Part II

SCA 575-579. Sri Chinmoy answered these questions in December 1997 at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala.

Question: Could you please explain the meaning of one of the poems you have just written:

God can do anything He wants to.
To our widest surprise,
He may even rock His own Boat
To enjoy His self-chosen failure-life.

Sri Chinmoy: We cannot enjoy failure-life. When we fail, we cry and cry and cry. But in God’s case, not only success-life but failure-life also He can enjoy. We cannot enjoy pain, but He can enjoy pain. We can only enjoy the positive side of life. If we are successful, we are happy. God can be equally happy when He is unsuccessful, but He tries to succeed so that the world can make progress. If there is only failure and failure, the world does not make progress. But in God’s case, everything is equal.

Spiritual Masters also try very hard to succeed for the progress of humanity. Then, like Lord Krishna, they say, “If humanity does not want what we have to offer, then we should be equally happy. Once we do our utmost, our task is over. Then we place the result at the Feet of God.” In the same way, God also places His fate at His own Feet.

Now, God may at times rock His own Boat. The time may come when He says to humanity, “I have tried in every way to help you, but you are sleeping and snoring. Not only that, but sometimes you wake up and you are tempted to jump off the boat. Why do you have to take the trouble of jumping off the boat? Now I am sinking the boat, so you do not have to take the trouble of jumping off.”

Always God keeps His divine aspect and His human aspect. Because He has created humanity, He keeps His own human aspect. And quite often we know that His human aspect is totally surrendered to His divine aspect. It is at His own Feet. But again, God sometimes allows the human aspect to do whatever it wants to. At that time God sees that His human aspect is making millions of mistakes. Then God tells His human aspect, “I have given you enough licence. Now if you do not come back inside the divine aspect, I shall take very serious action.”

We like to eat sweet things, but sometimes we also enjoy bitter things. Usually if the word ‘bitter’ is used, we say, “O my God, this is something bitter! Who wants to eat it?” But then, there are many things which are quite bitter which we enjoy. Sometimes even bitter fruits we enjoy as much as sweet ones. But most of the time, we eat only what our mind has taught us is sweet and pleasing. In God’s case, He equally enjoys the diametrically opposite of sweetness. Everything pleases Him, but for humanity’s progress, He puts forward the positive aspect, which is pure light.

For humanity to make progress, God Himself is making progress, because He is dynamic. Although He is actually both static and dynamic, He loves His dynamic aspect infinitely more than His static aspect. He knows that if He loves His dynamic aspect, then humanity will be inspired to budge an inch. Otherwise, if He cares only for His static aspect, then like Lord Shiva He will stay at one place and enjoy trance. While He is enjoying His trance, humanity will appreciate and admire Him. But for humanity to be one with Shiva’s static trance is impossible. So God says, “No, do not think of trance right now. First run this side and that side.” Swami Vivekananda said to his disciples, “You are lazy people! You will realise God sooner if you play football instead of reading the Bhagavad Gita. Go and play football!” They were so lethargic. They were talking and talking about God, but they were doing nothing, nothing. They did not want to move an inch.

Here also we have quite a few disciples who have become extremely lethargic in their vital, in their mind, in their heart, in every part of their being. Then, all of a sudden they get up and look around. They see that if the spiritual life is like this, then there is no hope for them. So they feel it is high time for them to jump off the boat and see if there is something else for them outside the spiritual world. At that time God says, “You do not have to make any effort to go outside My boundary. I am helping you to go outside the boundary. I am helping you to get out of the boat.” God cleverly does the needful, but outwardly God gives these people the opportunity to be proud of their achievement. They say, “We did it! We came out of the boat.” God says, “All right, you enjoy your freedom. But who gave you the freedom inwardly?” God wanted to get rid of them, so God gave them the freedom.