Sri Chinmoy answers, part 33

Part I

Question: How can I have more purity?

If you do not have a flower, you can also use a candle flame. Do not concentrate on the base or the wax, but only on the flame. Imagine that you have become the flame itself. By looking at the flame, you can get purity.

One way is to observe a small object, such as a flower or a flame. Again, by observing something larger than the largest, you can also develop purity. Look at the sky. That is the first step. The next step is to feel that you are inside the sky. First look at it, how vast it is. Then look at one portion of the sky and imagine that you have entered into it. Once you have entered into it, try to become the vastness itself. Impurity comes from the limited mind, whereas purity comes from vastness. The human mind is impure because the human mind is unable to become one with the Universal Reality. If something is vaster than the vastest — the sky or the sun or the Himalayas — then that vastness itself can give you purity.

Another way is to imagine the ocean. On the surface you are seeing that the ocean is full of turmoil and restlessness, but at the bottom there is poise. You can imagine that you are entering into the depths of the ocean.

Question: There is a feeling at the moment that Australia and New Zealand should become one country. How do you feel about this?

Now, to come back to your question, the souls of Australia and New Zealand have already established their oneness. Even if they do not come together outwardly, their souls’ oneness will always be there. The souls are always trying to do the right thing and see the right thing in everybody and everything. Inwardly the souls inspire each other and then the results you see on the outer plane. The Australian Prime Minister has come here after so many years. Is that not a good sign?

Again, the seekers can increase the oneness between these two countries. If people who are great in one country — for example, if they are great singers or runners — can go to the other country and run or sing, it will definitely help, especially if they have some spirituality behind them. They do not have to speak about the glory of their own country. If they are spiritual, then their very presence will help to unite the two countries.

Part II

My name is not Sri Chinmoy. My name is gratitude

God is our Father, God is our Mother, God is our Brother and God is our Sister. God is everything to us and everyone to us. There is only one God. My God and your God are both the same God. I am not God. God is Someone who is inside my heart, inside your heart, inside everybody’s heart. And I am not the Guru. God is the only Guru, for it is He who illumines us, liberates us and makes us perfect instruments of His.

As you know, in a family, there is an eldest member and a youngest member and again, quite often there are a few in between. But they are all children of the same parents. Even so, in a spiritual family, there will be someone who is the oldest, someone who is the youngest and others in between.

In a family, the eldest member is often asked by the parents to take care of the little ones — to help them, guide them and tell them about their parents. The oldest one knows many more things than the younger ones, so the father or mother asks the eldest child of the family to tell the young ones about their parents.

In the same way, I am being asked by God to tell my younger brothers and sisters about Him. Your children are my younger brothers and sisters, so it is my bounden duty to speak to them about our Heavenly Father, God. Being the eldest member of this spiritual family, I am being asked to tell my dear brothers and sisters about our Father and where He can be found. Our Father is here, there and everywhere. But my goal is to show them where the Father can be seen and felt most powerfully and convincingly, and to take them to the Father. That is my only goal.

I am not the Father, but I am the brother of your children, their eldest brother. You do not mind when your oldest son or daughter speaks to the younger ones about you and gives them more knowledge, more information, more wisdom about you, for you know that they are all your children and they are all for you. You get tremendous joy that they are yours — your children, your creations. As I mentioned before, you are my dear German parents and I am your Indian son. So we are all your children, and we are all in one boat. We call this boat the Golden Boat, and our Pilot Supreme is steering the Boat. We, His children, are seated in His Boat, and He is taking all of us to the Golden Shore, where there is no suffering but only light and delight.

Alone, I cannot do anything and I will never be able to do anything in this world. Yesterday you saw that thousands of people came to our Peace Concert. It was like a family gathering where all the members came together to celebrate. All my German brothers and sisters helped me far, far beyond my imagination to have this concert, this spiritual family reunion.

Your dear and sweet children yesterday accomplished something most significant for our Beloved Supreme. It was an unparalleled achievement, and it was all done by virtue of tremendous, tremendous loving sacrifice from your own children. The parents’ creation is their children. In their children’s joy will always be the parents’ joy. If a child gets joy from playing with dolls, then the parents will get joy from watching their child play with dolls. They will get tremendous joy on the strength of their identification with their child. Therefore, I am sure that on the strength of your inseparable oneness with your children, you are also receiving the same kind of joy and satisfaction that they are experiencing now.

Question: I find everything about your path nice, but I do not understand why something from another culture has to come in.

Suppose that God has four sons and they are all living in different places. One is in Germany, one is in Japan, one is in Italy, and one is in India. Just because they live in different countries, they will keep different things in their houses, they will follow different cultures and have different ideas. But, since they are all brothers and sisters, they will share what they have with one another. One brother will go to another brother and say, “This is what I have for you.” Then the second one in turn will give the first brother what he has. It is only an exchange. It is not a question of bringing in a new culture. There is only a feeling of oneness that all the brothers share.

I am an instrument of God, a servant of God, a child of God. Today God is telling me to go to a particular place and be of help to one brother. Tomorrow He may say, “Now go to some other country and help another brother of yours. You have many brothers and sisters, and I want you to go and help them all.” All these countries are the Father’s creation. It is all oneness.

Question: My son studied chemistry and now he wants to open a health food shop. Do you not feel that he should use his talents in a higher profession?

If your son does not get happiness by working as a chemist, and if he receives tremendous joy by working at a health food store or in some other field, then I feel he should do what gives him joy. Otherwise, even if he becomes a great chemist, he may be very unhappy.

Our mind may think that a shopkeeper is inferior to a doctor or lawyer. In God’s Eye, we are all one. In a drama, somebody plays the role of a king, somebody else plays the queen, and somebody else is a servant. If everybody plays the role of a king, and there are no ministers or servants, then there is no play.

Whether I am a doctor or a shopkeeper, what really matters to God is whether I am a good person. If I am a good person, then no matter what I do, I am far better than a bad person. If I follow the spiritual life, it does not matter whether I am a businessman or a doctor or a lawyer or a school principal. All that matters is that I am getting joy. If I get joy by being a businessman, then I am doing the right thing. If I get joy by being a doctor or a lawyer, then I am doing the right thing. God only wants us to be happy.

Part III

Question: When I talk to seekers, I find it hard to explain the difference between pleasure and joy.³

You need six or seven hours of sleep. But if you sleep for ten or eleven hours, that is called pleasure — you are enjoying morning sleep very nicely. Then what happens? You are the boss of your company. When you finally go to work, you see that your workers have not come on time or that the machines are all in bad condition. Because you enjoyed the pleasure of sleep for three extra hours, your problems have become much more difficult, whereas if you had prayed and meditated early in the morning and brought down some divine light, you would have solved those problems easily.

Rest is needed, true, but who asked you to sleep for eleven hours? You have to pay the penalty for enjoying this kind of pleasure. When you get up early in the morning, on time at six o’clock, and you pray and meditate, then you receive tremendous joy. That joy you will carry to your office. But the pleasure that you enjoyed from the extra sleep will disappear as soon as you leave your bed. Immediately again, the whole world will seem miserable to you because early in the morning you did not meditate to receive divine love and light from God. The life of pleasure sooner or later will meet with destruction. Even if you cannot meditate for half an hour, if you meditate for two or three minutes, the joy that you get from that meditation will last for a few hours or for a few days. Pleasure-life, on the other hand, does not last. While you are enjoying pleasure, it is there, but as soon as it is over, it is gone.

Part IV

Question: One of the basic concepts in physics is that the amount of energy in the universe is constant. When you do weightlifting and you draw on spiritual energy, is that something that comes from the Beyond? And does this mean that the energy of the universe is not constant — that it can be expanded from the Beyond?

Question: I like to play tennis very much. It inspires me, while running never really did inspire me. Does it give the same benefit to the body and spiritual life to play tennis as it does to run?

But I wish to say that running has its own inner value, which tennis cannot offer you. While you run, each breath that you take is connected with a higher reality. While you are jogging, if you are in a good consciousness, your breath is being blessed by a higher inner breath. Of course, while you are jogging if you are chatting with one of your friends about mundane things, then this will not apply. But if you are in a good consciousness while you are running, each breath will connect you with a higher, deeper, inner reality.

Running also has a special symbolic meaning. In the spiritual life, we are eternal runners, running along Eternity’s Road. We do not say that we are eternal tennis players on that road. These are two different subjects, like history and geography. If you can do both, if you can run two or three miles a day and play tennis as well, then you will get benefit from being both the eternal runner and the eternal server. But if you have to make a choice, and if you like tennis more than you like running, then you have only to play tennis. Again, if you want to get the benefit of a higher force or higher reality for your physical body, then running is absolutely necessary. I am not saying that you have to run the fastest. Even while jogging, you can feel that you have two breaths. One is a higher breath. Something is pulling you up or you are carrying yourself up. The other is your body’s breath. The two are combined together.

Question: Does swimming also help us to enter into a higher consciousness?

Question: Does each musical note have its own significance?

When an excellent singer sings, each note has its own resonance or inner beauty. But when soulfulness enters into a particular note, it has its own dimension, its own reality. The sound that is coming is the same, but a spiritual person will be able to know when the musical note touches a particular realm because of the soulfulness that has entered into that note. A spiritual singer will sing one particular note, and an ordinary singer will do the same. The pitch may be exactly the same, but the ordinary singer will not reach the same inner height, no matter how famous he or she is, because their consciousness is not the same.

Question: Recently my voice does not seem to come out when I sing. How can I overcome this?

Question: I work as a nurse for newborn babies, and sometimes a baby will essentially die and we keep it alive with machines. Sometimes I want to stop the machines and allow the poor little child's soul to go on. Is this wrong? Is the child receiving any benefit from remaining in the physical, even though essentially the body is dead?

Question: How can we help someone who is very upset about something?

But you yourself have, let us say, limited peace. You have to invoke the Supreme to increase your peace-power — whatever peace you have within you — even if it is only the smallest quantity. I always say that if you have a little life-energy, then only will the doctor give you an injection. Otherwise, if you are already dead, the doctor is not going to give you an injection to increase your life-energy.

You definitely have a little peace — that is why you are able to observe that the other person is so upset. Right away invoke a very large amount of peace to descend into your entire being. You will try to become the ocean of peace. Then, like a mirror, just go and stand in front of that person. His anger will be nothing in comparison to the peace which you have invoked.

That is one way. Another way is to make yourself feel that you are the culprit, even though you are not. Somebody else has caused the person to be upset; you are not the culprit at all. But you have to make yourself feel most sincerely that you are the one who has offended the person in question. Make yourself feel absolutely helpless and guilty. Feel that you are the guilty party, even though you have done nothing wrong. Then, inside you, on the strength of your sympathetic oneness, invoke the consciousness of the actual culprit. The real culprit’s undivine consciousness at that time you are borrowing for a few seconds. Then, once you become the culprit, surrender to the victim who is now so mad and furious. Become absolutely helpless. Feel miserable that you have caused the person to become so upset.

When you act like a helpless human being, all the victim’s anger and frustration will go away. She will say, “All right, she is an object of pity. She has done something wrong. Now she fully realises it, so I have to forgive her.”

This is a very, very clever way of calming someone who is extremely upset. Many times it happens in an affectionate family. I have seen it, especially in India. The culprit is somewhere else, but an affectionate mother or sister or brother makes themself feel that they are the real culprit. They are not actually the culprit, but by feeling this way, they bring into themselves the consciousness of the actual culprit. Then the victim sees the remorse. When he sees that the culprit has real remorse, real sadness, he feels that he is now on a higher level and that it is up to him to forgive.

Part V

Question: How can we work on three or four projects simultaneously and do them well?⁵

Every day I do physical exercise, mental exercise and psychic exercise along with my prayer and meditation. From a quarter to three, or some nights just after two o’clock, if I am fresh, I go on, go on, go on, doing my inner and outer work. I have so many things to do. If I have ten things to do and I neglect any of them, I feel miserable. So I try to do them all. Sometimes I pay more attention to one particular item. I may play the cello for a longer time than I play the viola, but still I do play the viola.

We have to do everything during the span of the day. But we have to give each project our one-pointed concentration. While we are doing one thing, quite often we are thinking of something else. When I am playing on the cello, if I start thinking of my esraj, then I will not accomplish anything. While you are doing one thing, if you are thinking of the other nine things that you are supposed to do, your full concentration is not there. Those other things you have to do, true, but the thought of those things must not enter your mind.

While you are doing something, you have to feel that that thing is the only thing that exists in your outer life. Of course, in your inner life, you will always continue with your aspiration and dedication, but in your outer life, you must not think of another thing. If you are writing an article for a magazine, at that time do not think of your office work. One-pointed determination you must keep for the thing that you are doing. Once it is finished, you can think of something else. Time will help you. But you have to do each thing in its own time.

Question: When I am in college, how can I always keep you in my heart?⁶

Then, during the day, if you see that your colleagues are not aspiring, immediately close your eyes and imagine the flowers. Imagine that you are breathing in their fragrance. If you cannot imagine that you are seeing the flowers or breathing in the fragrance, then say, “Supreme, Supreme, Supreme,” as quickly as possible. While you are saying “Supreme” very, very fast, you will be able to see me inside the safe and breathe in the fragrance of the flowers.

These things take only a few seconds. Whenever your consciousness is about to descend, whenever unaspiring thoughts have entered into you, immediately do them. They will act like medicine, like an antidote for the poison. Again, when you have free time during the day, even if your consciousness is not descending, try to remember that you have a most secret and sacred safe inside your heart, and inside that safe is your Guru.

Question: Can you tell us something about your experience while you participated in these Senior Games?⁷

At the age of thirteen or fourteen I ran. It is quite natural for a teenager to run. But at the age of sixty-five if I run, it means I am trying to maintain some joy, some enthusiasm. I am also trying to keep my body fit. When we are young, running is all competition; we want to defeat everybody and become the winner. Here the philosophy is totally different. If we can have cheerfulness and happiness, then that is our best achievement. At this age to do anything happily, cheerfully and self-givingly is most difficult.

Here I am competing with myself in order to maintain my inner joy and outer joy. When I run, I try my best to bring forward the enthusiasm that I had when I was a teenager. I try my best, but most of the time it does not come. The lethargy of the body does not allow me to bring forward the same quickness, alertness and promptness. I am imagining something, but the reality is somewhere else. When I was young, I did not have to imagine anything. I only used my capacity, which became reality. At that time, reality was pushing me forward. Now imagination is desperately trying to push me forward.

Our philosophy is the philosophy of self-transcendence. No matter how old we are, we are trying to increase our capacities and transcend our achievements.

Part VI

Question: How can I have the Grace to be transformed radically?

Everything takes time. You start at the beginning by learning the alphabet. Then over the years, you study so many books. In the same way, if you want to be spiritually transformed overnight, it is impossible. So many incarnations you have taken, and so many more incarnations you will have to take before you achieve God-realisation.

Now you are walking along the right path — prayer and meditation. Then comes the question, “How can I go faster?” Every seeker can ask that question. But you cannot ask, “How am I going to reach the Destination all at once?” You can say, “I am walking. Now I want to run.” And if you are running, you can say, “I want to sprint.” Then somebody will come forward to teach you how to sprint. But nobody will be able to say that as soon as you start sprinting, the Destination will be right in front of your nose. No, the Destination is quite far. But definitely if you sprint and if you have the required stamina, you will reach the Destination much faster than otherwise.

In your case, in order to make faster progress, you can start with two things: your heart’s purity and your life’s gratitude. Every day pray to the Supreme to grant you more purity in your heart and more gratitude in your entire life. Your purity and gratitude will definitely increase your spiritual speed and expedite your spiritual journey. You have to make progress slowly and steadily, not overnight. God-realisation is not like instant coffee.

Question: How can I feel God's Protection all the time?

Question: How will the world of science and reasoning understand spirituality?

Question: How can one overcome the desires of the lower vital?

Question: You speak of an eternal relationship between the disciple and the Master. Is this something that develops over time?

Question: I fasted for six days, and now I feel more inner peace and that a lot of wrong forces have left me. Is there a connection between fasting or losing weight and wrong forces leaving the body?

Question: How can I get more joy in running?

Part VII

Question: What is your definition of a miracle?⁹

Today I have lifted 170 pounds with each arm. I am sure that nobody of my age will come forward to say that they can also do it. Again, my achievement is on the physical plane. Perhaps somebody else will do something on another plane which I will not be able to do. So your miracle I cannot do, and my miracle you cannot do. God is infinite, so He is showing different miracles in and through various individuals.

There are so many miracles performed on earth that we do not take into account; we do not value them. But if we do value them, we are wonderstruck that one individual has been able to accomplish what millions and millions of human beings could not do.

Let us take Schubert. His immortal song Ave Maria comes from another world. Now millions and millions of people around the world sing that song. For me, it is a true miracle.

Again, on the political plane, what President Gorbachev and President Mandela have done is nothing other than a miracle. And in the sporting world, look at Carl Lewis. He became the fastest human being on earth, the best jumper and so on.

When millions of people cannot do something, we are apt to say that it is not humanly possible. Then, when someone eventually does it, we can definitely claim it as a miracle. God is manifesting His Light and Power in and through that individual in a most special way.