Sri Chinmoy answers, part 34

Part I

Question: At the start of the spiritual life, sometimes the Supreme will give the seeker a small experience of the goal, which gives the seeker inspiration. Then that vision becomes vague. Why is this?

God is so clever! He wants to create interest in us right from the start. If the seeker were not successful in his first attempts to meditate, he would say, “Oh, spirituality is not meant for me.”

But if you have a good meditation, you will say, “Once I had such a nice meditation. Why did I get it? Did I practise spirituality at that time?”

Here God is showing us His unconditional Compassion. God is saying, “Let us go half-and-half. You aspire and I will show you my Compassion.” If you give up, God will not be the loser. He showed you that it is possible to have that joy. So you have to continue, continue, if you really want God, if you really want to follow the spiritual life. Otherwise, if God gives you the experience a second time, you will not value it. Like a child playing with money, you will discard it. The parents are giving the child lots of money and he is only wasting it. Then he has to work very hard to get back the same amount.

God is not unkind. Only He is saying that in order to get joy from the spiritual life, how hard you have to pray, meditate and discipline yourself. You have an inner Goal. That Goal will not come to you and stand in front of you. You have to come to the Goal. The Goal says that it has to be won. If you really love God, then wherever He is, you have to run towards Him.

Question: If we are conscious that we have failed repeatedly to achieve something, how can we still be happy and cheerful?

In your case, you fought very hard for six or seven years to overcome the wrong forces, but now you have surrendered to them. These forces are absolutely merciless. You have to forgive me, my compassion is speaking to you. Come out of the dark room. Enter into the room that has light. This applies not only to you, but to many people.

Part II

Question: What is your opinion about the pollution of the environment?

Question: To what degree does the Oriental philosophy influence the West?

Part III

Question: What should we do if we find ourselves becoming bored when we sit down to meditate and also just in our day-to-day life?

Question: How do we get rid of insecurity totally, so that it never comes back?

In our case, we have not yet developed our oneness with vastness or infinity. We are insecure for two reasons: either we want to go ahead of someone and we do not feel that we have the necessary capacity, or we feel that we are inferior to so-and-so. Insecurity starts when we are trying to go ahead of somebody else or we feel that we are behind someone and the whole world is looking at us and we have no way to proceed. Why should we proceed? We have to feel that people who are going ahead of us are carrying us in the depths of their hearts.

Question: When the physical body is not in good condition, how can we still make the fastest progress?

Many elderly men and women, unfortunately, are not physically fit. It is true that if you are physically fit, then you get joy, you get freshness, you get more inspiration to aspire. But if, for certain reasons, you are not physically fit, what can you do? At that time, there is only one way you can solve the problem. You have to offer gratitude to God because you are still cheerful, you are still happy, you have not revolted against God.

In your case, you can say, “Oh, I can still walk and come to the tennis ground and look at my Guru every day. Every morning I am the first person to look at my Guru when he arrives.” This is how you are keeping yourself happy. And this happiness is helping you to make tremendous progress.

But if you think, “How unhappy I am! Look at the other disciples. How they are running, cleaning, moving around. Had I been like them, I would have made so much progress,” that is not the right attitude. You do not realise that when you are walking with such difficulty, entering into the tennis ground, you are so happy that you are able to see me. You are thinking of me, praying to me and all kinds of things you are doing. But you do not know what is in the minds of the other disciples who are moving around. So many millions of problems they have. Your only problem is that you are unable to walk as fast as they do. Are you not lucky? Your only problem is that your pain is not allowing you to walk as fast as others do. But this is on the physical plane. On the mental plane, you have no idea how much other disciples may be suffering. “Guru is smiling at him because he has done something great, he has made an exercise machine; Guru is not smiling at me because I cannot make that kind of exercise machine.” And so it goes on.

People who do not have the capacity sometimes are lucky because they can make surrender — let us not call it helpless surrender, because that is very bad, but cheerful surrender. You can say, “O God, You did not give me the capacity to do something, to perform something, but my gratitude-prayer to You is that whatever You have given me, I should be satisfied with.”

So if you are satisfied with what you have, then you can make the fastest progress. There is another way you can be satisfied with what you have: just look around. You will see that there are many people who are suffering much more than you are. If you go to the hospital, you will see how many are in infinitely worse condition than you are. When you think of your suffering, think of the hospital. Then this thought will be your immediate medicine. That is what I do. Sometimes, when I can walk only with utmost difficulty, I think of some human beings who cannot walk, cannot move at all, and my suffering seems like nothing in comparison to theirs. At that time, I say to God, “O God, You are so kind to me. Still I can walk a little, whereas so many people in Your creation cannot walk at all.”

Again, why should I have to make comparison with other people in order to make myself happy? That is only a temporary solution. The first way is by far the best way. You have to say to yourself, “I will remain happy. Who can be suffering more than God Himself inside me?”

We feel that God is all Happiness. But God is everything. God is not only inside our suffering, God is suffering itself. Let me just give an example. When a little two-year-old child has got some serious ailment and is suffering, the identification of the mother is such that she suffers far more than her little child. How much a mother can suffer! A mother’s identification with her child goes to the very root of the child’s suffering.

So here, also, if we take God as our Mother or Father, we have to feel that He is suffering much more than we are. We feel that we are the sufferers. But if we love God, we will feel that inside us Someone is not only suffering as much as we are, but He is suffering much more because He has the capacity to absorb, to receive, to feel everything more than we do. In that way, the Supreme suffers more than we can ever suffer.

Question: I just got a job two weeks ago working with the homeless people in Berkeley.

Question: A lot of people who are genuinely interested in meditation and become disciples disappear after the first few months. I am wondering what are some things we can do to try to make new people feel more comfortable and more a part of this group?

And there should be more Joy Day types of activities. The newcomers should definitely come on your regular meditation day, but also two or three times a month try to have some recreational activities to make them feel that our way of life is not renunciation. From acceptance, we transcend the things that have to be transcended and illumined.

Some disciples feel that if they mix with the newcomers, they will lose their spirituality or divinity. Others become insecure. They feel that these newcomers are more talented than they are, so the best thing is to keep the newcomers beneath them by ignoring them.

That is not true at all. If you help someone to walk along the path of spirituality, God will give you the capacity to run faster, infinitely faster. And then, since you have been doing Yoga for so many years, you have to feel oneness if that person goes one step ahead of you. You will be so proud that it is you who have helped that particular person to go ahead.

Question: How can we have more heart-power?

In exactly the same way, when we think of heart-power, the most significant treasure that the heart has is purity. When you think of the mind, purity is not to be found there. At that time, you only think of confusion or supremacy: the mind is either thinking that you are useless, or that the rest of the world is jealous of you. There is nobody to feel or establish oneness with the mind. The good qualities of the mind are serenity, clarity and illumination. But these are rarely found.

So when you think of heart-power, the first thing you have to think of is purity-power. What gives us an immediate sense of purity? Any flower that you like best — a rose or lotus or some other flower. You have to feel that you are breathing in the beauty and fragrance of the flower that you like most. Please try to visualise it inside your heart. First feel that the flower is there. Imagine it inside your heart. Imagination has a reality of its own. As soon as you imagine that there is a flower inside you, a rose or any other flower, then try to smell the fragrance of that flower. Then, after fifteen minutes or half an hour or even a few days, try to feel that that flower has become invisible inside your heart. You do not have to see the flower as such, you do not have to smell the fragrance, no. As soon as you think of your heart, you will see that your heart has become the most beautiful flower, the most beautiful rose.

Part IV

Question: We learn about the Greek gods in school and I was wondering if they exist in some realm the way the Indian gods and goddesses do? And also I was wondering if new gods and goddesses are created or if there is only just one set of them.⁴

Indian gods and goddesses came into being from the Supreme’s supreme Height. The Supreme Himself wanted to create these cosmic gods and goddesses, in the same way that a tree needs branches, leaves, flowers and fruits.

Apart from our main cosmic gods and goddesses, for example, Maheswari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati, there are many, many minor cosmic gods and goddesses whose names we may not know and perhaps do not need to know. A tree has countless leaves. If the owner of the tree wants to give a name to each leaf, he can, because he is at once omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. But for us to remember so many names will be impossible. We will become totally confused.

So, for our sake, we know that there are four cosmic goddesses whom I have just mentioned and, in addition to our trinity — Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva — we have Indra, Vayu, Agni and so forth. All of these Indian gods and goddesses have come right from the Supreme’s Transcendental Vision. They are descended from the Supreme Himself.

In the case of the Greek gods and goddesses, it is not like that. The consciousness of Greece and also the consciousness of the countries around Greece aspired and this aspiration ascended from the physical plane to the vital plane. The mental plane it did not reach so powerfully. This aspiration wanted to get something directly from Above. This aspiration was able to come up from the physical to the vital level, but from there it was unable to come up. But there was tremendous hunger to get power from Above. They cared mostly for power. Inside power, if there was light, wonderful, but they obeyed power more. Wisdom they did not care for. They wanted to separate wisdom from power. In their minds, the power aspect predominated. But it is not possible to separate them. Wisdom and power go together. While they were invoking power from Above, they were getting some wisdom as well.

So the Greek gods and goddesses are mostly formed from the aspiring vital, but we have to know that this vital is not the lower vital, or the lower elements, far from it. These are the dynamic, not aggressive, aspects of human aspiration. It went up and it went to the vital level — the vital that is dynamic, active and progressive.

At this point, the Supreme said, “My child, since you have taken so much labour to come up to this place, let Me come down and give you what you want.” So the Supreme brought down His Grace. Here, the aspiration which reached up to the height of the vital world, received the Blessings from Above, from the Supreme, and then this sublime aspiration took the form of gods and goddesses, or the form that was made eventually by the human mind into beings, which came to be called gods and goddesses.

But I wish to tell you that the Indian gods and goddesses are infinitely more tangible. You can talk to them infinitely more affectionately and lovingly. Although goddesses like Kali and Durga have tremendous power, you can deal with them more intimately than with the Greek gods and goddesses.

To be very frank with you, the stature or height of the Greek gods and goddesses and the Indian gods and goddesses is not the same. It is like comparing a hillock and Mt. Everest. I am saying this from my own realisation. Others may realise the truth in a different way. There will be people who will refute what I am saying, they may not accept it at all, but each one has to be satisfied with his own realisation.

To come to your second question. We cannot say that new gods and goddesses are being created. I see clearly that the new ones are only the old ones being manifested in new forms, new ways and with new light. The Supreme is not bringing into the world new gods and goddesses because these gods and goddesses do not believe in evolution. They do not participate in God’s Cosmic Game the way we participate in it. Their realisation, their capacity, everything, is fixed.

The cosmic gods and goddesses are like millionaires in terms of inner wealth, but they will remain millionaires. They are not going to become billionaires. Again, if they misuse their wealth, their power disappears. It is the same with human beings. If somebody has lots of wealth, we have to see whether he is misusing it or using it properly. If he uses it properly, he will get joy and gratitude from mankind.

But in the case of human beings, if they aspire only to become one with God’s Will, to please God in God’s own Way, then they will become the choicest instruments of God, the Supreme, and their earth-transformation-power will far exceed the powers of the cosmic gods and goddesses.

Part V

Question: How can we prepare ourselves to be more receptive for our Wednesday night meditations?

For an hour or an hour and a half we meditate. Even for five minutes, if you can remain in your highest, you will receive something. You do not have to be receptive the rest of the time. You can receive a very large quantity in a small amount of time.

Always think that there is a place where you can get the most special thing. Now you have to value that special thing. The difficulty is that a rich man’s children squander their father’s wealth. The father does not mind, as long as they use it. But they misuse it; they waste it. Then the father says, “In time they will learn to use it.” But some will continue to neglect it, in the sense that they will not pay any attention to it. They want their father’s wealth, but they do not value it.

Money-power as such is not bad if it is used properly. Similarly, spiritual power must be used properly. But some people do not have a developed consciousness. That is why they misuse the inner wealth. What do they value? Their lethargy, idleness, ignorance.

Why do I love America? I always say that America is like a mad elephant going this side and that side, breaking heads, but at least it is trying to go forward. Instead, quite often it is going sideways. But the point is that if the elephant lies down and sleeps and snores, it is not going anywhere. It is better to make mistakes than to lie idle. Each time we make mistakes, we get a deplorable experience. Then we try once more to make progress. Again, we make mistakes. And again we feel that there is something higher and deeper. But if we do not value the spiritual wealth, then what do we do? We just sleep; we remain where we have always been.

To come back to your question, on Wednesday nights, before I come to the meeting, you can read some book and create a meditative consciousness. Very often before I come to the meetings the atmosphere is almost like an Indian marketplace. Everybody is talking and moving around. The disciples are like mischievous students. They are doing everything wrong but, as soon as the teacher comes, they fall silent.

Question: What is the difference between your love and your concern?

If you have concern, you can give just a little. A beggar is asking you for alms and you are giving the beggar a dollar or two. That is your concern for a poor man. You may think, “Perhaps he has not had a proper breakfast.” But if you have love for that individual, immediately you will invite him to your place and give him the food that you like best, and let him eat as much as he wants.

Part VI

Question: Are the souls of your songs different?

Question: You have been singing _Jiban debata_ at every concert. Has the soul of the song made progress because you have sung it so many times?

If you can ask God for Forgiveness every day, you purify yourself. The word ‘forgiveness’ carries purification. Whether God has forgiven us or not is up to Him, but if we can pray to God for Forgiveness, immediately it purifies our heart. We can pray to God for Forgiveness for the things we did today or yesterday or even for the things that we will do in the future. It is not a joke. It is absolutely necessary. Good seekers do not know what will happen in the future. The next moment they may commit a Himalayan blunder. Right now they are in a very good consciousness, so they pray to God, “Please forgive me now for the things that I am going to do tomorrow.”

You may laugh. You do not believe that you are going to make a great mistake tomorrow. But this prayer is absolutely essential. If you ask God to forgive you for the mistakes that you will commit tomorrow, it is like saving money and putting it in the bank. Then, when you really do something wrong, God will see the balance and you can take the money back. Many, many seekers do this. They pray to God for His future Forgiveness. You know yourselves how your consciousness can change. Early in the morning you may be divine. Then, in two hours’ time, you become undivine, your consciousness descends.

If you ask God to forgive you for your future mistakes, then when you do make a mistake you will see that your forgiveness-prayer is negating the mistake. But you do not do that. We always stay in the past. We pray to God, “Oh, yesterday I told a lie. Save me, save me!”

But yesterday is gone, now something else is coming. So let us also pray for tomorrow. Prayer is not only for the things that we have done wrong in the past. Prayer also means to look forward. When we pray, we are trying to remove the obstacles that are ahead of us. Already the ones that are behind us we have fought with. Whether we have won or lost, God alone knows, but we do know that our prayer-life and meditation-life are carrying us forward. There if we can have God’s Forgiveness, then immediately the way forward will become easier for us.

The past, present and future are all at God’s Command. He knows whether or not we are going to make a deplorable mistake in an hour or not. So the best thing is to ask for His Forgiveness. And also, if we can ask God for Forgiveness for future things, then God sees and feels whether we really mean it. He sees whether we have taken His Forgiveness seriously. Otherwise, we go on thinking that we are perfect. Then, all of a sudden, when we do something wrong, we cry, “God, save me! Save me!”

Part VII

Question: If somebody wants to choose one time of the year to make a new start —- such as your birthday, or the anniversary of our joining the Centre, or our own birthday, or the beginning of the New Year —- are each of these times equally good?

When we remain here, in the earth-bound life, we cannot say that every day is equally important. No, every day is not equally important. Some days are bound to be more important than other days. That is why we observe anniversaries and birthdays. When a birthday comes, at that time we say to ourselves, “Why did I come here? Have I made any progress since I accepted the spiritual life? In some fields I have made progress; in other fields I have not made progress, or I have gone backwards.”

In your case, you have made so much progress in music. But again, you are losing your spontaneity and childlike consciousness. I am telling you about your progress and backward march for your good. You have made progress in one thing and gone backwards in another. If you had maintained your childlike consciousness, it would have given tremendous joy to your soul. Like this, everybody is a culprit. People have made considerable progress in one thing and in another field they have lost their previous standard and climbed down instead of up.

Question: I used to meditate for half an hour every morning, but recently I have only been meditating for fifteen minutes. Is it better to meditate longer?

Question: Every time you give a special talk, I become so inspired. Then, after a few days or a week, it goes away. Is there any way I can remain inspired?

You say that you are not maintaining the same inspiration and aspiration after a week. What you have to do is see how far you have come during that week and then look up to see if there is any space for you to go higher. You will see that the distance which you have covered is next to nothing, whereas the distance you have yet to cover is very great.

What actually happens is this: the disciples, after climbing up five feet, think that is enough. They get a complacent feeling, and this complacent feeling is their worst enemy. They are so happy that they have climbed up five feet, but they have to feel that they have to climb up five million metres! They have to feel, “Oh, if only I had climbed up seven inches more, I would have been still higher. So let me continue.”

The very fact that you climbed up five feet should give you enthusiasm and inspiration to go higher. In the spiritual life, we cannot remain at one place. In the ordinary life, you can reach a certain point and stay there for ten or twenty years, or for the rest of your life. But in the spiritual life, every day you have to make a new attempt. Otherwise, you will come back to your same old, stupid self.

If you want to maintain your enthusiasm and determination, you have to feel that no matter how far you have come, it is practically nothing compared to the distance you have to go. And also you have to feel that if in one week you had the capacity to climb up five feet, then you have the capacity to climb up another five feet the following week. In this way, you will be able to climb up to the highest height. But human beings usually do not do that. Either they become tired or they look around and see how far they have come. Then they feel that this distance is enough for the rest of their lives.

Question: Sometimes the outer conditions make it difficult to meditate.

Sometimes the outer conditions make you feel absolutely miserable when you are meditating. You can easily surrender and say, “It is not my fault. It is nature’s fault.” In this way, you can justify your surrender very nicely. But the other way is to say, “If I can meditate in spite of this opposition, then I will become a better, stronger disciple.” Instead of surrendering to those obstacles, regard them as opportunities to make progress.

Part VIII

Question: Are you a famous painter?

It took me hundreds and thousands of years, thousands and thousands of years to paint the inner life. And now I have started painting the outer life. God alone knows when I will complete painting my outer life.

Question: Why are so many things going wrong in the world?

Question: How do you feel about your music?

Question: As a teacher, I become impatient for the children to do well. I do not want to discipline them outwardly, but I find that I am unable to bring about discipline in any other way.

This patience is what we call the wisdom of the heart. Outwardly you may say, “Oh, how long do I have to wait?” But if you have the wisdom of the heart, you will see that it is only a matter of time.

In your case, you are asking the children to do the right thing, but they are not listening. Here you have to apply the same wisdom that you did for the tree. Outwardly we call it patience; inwardly we call it wisdom-light. If you use your wisdom-light, perfection will dawn one day.

Every day you can try to watch the children to see whether they have improved or not. Suppose one child is not listening to you at all. No matter what you say, no matter how sad and mad you become, this child does not listen. You can try to discipline the child outwardly, by scolding and so forth. This is one method.

Another method is this: look at the eyes of the child and show your utmost compassion. Do not bring forward any anger or frustration whatsoever, only utmost compassion. Try to make the child feel that you are at his mercy. Definitely you are stronger than the child. You can give him a smart slap, you can do many things. But you are not going to do that. You have to make the child feel that he is superior to you, you are at his mercy, and he can do anything if he wants to. You are absolutely helpless, so you are begging him to show you compassion. In this way, you will touch his heart and he will not be able to go on doing the wrong thing.

It is like this: a child is holding a ball. You can easily snatch the ball away from him, but you are pretending that you are helpless, that you are weaker than him. And you are begging him to give you the ball. If you snatch it, then he will cry, he will do many things, he may even try to strike you. But if you offer tears, crocodile tears, if you say you are at his mercy, then if he gives you the ball you will be the happiest person.

When you are trying to discipline a child, you can do the same thing. You used one way, but it did not work. So the other way is to touch the heart of the child. Not to discipline with the hand, but with the heart. If you can touch the heart of a child with your wisdom-light, that same child will become perfect. Always you have to be wise. If one method does not work, then let us adopt a new method.

Question: My son is not doing at all well. I am simply at a loss how to help him.

The next thing is that you have to act like a thief. At night, when your child is fast asleep, for five or ten minutes just go and stand near him and try to feel your own heart, not your mind. Your heart will have a conversation with his heart. Your heart is all affection, all love, all compassion for your son. Like this, your heart’s affection, fondness, love and so many other good qualities will enter into your son. In the same way, your son has affection, love and fondness for you. Your heart will offer its good qualities and your son’s heart will offer its own good qualities. Sooner or later, you are bound to see that these good qualities are being manifested in his outer life. And he will never know that secretly, when he was fast asleep, you came and injected so many divine qualities into his heart. Let him think that he is making the change by himself. It can come as a surprise to you. It does not matter who has inspired him to change his nature. The important thing is that your son is getting better.

Question: Why do bad people kill the good ones?

A little bird is inside the cage. When you smash the cage, the bird flies everywhere. So when a good person is killed, like Martin Luther King, Jr. or President Kennedy, the body-cage may be smashed, but their soul-bird flies all over the world. The loss of the cage we cannot deny. It is a most tragic loss for the whole world. But the soul is flying and flying like a beautiful bird, spreading its good qualities here, there and everywhere. Mahatma Gandhi is another example. His body is gone, but his soul is all over the world. Everywhere people are appreciating, admiring and adoring him.

Today I am at Oneness-Family School. This little school has the highest visions, the loftiest visions. There are millions of schools and colleges in the world. They cannot all change their names, but if they could all have a sub-title then it would be ‘Oneness-Family’. Whenever you go to a school or university, immediately you get inspiration from the person the school is named after or who founded the school. When you go to a school in Washington, you immediately think of George Washington, the Father of the Nation. When you go to Thomas Jefferson’s University in Virginia, immediately you think of Jefferson’s inner illumination. All the good qualities that he embodied come to your mind. Those great luminaries, great pioneers in so many fields, have left the world, but their good qualities we still adore.

In the same way, not only the name ‘Oneness-Family School’, but the vision of this school will one day cover the length and breadth of the world. Right now it is a tiny seed, smaller than the smallest. But eventually it will be like a huge banyan tree. This vision will one day become large, larger, largest. The oneness-family-vision will be everywhere.

If you feel oneness, who is going to kill whom? Are you going to kill your mother or father or brother or sister? So when you pray and meditate, you improve your heart’s oneness. Then the whole world becomes yours. Once you feel your oneness with the entire world, you are not going to kill anybody and, if others do the same thing, then there will be no assassination, no murder. People will not hurt each other.

Question: We encourage parents to come to the school and even assist us in teaching the children. Do you agree with that approach?

Part IX

Question: Are there some very advanced seekers in Germany who are inwardly looking for a spiritual path?

Question: You recently said that after the fall of the Berlin Wall a new soul has appeared for Germany. What happened to the other souls for East and West Germany?

Part X

Question: You have said that your philosophy is a merging of the inner and the outer. Most people would interpret meditation as being an inner process and I wonder if you could explain for us how you feel marathon running has a place in spiritual development.

For outer running, we need a life of discipline, endurance and patience — so many things which are good! In the spiritual life also we need many things — we have to conquer our fear, doubt, jealousy, insecurity and so on. So we feel that one is helping the other.

Early in the morning, if I have freshness in my mind and if I have sound health, then I will be inspired to pray and meditate. If I do not have good health, then I am not going to get up and pray and meditate. So it is my good health that is helping me to become a good seeker.

Question: Does that mean that people who are not physically healthy cannot reach enlightenment?

Question: I have heard from some teachers in the _Shankaracharya_ tradition that yoga asanas are good because they lower the metabolism of the body and help lay the foundation for meditation. But running, or Western sport, would seem to be in the other direction. You do not see it in this way?

Now I wish to say that there should be a combination of the Indian spirit, which is calm, quiet and tranquil, and the Western spirit, which is dynamic. We have to take them as one. The Indians think that the West is all restlessness, which is not true. And again, the West thinks that India is all poverty-stricken and Indians are lethargic, which is also not true. Both sides exaggerate the facts.

Question: So in this philosophy are you creating something new, something different from what has been created generally in the East and in the West?

Question: I do not think that Western sports people in the past have considered that their sport would lead them to enlightenment!

Question: How do you see the new movement in the West towards the merging of scientific principles, like the quantum theory, with the ancient Vedic traditions or understanding of enlightenment?

Question: If we look at your meditation technique itself, can you explain a bit about it?

Or, if you are inspired by a flame, try to imagine a burning flame inside you, rising up and illumining the inner darkness. If you feel the necessity of climbing up the Everest, that is, the highest in the spiritual life, then envision the flame within you climbing up high, higher, highest.

Question: You said in particular that meditating on the moon is for tenderness. Can you tell us some more of these particular relationships? Meditating on the sun?

Question: How do you know which one is right for you?

Question: What will that effect be?

Sri Chinmoy: I am saying that from the joy you are growing.

Question: Just from the joy?

Question: So it is really the joy that creates the enlightenment?

Question: Can you tell us a little about the state of enlightenment?

Question: So there is no point in talking about it before?

Question: Many teachers that have come out of the East don't particularly like talking about their past.

Question: I was not thinking so much of going that far back, but I was just thinking about your early days before you came to the West.

Question: You had a teacher?

Question: Can we look at the world situation? What do you think of it?

Question: There are a lot of people who would suggest that the world situation is fairly tense right now.

All right, it is not divine. Now also it is not divine, but the fact is that we are using the terms ‘divine’ and ‘perfect’. That means we have an inner urge to become perfect. When the very idea of goodness enters into our mind, that means we want to become good.

Question: But in the scheme of things, according to Vedic thought, we are in the _kali yuga_ now. Is that not correct?

Question: What does _kali yuga_ mean then?