness so that we do not make the same mistake and we do not suffer again.

Part VI

Question: Many people feel today that there is a growth in spiritual influence in the world, and I wonder how you feel about this. Do you see this as a time of spiritual expansion for humanity?

Question: Do you feel that the degree to which humanity is aspiring changes from age to age or is it constant in your view?

Question: There are some people who believe there are different kinds of spiritual Masters. Some work openly in the world and their purpose is to work directly with humanity, physically. Others, some of whom have physical bodies and some of whom do not, work behind the scenes. Do you feel that this is true in your experience?

Question: As I understand it, some traditions hold that some of the Masters who are in seclusion or who may have contact with humans only mildly are nonetheless very involved in service. They simply don't focus on physical contact as the primary method, even if they have bodies. Is this possibly an avoidance of embracing life?

So, to come back to your question, I can say what I have and what I am. But if I say what you have and what you are, I will be totally wrong. So how do I dare to say anything about other spiritual Masters when I do not practise their way of life? I can tell you only what I have inside my heart and what I stand for here on earth.

My philosophy is very simple: love and serve. Love God the Creator and serve God the creation. If we love someone, then we have to serve that person. In our case, we try to love God, our Inner Pilot, unconditionally. Quite often, we fail and fail and fail. It is very difficult to love someone unconditionally; we always expect something from that person. But still we are aiming at unconditional surrender to God’s Will. The Christ said, “Let Thy Will be done.” No prayer can be higher than this. This prayer is the supreme prayer. But we have to offer this prayer unconditionally. So our philosophy is unconditional love and unconditional service to God the creation. We are trying to serve God the creation, and we are trying to do it unconditionally, without any expectation.

Question: How do you view the process of enlightenment? Do you feel that there is an ultimate goal that one can reach or is there an ongoing process of deeper and deeper God-realisation?

There will be another seeker who says, “No, let me climb up the tree, high, higher, highest. No matter how high it is, no matter how tall the tree is, I will climb up.” He climbs up and says, “Oh, now that I have reached the top, I do not want to come down. If I go down, who knows what will be my fate? Perhaps I will once again enter into the world of temptation and start suffering. I shall remain here at the top of the tree and eat mangoes to my heart’s satisfaction.”

There will be a third seeker who will say, “I suffered once upon a time. Now I see my sisters and brothers are suffering so much. Let me share with them and try to alleviate their suffering. So he comes down with most delicious mangoes and shares them with his friends and relatives and dear ones.

Question: I am familiar a little bit with Sri Aurobindo's notion that there is a descent of a new consciousness in the world, a new level of awareness. Would this be similar to intuition?

Question: Can you tell us something about your experience and understanding of the nature of angelic consciousness?

If you sit in front of an ocean, you can see and appreciate the vastness, but your consciousness will not automatically become as vast as the ocean. The consciousness of the ocean, the vastness of the ocean, we will get only by praying to God. So, the angelic consciousness is a source of inspiration, but it cannot help us to realise our goal.

Question: I have read in one of your books that you said one of your disciples was from the angelic world. Did I understand that correctly?

Question: Why would an angel take incarnation in the human world?

Sri Chinmoy: Usually angels do not come to earth in a physical body. But they like to have different experiences. I am a foreigner; I come from India. I could have remained in India because India is a vast subcontinent. But I got the inspiration to come to America. It is exactly the same in the case of the angels. Angels usually do not want to come to earth because they are so subtle, beautiful and delicate. This world of ours is full of suffering and our human bodies are composed of gross matter, whereas theirs is angelic. Angels are so subtle, so beautiful, so ethereal, that they do not want to take on the solid mass of a human body. But again, some angels say, “No, we want to have the experience of earthly life.” So on principle they do not come, but every rule admits of exception.

Question: Something in them draws them to human life?

Question: What would taking human incarnation add to an angel that they don't already have?

Question: What do you mean when you talk about a mental path versus the path of the heart?

But when we are in the mind, we are constantly doubting others. We cannot accept others’ joy as our own. Immediately, jealousy, insecurity and impurity attack us. If I am in the heart, then immediately I feel that you are God’s creation. We have to love each other, we have to become one, inseparably one. In this way we can solve all our problems. Otherwise, if I start doubting you, whether you are a good person or not, then this mental argument never ends.

Question: Thank you. That's a useful distinction to make. Some traditions or some teachers have used the notion of the path of the mind to mean something like _jnana yoga._