Question: Guru, sometimes when I don't see you for a long time and I sit down and look at your picture to meditate, I feel there is a block that does not let me feel your love and concern flowing to me; I feel that you are displeased with me and that you have reason to be so.

Sri Chinmoy: Perfection is very good and it is something that I deeply appreciate, but what happens is that we give more value than we should to perfection beyond our capacity. A child can learn A, B and C on one day, but it is beyond his capacity to learn from A to Z in one day. If he tries, he may get the A, B and C but then all the rest will make no sense. What happens is that you start to push or pull for what you consider perfection but that perfection is twenty steps ahead of you. You have covered already a great distance, but when you see your goal in front of you you think you should be able to reach it at once although you may be tired. Your capacity is limited. Your mind wants to shape your goal and calculate your progress. But, like a runner nearing his goal, there is a limit to how fast you can go. Like a runner, you must be careful not to fall just before you reach the finishing line. You may see that you have a little impurity, a little jealousy, but you must know that total perfection is beyond your capacity right now.

The block that you see does not come from me and it does not come from you. It is a hostile attack that wants to take you away from my life. It wants to separate you from my Love and my Light. These forces want to make you unhappy. You set up a standard of perfection and that is wrong, you say that if this is done in this way, then it is perfection. But there are different ways to score a goal in a game. You can use your left foot or your right foot or your head. You must give up the attitude of trying to score. You should let God make the decision as to how to score. Let your Guru and your Alo make the decision as to whether you will use your right foot or left foot or your head. Before you aim, invoke the presence of the Supreme’s eye. Then the mental sense of perfection will not enter. Do not shape your goal and do not calculate. Your mind says that if you have this experience then you will call it Light, if you have another kind of experience, you will call it Peace or power. But Light itself is Power. Peace is Power. Perhaps you are feeling very peaceful and you have achieved only a little Peace. But in real Peace the atom bomb could drop down right next to you and you would not hear it. Certainly that kind of peace is power. In each thing is found all. Don’t try to put everything in a certain place or call it a certain name. That is trying to put reality into a certain form. But don’t try to give reality a certain shape or form. The Supreme will show reality according to His Will. Don’t wait for the mind to be convinced or to measure your progress or your goal. You must let God’s Grace take you to the goal. Put all importance in the Compassion and Grace of the Supreme. Your starting point now once was your goal. So if you don’t try to shape your goal or measure the distance ahead of you, your goal and soul will meet together. The Supreme’s Grace will be able to work inside you and the Supreme’s Grace will achieve everything for you.

Question: Although I am sure that this is my Path and I get intense joy in my heart from my devotion to You and Mother, sometimes I feel a strong longing for a quiet, monastic life. Where does that longing come from and if it has a negative origin, how can I best overcome it?

Sri Chinmoy: In your case, this longing for a monastic life comes from the jealous deceptive vital — not from the frustrated vital, no, but from the deceptive vital. Right now your heart is getting very great, boundless joy from your devoted, selfless service at the Centre, because you are working very, very hard to please us. Immediately, your vital becomes jealous and tries to convince you that there is much more joy somewhere else. This is not true. It is telling you that you must go to a cave in the Himalayas in order to meditate and realise God. But this is a very ancient path. It was your path once; it is not your path today. This is not necessary; it is not correct today.

If austerity and self-negation were the way to realisation you should cut off your arms, and then your nose, and your ears and your legs. You should cut off limb after limb and then you would realise God. Then we would say: “He has really achieved self-negation”. It is the same with the monastic life. One cannot go to the Himalayas and sit in a cave and have realisation which would be waiting for you like a fruit which you think you can go and eat. No. This is not possible today.

Perhaps, when one is living a very materialistic life, like these people who say “eat, drink and be merry,” and one wishes to change, then it would be good to lead a monastic life for a very brief period, but that is all. One must strike a balance; one need not build a Taj Mahal in order to meditate in a new palace every day, but one must not go to a cave either. Today, one must live in a small apartment or a house — very simple, but not austere.

This is just your vital, trying to pull you out of your chosen path. Everywhere we see this: the father is jealous of the son’s progress. The father teaches the son, but the son goes to the university and gets a degree, and then he can teach even his father. You must change your teacher; you have been a very devoted student of your mind and vital, and now they are jealous of your heart’s joy. You must tell them to become one with the heart, or else you’ll have no need for them.

What one must do is to use everything in a divine way. Instead of using your leg to kick somebody, walk five miles to do that person a service; instead of slapping someone, caress him, and so on. Force the other parts of your being to enter into your heart’s boundless joy at having accepted our path.

Question: Is the longing for achieving Nirvana, that is, the total annihilation of the soul-existence, instead of aspiring for the ever-transcending manifestation of the Divine on earth, also an attitude of the deceptive vital?

Sri Chinmoy: There are different approaches to that question. Some individuals make progress little by little. At each stage, they try to embody or manifest on the outer material plane, whatever they have inwardly acquired or achieved. These follow a prescribed course, step by step. Others wish to attain the Goal without any effort. In particular they do not like the aspect of service on earth for humanity. They do not like the path; they only long for the Goal.

In your case, you have followed our path for some years and made progress, gradual progress. You have to know the difference between the formations of the vital, mind and heart. Use the heart; don’t use the vital or the mind. When you follow our path and make some progress, the hostile forces, even the deities, bring down the Goal right in front of your head. It is like a parent who brings a toy which is high, high up near the ceiling, right down before the child’s face. Then when the child grabs for it, they pull it away thinking that the child will not value it. A day comes when the child grows taller and gets a ladder, reaches the ceiling and is able to get the toy by himself.

You have to understand this on three planes: temptation in the vital is deception; temptation in the mind is illusion; but temptation in the heart is ultimately illumination because the heart sees through the illusion and the fantasy of the mind and envisions the Reality. The heart will only feel gratitude to the Supreme for bringing the Goal in front of it without any effort on its part. You have to say,“Supreme, I thank you because out of your infinite Compassion and Concern, you have given me the vision of my Goal.”

What can you do with the Goal in front of you? You may try to grasp it; that is the human reaction. The divine reaction is to be ready to drink the Nectar, but also to be ready to wait for God’s Chosen Hour. Then, the illusion of the mind has to go, the deception of the vital has to go because the heart knows that the Goal is being offered by the Supreme and that you must accept it at His chosen hour. When you have the vision of Nirvana in your mind, you take a mental Delight in everything. You may say: “Oh, how divine! Everything is full of such Peace, Light and Bliss that I will have everything at my disposal. But with the heart, it is a different story; there is no fantasy in the heart. In the heart you don’t think, you just grow into the Goal. You don’t think about the Goal, you just do what is necessary to achieve it without looking and measuring how far you have to go. The Goal is always in front of you, inside you. When the vision of the Goal comes to you, immediately change teachers, go to the heart. Forget about the mind and vital, take delight in the heart.

“The Goal is always in front of you, inside you.”

“Experience is a remover of doubt.”

Question: Guru, I wish to share with you an experience I had a few weeks ago. It was an afternoon while I was taking a bath in the river near my house. A voice seemed to call out my name. As I searched for the direction of the sound, a Christ-like figure was sort of delineated in my mind, yet my heart welcomed the vision by saying: "Brother Jesus, I do not need you, your brother Chinmoy is my Master." At this time, the figure in my mind turned into a black bird of prey and flew out of my mind, sounding off its belching screams.

Sri Chinmoy: This is a hostile attack. What was present in you was not the Christ figure but a hostile force that took the form of the Christ. Your aspiration protected you by saying that you had another Master and Teacher. If vision turned into a black bird, that is the proof of it being a hostile attack. My brother Jesus, the real Christ, would have blessed you and smiled at you on the strength of his oneness with me, when you told him that there was no need for his help since Chinmoy was your Master.

This can also be seen in another light, as a test. Even though I never test my disciples, it could be seen as a test of sincerity, strength and faith in one’s own Master. In your particular case it was not a test, but your faith and sincerity came to the fore in rejection of the assistance of one particular Master because you had one already. I repeat that the real Christ would have blessed you for the sincerity and faith bestowed upon me on the strength of his inseparable oneness with me.

Experience is a remover of doubt. Sri Ramakrishna on his deathbed had to assure Vivekananda and purify his doubting mind when he said: “He who is Rama, he who is Krishna in one form is Ramakrishna.” Vivekananda cried bitterly, but his doubt vanished. This was a test. I do not test. I try to inspire and bring forward the soul in silence. In your case, the soul was out and was able to deal with this particular experience. Very good experience!

Question: Guru, I also saw the Christ, full of Love, Light and Compassion. I also received a message from Him. Is this all true or is it an illusion? Was my ego interfering? After the experience I wrote a poem.

Sri Chinmoy: Yes. It was true. He came to fill you with His Love and Light. He didn’t just vanish because of your ego. He left because His mission was completed. If He had stayed longer, your mind would have started saying: “Those are not His eyes, those are not His ears. That is not the colour of His hair.”

This experience took place because you focused your devotion to the Christ you have in your room, and perhaps the artist who painted it never saw the Christ. This I have said as a joke, but it is very serious.

Question: Does evil exist or is it in our minds?

Sri Chinmoy: First we have to know what evil is. Each one has his own way of interpreting a subject or object. Somebody will say that a particular thought or ideal is evil. If he uses his mind to determine the nature of anything, then anything that is not giving joy or satisfaction to the mind will be considered evil. The heart says, “No, no, something which gives no joy is not necessarily evil; only it has less light.”

If I turn off the light in this room, some disciples may see some light, while others cannot do so without opening the third eye. As soon as you see all darkness, then you say it is evil. Spiritual people don’t use the term “evil”. They say, “What it is, is less light.”

Anything that has been created by God has light. Your soul has light and a chair has light; the only thing is that your soul has more light. It is a matter of how the mind differentiates an ideal subject or object from an imperfect one.

The moment the mind declares something as evil, the mind itself becomes dark. For example, if I say, “He is very bad,” immediately that consciousness enters into my mind. But if you say, in a positive way, “He can be better,” or “He can also be good,” those good qualities enter into you. There your declaration does not have the same destructive power as when you say it negatively.

If it is in the heart, something can be better, best, everlasting. Society has created good, bad and evil. In some religions, they can marry their close relatives. For them it is good. In our society, how would it be? For us it is bad. Killing the cow is evil for Hindus. Muslims will say, “Why? You can eat goose, chicken, etc. and you cannot eat cows? ” We say we love the cows so much because from the cow, light came. It is the symbol of Mother Earth. For us it is good.

It is better to say that evil is lesser light and to talk in terms of lesser light and abundant light.

Question: Does the Inner Light have a power of its own to reveal itself to a seeker even though that person has a Master?

Sri Chinmoy: The real Inner Light and the Master’s Light are the same. Where did you steal the light? From the Master. The problem is that sometimes you have Inner Light but you are not able to utilise it. You have it but you have misplaced the key. The Master searches and helps you find the key. He helps and does not tell you that he did this. The Master, by serving you, is pleasing the Supreme.

What you should do is ask if what you feel to be Light is real Inner Light and how you should use it.

Question: When I work, I feel very old and it often happens during the night. At that time I also feel everything so clearly. What is that state of clearness?

Sri Chinmoy: In India many seekers used to stay up all night. Their Masters would scold them. At night nature is fast asleep and everybody wants to sleep. Your children are sleeping. They are not making a noise. This is the time spiritual people use for their work since it is the best time to create. At night nature is helping you by her peace. You are getting additional power. During the night you can create; during the day you cannot. You have to be very wise. Create at night when the forces are best for you.

The feeling of being old means wisdom. You have wisdom at that moment, others don’t have it. A certain maturity has given you wisdom, and the sense of being an experienced, wise soul.

Question: I've always thought that the people who did some work using their hands were more conscious than others.

Sri Chinmoy: No. Take Ramakrishna. There are many people who do not create or do physical work and are fully conscious. If one became conscious only by doing physical work then that consciousness would not be complete. He who prays and meditates well has more capacity to do things consciously.

Farmers work with their hands. That is their job. Each has to appreciate his job, whatever he is doing. True. However, if you are meditating while using your hands, you become infinitely more conscious.

When you do something mechanically, it is no good. One good thought is a new thing you have created. It enters into the physical work. Meditation is consciousness itself and it makes us conscious.

Question: What should be one's attitude when some disciple is a block to one's manifestation?

Sri Chinmoy: If you feel that the person is standing in your way, refer the situation to me. I will deal with that person inwardly. I will see if he or she can receive my Light. If I deal with that person outwardly, he or she may reject my advice. But when I deal inwardly, that person may be able to receive my inner illumination and he will even think that it is coming from himself. He will believe he has made a new discovery. He will feel that he is the discoverer. But it will be I who has inspired him and offered him this inner understanding.

If my advice comes to him from a third party, such as yourself, immediately jealousy will start. If it comes from me or A, he will accept it. But if it comes from within, he will feel himself to be a real discoverer. If I cannot inwardly convince a person, then I may call him outwardly. But normally I will be misunderstood and my assessment disputed. This is why we prefer to deal inwardly.

Question: Guru, at times I feel that whenever I am about to attend a Centre activity, a resistance presents itself before me that tells me not to go, not to participate, etc. Am I doomed to feel this resistance, even when I know that the activity will be for my benefit? Sometimes the more I realise the benefit that the activity will give me, the more the resistance presents itself. Why?

Sri Chinmoy: Please don’t feel that the resistance comes from you. It is an attack coming to you from the mind. Your mind doesn’t want to get the benefit of our Centre activities. The mind acts like your master and wants you to feel that you are its possession. Your mind has a sense of supremacy and is attached to that supremacy. It feels that it has occupied you for a long time and dominated your life. The resistance in the mind is not coming from you but from the hostile forces in your mind. The mind is saying, in effect, “If he does not feed me, then I will have to stop functioning.” It fears for its very existence which has been uppermost in your life until now.

Why are you helpless in the face of these attacks? Because you have allowed yourself to be helpless. The mind attacks to weaken you. Now, from this moment on, change your master so that the heart is uppermost. Be one with the heart and not with the mind.

Question: Of all the undivine qualities that I have, there are two that bother and worry me most: impurity and lack of patience that brings bad temper to me. When we come to meditate with you and you look into our souls, do you get a general feeling of impurity or negativity, or do you know exactly if it has been bad temper or impurity?

Sri Chinmoy: I’ll attempt to answer this question from many aspects and levels of consciousness. When I look at you plainly, I’m always five to fifty miles above your consciousness. At that time I can easily feel and tell what your problem is. But when I go fifty miles, fifty thousand miles above your consciousness (then Sri Chinmoy demonstrated this by going into one of his high states of consciousness), at that moment I go beyond duality. I see no impurity, no purity. There is no Asima, no Paramesh, no Saraswati; there is a vast expanse of light. There is only Chinmoy — you are all extensions of my own consciousness.

I am like a tree. I go fifty thousand miles high, but I have my roots here with you and I claim your consciousness as my very own, but you cannot claim my consciousness because you can’t believe that that is your consciousness. What happens is you see only the body, only the form, and you see my eyes move back and forth when I enter into my highest consciousness. There you see the expanse of light is being focused through my eyes.

I am like a big bird that flies very, very high but whose leg is tied at your level. I can soar to my highest Height but still I am connected to you.

When I am there, there is no form. I am formless. I am not this bald Indian. I do not see this imperfection, that imperfection. I see nothing bad; I don’t even see good. It is all Light. Asima, I never see your body, never, never. If I would have looked at your imperfections, I would not have disciples.

I deal only with Infinite consciousness.

Quotes

“I am like a tree. I go fifty thousand miles high, but I have my roots here with you and I claim your consciousness as my very own. ”

“You don’t think about the Goal, you just do what is necessary to achieve it without looking and measuring how far you have to go.”

“…total perfection is beyond your capacity right now. ”

“The real Inner Light and the Master's Light are the same. ”

“Light itself is Power. Peace is Power.”

“I deal only with Infinite Consciousness. ”

“Do not shape your goal and do not calculate. ”

Editor's introduction

On October 29, 1976, Sri Chinmoy answered several spiritual questions put to Him by His Puerto Rican disciples at Isla Verde International Airport. Such a boon was entirely unexpected, as it was brought about by circumstances which altered the Guru’s travel arrangements. He was left with two hours to spare before His flight left, and was kind enough to request each disciple present to ask him a spiritual question. No recording equipment was present at the time.

Sri Chinmoy’s answers to the questions contained within this booklet have been transcribed from the notes taken by the disciples themselves, and have been submitted to the careful scrutiny of all those present at the Airport gathering to ensure, to the best of our ability, the exactness of the quotations attributed to the Master.

The God-Realised Indian Guru expressed His desire that these elevated answers be printed, for the benefit of the countless spiritual seekers who will be able to benefit enormously from His deep insights and exalted knowledge of the Highest Truth, which are readily apparent to all in whom the soul has felt the coming of the Chosen Hour of God.

It is with the deepest brotherly love that the Puerto Rican Sri Chinmoy Centres offer this Airport elevation to humanity’s ever-growing aspiration song and place this tiny labour of love at the Holy Feet of the Master.