New Year's Message

The heart of the year nineteen hundred and seventy-eight belongs to the aspiration-perfection-sky.

The life of the year nineteen hundred and seventy-eight belongs to the dedication-satisfaction-land.

Heart is humanity’s changeless oneness with God. Heart is humanity’s changing newness in God.

Life is humanity’s crying fullness in God. Life is humanity’s smiling fullness for God.

Choice¹

What is our choice? Our inner and spiritual choice is Infinity’s perfection-poise. And what is Infinity’s perfection-poise? Infinity’s perfection-poise is our Immortality’s oneness-voice.

We choose God, not because He is great. We choose God because He is all Love. We choose man, not because he is always trying. We choose man because he is always crying. He is crying to unlearn all that he has learned from his human, physical, earth-bound mind. We choose man because he is crying to assimilate what his aspiring and Heaven-free heart has taught him since it accepted the spiritual life, the life of inner discipline, the life of God-fulfilment on earth.

We choose Heaven, not because Heaven is all bliss. We choose Heaven because Heaven inspires us, encourages us and finally illumines us. We choose earth, not because earth is the battlefield of life where we can prove to be dauntless and adamantine soldiers. We choose earth because here on earth we can succeed and proceed, proceed and succeed. We can make constant progress, inner and outer, which is of paramount importance. It is here on earth that we can hear the message of liberation. Unless and until we are liberated from the meshes of ignorance, our conscious, complete and inseparable oneness with our Beloved Supreme will always remain a far cry. We choose earth because here on earth we can illumine the animal in us, transcend the human in us and fulfil the divine in us.

We choose ourselves not because we feel in the inmost recesses of our hearts that we have the capacity to lord it over the world, to conquer the length and breadth of the world, to become another Julius Caesar or Napoleon. We choose ourselves because we feel in the very depth of our hearts that our Lord Supreme has chosen us to manifest Himself in and through us. He has accepted us as His choice instruments to please Him and fulfil Him in His own way. Him to please and Him to fulfil in His own way is the only way to please the real in us and the Real in our Beloved Supreme. The real in us is our heart’s constant ascending aspiration-cry. The Real in our Beloved Supreme is His constant descent with His all-compassionate Vision to illumine and perfect us so that we can become His perfect instruments.

The Lord Supreme manifested Himself in and through Sri Krishna, the Buddha and the Christ in a most significant way. It is His inner Promise to all the sincere seekers here and elsewhere, to fulfil Himself in and through them in a most significant way. Sri Krishna’s choice was a sea of harmony. The Buddha’s choice was a sky of illumination. The Christ’s choice was a flood of compassion. And our choice is a heart of poise that can easily brave all the buffets of life. Poise within, poise without: this is our choice.

A seeker²

A seeker is a divine hero. His is the life of conquest, outer and inner. In his outer life he conquers teeming temptations every single day. In his inner life he conquers devastating doubts every single day. A seeker is he who fulfils his soulful promises both to Heaven and to earth. His self-giving role fulfils his promise to Heaven. His self-ascending role fulfils his promise to earth. To give is to become. To ascend is to become. He gives what he has and what he is, and eventually he sees and grows into the universal Soul, the universal Reality. He ascends with his heart’s devotedness-cry and his life’s detachment-smile, and thus he eventually sees and grows into the transcendental Soul and the transcendental Reality.

Unlike most human beings, the seeker knows and feels that every moment is God’s choice Hour. He wants to manifest on earth at every moment good thoughts, illumining ideas and fulfilling love. In essence he wants to manifest God-thought, God-will and God-love here on earth. At the same time he desires to offer his heart’s soulful gratitude unreservedly to Heaven, for he knows that all his achievements here on earth are due to direct inspirations and blessingful guidance from above.

A seeker-hero equally loves both God the Creator and God the creation. He loves God the Creator with his heart’s ever-mounting cry. He loves God the creation with his life’s ever-serving readiness. His heart is inseparably one with the Vision of God the Creator. His life is inseparably one with the manifestation of God the creation.

A seeker is a hero-warrior. He conquers himself in order to become man the blossoming God. He conquers God the infinite Compassion in order to become God the fulfilling man on earth.

I shall wander no more

I shall wander no more.
I shall collect my inner strength.
I shall cover the world and its length
In my meditation core.

With trembling legs

With trembling legs
We approach him.
With trembling hands
We stand before him.
With trembling eyes
We look at him.
With trembling hearts
We speak to him.

Everything returns

Everything returns
With the revolving years.
A smiling progress-world
In the heart of pure gratitude-tears.

Our loss

It is your loss
If you do not love me.
It is my loss
If I ever see you climb
Life-devouring ignorance-Tree.

My life

My sound-life
Demands.

My silence-life
Expects.

My aspiration-life
Accepts and rejects.

I salute you all

O vision of delight,
O mission of God-right,
O reality of Perfection-light,
I salute you all, your might.

Yours is the God-smile

Yours is the God-Face
I like.

Yours is the God-Grace
I love.

Yours is the God-cry
For me to adore.

Yours is the God-smile
To open my life’s heart-door.

Heart beauty

Heart-beauty remains
Always the same:
Aspiration-cry.

Life-reality retains
Always its possession:
Frustration-sigh.

Chance has a blameless hand

Chance has a blameless hand.
Doubt is a shameless breath.
Grace has a magic smile.
Fear needs a tragic death.

My life's desires

In the inner world
My life wants to be all peace.
In the outer world
My life wants to be all joy.
In the human world
My life wants to be all love.
In the world divine
My life wants to be God-toy.

Come and take my all

O Heaven, come and take my soul.
My journey’s life has played its role.
O Supreme, come and take my all:
My big desires, and longings small.

I know them not

I know not truth
But
I know its golden smile.

I know not man
But
I have his complaint-file.

My dear friend United Nations

//[Continued from previous issue]//

24.

My dear friend United Nations,

You can easily treat baseless human criticism like discards. After all, these foul criticisms are mere shadows of shattering frustration and devouring insecurity. I tell you, yesterday they represented stupidity, today they represent obscurity, tomorrow they will represent non-entity.

25.

My dear friend United Nations,

Since you are mercilessly honest in what you do and what you are, yours will be the crowning success.

26.

My dear friend United Nations,

Never believe those who say that your place has never been centre stage. Never believe those who say that you have always been far back in the world-gallery as a cheerful or tearful spectator.

27.

My dear friend United Nations,

Both your seeming helplessness and your increasing selflessness strike me equally. What I want from you is the extinction of your helplessness-flames and the perfection of your selflessness sun.

28.

My dear friend United Nations,

You have been telling the world that truth-realisation, justice-light and peace-satisfaction cannot be a far cry. Truth-realisation, justice-light and peace-satisfaction are only around the corner, a breath away. This unmistakable and immortal message of yours will one day be unreservedly accepted by the entire world.

Yours in the Soul-Light of the Supreme,

Sri Chinmoy

Swami Vivekananda³

Yesterday was the birthday of Swami Vivekananda, who was a supreme seeker and supreme lover of mankind. He was also the preserver of universal vision. I am invoking his presence.

Was Swami Vivekananda a man? Yes, he was. Something else: he was a lover-hero.

Did he really conquer America? Yes, he did. Truth to tell, it was a mutual conquest. Vivekananda conquered America’s seeker-heart. America conquered Vivekananda’s vision-eye.

What did he preach in the West? The Vedanta philosophy. He did something else. In supreme secrecy, soulfully and lovingly on the vital plane, compassionately and unreservedly on the physical plane, persistently and unconditionally on the mental plane, he distributed Sri Ramakrishna’s universal oneness-heart.

Sri Ramakrishna’s blessingful soul loved at once Vivekananda’s silence-heart and his sound-life. To his Naren what he gave was his realisation-ocean. In his Naren what he found was his vision-manifestation. Where? Here, there and all-where.

To the weak Vivekananda had only one thing to say: fear not. To the strong he had only one thing to say: stop not. To God he had only one thing to say: delay not. And to himself he had only one thing to say: ask not.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt⁴

President Roosevelt, we, the members of the United Nations, salute you. O man of lofty ideals, O hero-warrior, O prophet of the world-illumining dawn, we soulfully salute you.

Admiration you received in abundant measure. Condemnation, too. One thing more you so richly deserved: your dear countrymen should have seen life clearly and should have seen it as a whole, as you so surprisingly did.

The supremacy of your soul’s will over your body’s revolt [infantile paralysis] is unparalleled.

Your very existence was a stranger to fear. Your indomitable courage went far beyond the flight of our wild imagination. It was your heart’s wisdom-light that so lovingly and convincingly taught the entire world: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Indeed, the vision-light of this loftiest message can illumine the length and breadth of the world.

The embodiments of your vision-height and action-power during World War II will always be treasured by the freedom-loving and peace-spreading world.

Your aspiration-mind and dedication-heart planned a conference of united nations which was to convene in San Francisco. Therefore, today’s flowering United Nations bows to you with its gratitude heart.

Peace and faith: these two divine qualities abide in each other, supporting each other and fulfilling each other. Your last message to your own family, the American Nation, can most unmistakably and most profitably be accepted and treasured by the vast world-home: “… to all Americans who dedicate themselves … to the making of an abiding peace, I say — the only limit to our realisation of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.”

Prayer-harvest

//[Continued from previous issue]//

17.

My Lord Supreme,

Your outer world loves the lover in me most. Your inner world loves the forgiver in me most.

18.

My Lord Supreme,

Your greatness-world fascinates my eyes. Your goodness-world liberates my eyes.

19.

My Lord Supreme,

Do give me a non-stop gratitude-growth to increase Your Compassion-Sea for me and Your Satisfaction-Sky in me.

20.

My Lord Supreme,

To love You only is to be on the right road. To need You only is to be in the right lane.

21.

My Lord Supreme,

To strengthen my faith-muscle I need a second of gratitude-exercise daily.

22.

My Lord Supreme,

My insecurity starves the human in me and hurts the divine in You. What can I do? I am so helpless and useless.

23.

My Lord Supreme,

In the inner world a cry is a two-way conversation between You and me. In the outer world a smile is a two-way conversation between You and me.

[To be continued]

Questions and answers

Question: How can we run inwardly?

Sri Chinmoy: You can run inwardly if outwardly you can be brave enough to feel that there must not be anything between you and the Supreme, there cannot be anyone between you and the Supreme. Let us say that the Supreme is ahead of you and between you and Him there are obstructions. You will not yield to any obstruction. If there is something between you and your goal, you have to jump over it or go around it or pierce through it. You won't surrender to the wall that is between you and the Beloved Supreme. When you have that kind of courage, when you can convince yourself that you exist only for the Supreme, both in the inner world and in the outer world, then you will really run inwardly.

In the inner world you are always aware that without the Supreme you cannot exist even for a fleeting second. But in the outer world you can easily exist without thinking of the Supreme for two or three days. You have family problems; you have so many responsibilities. If the Supreme does not enter into your mind for two or three days, you will still eat the same food, still go to the office, still do everything. But in the inner world you can’t do that. There you can’t live without the Supreme even for a second. Here you can very peacefully stay for quite a long time. But when you have the awareness or the feeling that you can’t exist without the Supreme in the outer life either, then your progress in the inner life becomes more powerful.

When you are outwardly strong, soulfully strong, then inwardly your speed increases. Again, when you become very strong inwardly, then outwardly you make progress. So, since you are asking me how you can run very fast inwardly, I will say that outwardly be very brave. Feel that you exist only for the Supreme, not for anything or anybody else in God’s creation. Your Source is the Supreme. In that way automatically your speed increases. Be brave, braver, bravest. Then your speed will become fast, faster, fastest in the inner world. It is outer soulful courage that expedites the inner progress.

Question: Guru, when I have a feeling of emptiness, how can I tell if it's good or bad?

Sri Chinmoy: There are two types of emptiness. One emptiness is a very high state of consciousness when the seeker is at a very, very advanced stage or on the verge of realisation. That emptiness is the seeker’s receptivity. But in your case when you have emptiness, you have to feel that inside that emptiness something else is looming large, and that thing is called drowsiness. Not only are your eyelids drooping, but also your consciousness has fallen asleep, fast asleep. Because your consciousness is enjoying very good sleep, this emptiness comes.

For seekers at your stage, for the disciples that I am blessed with, emptiness comes because of the descent of consciousness. But again, there is another emptiness which is a very high state of consciousness. That is the absolute receptivity of one who is aware of the universal Consciousness, and is on the point of entering into the universal Consciousness. That kind of emptiness is not for you today. Tomorrow you will have it. Today, no.

Question: How can I increase my aspiration so that I can feel it all day?

Sri Chinmoy: There are quite a few ways to increase one’s aspiration. One way is to meditate for at least ten minutes a day early in the morning. When you take exercise, if you have been doing 50 pushups, then you try to do 60 or 70. This is how you increase your outer muscles. If you have been meditating well, then try to meditate longer — fifteen minutes or more. If you read 20 pages of my books every day, then please read 25 pages. If you listen to my songs for half an hour, try to increase it to 40 minutes. This is one easy way — by gradually increasing the inner muscles.

The inner muscles are faith, love, devotion, oneness and so on. These you can increase by doing two things: by increasing your purity and by increasing your gratitude. If you want to increase your aspiration, then you have to increase your purity and your gratitude. With purity you can increase everything, and with gratitude you can increase everything. You should offer gratitude to the Supreme every day because he has brought you to the right path, and He has given you a Master who sincerely and wholeheartedly loves you. For these things if you offer your gratitude to the Supreme, then your aspiration will increase.

Every day you can meditate on purity. Just repeat the word ‘purity’ devotedly and soulfully. In one of our Centres many years ago I spoke on how to increase or develop inner purity. Today you repeat ‘purity’ 100 times, tomorrow 200 times, the next day 300 times and so on up to 700 times. Then you come down day by day back to 100. You can say ‘purity’, or you can say ‘Aum’, or you can say ‘Supreme’. Like on a ladder, you climb up to reach the fruits, then you climb down and bring the fruits down with you. In order to increase aspiration, purity has to be increased and gratitude has to he increased. If gratitude increases, aspiration immediately increases. If purity increases, immediately aspiration increases.

Purity and gratitude are two excellent friends of yours, so you try to mix with them all the time. If you have a really good friend, you mix with that friend as much as you can. In the inner world, purity and gratitude are your two most intimate friends. If you can stay with them all the time, you are bound to feel your aspiration increasing at every moment. If you are fighting against something, if these friends of yours come to your aid, naturally your strength will increase, and you will be able to defeat your inner enemies.

Question: What can I do against being proud?

Sri Chinmoy: When you are proud of some achievement or capacity of yours, look around. If you are sincere, you will see that there is always somebody who far transcends you in that very thing. Suppose you feel that you have tremendous aspiration, inner cry, and your spiritual brothers and sisters are not as spiritual as you are, so you are proud. But look around. You have been comparing yourself with ten or twelve disciples. But we have about one thousand disciples. Now we have a yearbook which Jagari and Sudarshana have done. If pride comes to you because you are aspiring most intensely and others are useless, look at that book. Open it up and turn the pages. As soon as you begin to look, you will see that this person or that person has more aspiration than you, and immediately your pride will be smashed. Always compare yourself. If you are proud, of something, compare and see. In this world there will always be people who have far surpassed you. Immediately you will see it. This is the human way to conquer pride.

There is also a divine way to conquer pride. It is the way of oneness. How will you please God most? By keeping yourself aloof? By separating yourself from the rest of the world? By feeling that you exist only to lord it over others? No. You can maintain your pride, but it has to be transformed totally. You can say, “I am a chosen instrument of the Supreme; therefore it is beneath my dignity to dive into ignorance.” You maintain your pride, but make it divine pride. Human pride you transform or illumine.

Divine pride is the feeling that since I am a chosen instrument of the Supreme, for the Supreme, I can’t mix with falsehood anymore, I can’t mix with ignorance anymore, I can’t mix with earthly bondage anymore. Divine pride says, “I am one with the Supreme; I am one with His Creation. There is no difference between the Creator and the Creation. I am one with His Vision; I am one with His Reality; I am one with His Mission inseparably.” This kind of pride if you maintain, you are not making any mistake, because you are thinking of the highest capacity of your divinity all the time. If you are one with the Supreme, if you are His chosen instrument, then how can you do anything undivine? No, you can only do right things, divine things.

You do not have to get rid of your divine pride. Divine pride is oneness, inseparable oneness with the Supreme. If you can feel that you are the Supremely chosen instrument of the Beloved Supreme, then you can spread your wings. Today if you love a few people, tomorrow you can love God’s entire creation. You can feel your existence inside all human beings, because the Supreme is inside everyone. The only reason why you love me should be that the Supreme is inside me. Because of your love for the Supreme within, you can love each person. If you can establish your oneness with God the Creation, then you can easily maintain your divine pride, which is a positive emotion, not a negative one. But human pride, which makes you feel that you are superior in a particular thing, is undivine. That pride has to be transformed and illumined.

So from the practical point of view, when pride enters into you, please look around and see if there is someone who has surpassed you. If sincerity speaks, immediately you will see that he has surpassed you, or she has surpassed you. Then how can you really be proud? There is nothing to be proud of because there are others who have far surpassed you. The divine pride you can easily maintain, if you feel that the Supreme has chosen you to become His most perfect instrument. How can you become His most perfect instrument? By not mixing with ignorance anymore; by mixing all the time with simplicity, sincerity, humility, purity and other divine friends of yours. This is how you can free yourself from the human pride and, at the same time, divinely and supremely enjoy the divine pride which is inseparable absolute oneness with the Beloved Supreme, your Creator, your Source.

Question: What are the first outer signs that our inner progress is slowing down?

Sri Chinmoy: When enthusiasm goes away, that is the first sign that your progress is decreasing. When enthusiasm goes away, your inner progress has gone to sleep. If you want to delay doing something, knowing perfectly well that you can do it immediately, that is another sign of your decreasing inner progress. If you see that something has to be done, but you feel that you can do it tomorrow, then your inner progress has slowed down. If you decide that you will do it in two hours, then your inner progress has slowed down a little. But if you say, “I am doing it immediately,” then your progress has increased. A third sign is that when your brother and sister disciples have accomplished something, you cannot feel joy or oneness, either with the achievement or with the performer. Suppose your best friend Shraddha has taken a very beautiful picture, and everybody has appreciated it and him. If you say, “Oh, how I wish I could have become a photographer like Shraddha, only I could not,” then separativity has started. But if you say, “Oh, my friend Shraddha has done it. He is so nice to me, so kind to me. I am so glad that he has done it. That means I have done it.” When somebody achieves something, you should become one with the achievement and with the doer. The actual Doer is the Supreme, but on the material plane there is an instrument. So if you can become one with both the action and the doer, then your progress will increase. If you cannot establish your oneness with the action and the doer, then progress diminishes.

In your case, fortunately, this problem does not arise. You work very hard for the Supreme in me. You do not suffer from lack of enthusiasm; you don’t have that disease. I only wish you to get more hands, more helpers, more sincere people to help you. But in answering your question, I wish to say that lack of enthusiasm is the first outer sign when a seeker’s progress is not satisfactory. And the desire to delay doing anything is another sure sign. You do not know what is going to happen at the next moment in life; therefore, if you have decided to do something, that thing should be done immediately, sooner than at once. You should not allow the hostile forces to hear what you have inside your mind. If you start thinking, thinking, thinking about what you are going to do, immediately the hostile forces will hear it. They are always looking around; they are always curious to see what is happening in your life, in his life, in her life, in my life. So before they get a chance to see what is going on, before they are able to catch us, we must accomplish the thing. Once we have accomplished it, it cannot feed their malicious nature. But before we have accomplished it, while it is still in the planning stage, they have a chance to throw every possible obstacle in our way.

So when you have decided to do something, do it immediately. The theory that slow and steady wins the race is not for us. That is for ordinary human beings. Because we are chosen by the Supreme, we must run the fastest. When the command has come from the Supreme, He will take care of us. The command has come from the Supreme that the boat has to sail the fastest, so we do not have to worry. He will guide us. He has given us the necessary capacity.

Question: How can I concentrate better?

Sri Chinmoy: Kindly imagine inside your heart a flame. Right now the flame is tiny and flickering; it is not a powerful flame. But one day it will definitely become most powerful and most illumining. So every day before you pray and meditate, try to imagine inside your heart a flame, a burning flame. And please try to imagine that that flame is illumining your mind. You cannot concentrate according to your satisfaction because the mind is not focused. The mind is constantly thinking of many things. It has become a victim of many uncomely thoughts. The mind does not have proper illumination, so imagine a beautiful flame inside your heart, illumining you. Bring that illumining flame inside your mind. Then you will gradually see a streak of light inside your mind. When your mind starts getting illumined, it is very, very easy to concentrate for a long time, and also to concentrate more deeply.

Here is an exercise you can try to improve your concentration. Stand right in front of a wall, and put a dot on the wall right at the level of your third eye. It should be a black dot; you cannot use any other colour. Then you look at the mark. First look at it with your eyes wide open, and then gradually, gradually, close your eyes, but not totally. Try to see the black dot with the least vision of your human eyes. Then open your eyes wide, as large as possible. Make your eyes as wide as possible and then immediately try to make them as tiny as possible, so your vision is next to nothing. Then you repeat this again. After you have succeeded in this, keep your eyes open and try to feel that you are drilling a hole into the wall and entering.

Increase your determination to pierce through the wall. In a few minutes you will see that your body is here, but something of you has passed through the wall to the other side. Your power of concentration has taken you to the other side of the wall. Feel that on this side of the wall is the body, and on that side is the soul-power. The soul-power has gone to the other side of the wall. So from your body you look at your soul, and from your soul you look at your body. Let the body see the soul’s capacity, and let the soul see the body’s eagerness to become one with the soul. If you can do this exercise, your power of concentration will increase immensely and most rapidly.

To-morrow's Dawn

//[Continued from previous issue]//

183.

Be pure, be pure! Lo, God is fast approaching to teach you how to throw yourself into His Perfection-Arms and Satisfaction-Heart.

184.

Humanity’s greatest gift to Divinity is gratitude. Divinity’s greatest gift to humanity is certitude.

185.

In the spiritual life the days may merge into weeks, and weeks into months, but you will not be able to make any progress unless you become devotedly sincere to the Supreme Pilot within you.

186.

As in a split second God’s Compassion can illumine us, even so in a split second we can unreservedly please Him.

187.

Just take one slow step in God’s direction. Lo and behold, God has already taken ninety-nine steps, and is standing right in front of you.

188.

God’s Compassion-flood is always within the reach of a tearful heart.

189.

The seeker in us does not have to know how many miles away he is from the moon and the sun, as long as he knows the latitude and longitude of God’s unconditional Compassion.

190.

The thinking mind is international.
The loving heart is supra-national.
The illumining soul is universal.

191.

The physical laziness does not know that it is doing something wrong. The intellectual laziness knows perfectly well that it is doing something unhealthy. Yet it gladly does it.

192.

Let us have full faith that our heart of love will bring forth the divine energy requisite for satisfactory God-Oneness and God-Manifestation on earth.

193.

We love God to see His Face. God loves us to feel our heart.

194.

We must make friends with necessity and sincerity if we at all want to march forward in our eternal quest for excellence and transcendence.

195.

To smile with divinity is a formidable task. To cry with humanity is a noble task.

196.

Yesterday I enjoyed the Body’s possession.
Today I am enjoying life’s renunciation.
Tomorrow I shall enjoy the heart’s transformation.

[To be continued]

Are you dying for a dream?

Are you dying for a dream?
Then quickly come to me.
Beyond the welkin rim
I shall set your vision free.

Two thousandth song⁵

/Chalbo ami parama pita/
/Tomari pathe/
/Samarpaner giti geye/
/Dibasha rate/

O my Beloved Father Supreme,
Singing the song of my constant self-offering,
All day and night
I shall walk along with You.