Picture

Father Heaven, I am of Your constant Compassion.
Mother Earth, I am for Your instant Satisfaction.

— photo by Peter Neumann

Prayer

What is prayer? Prayer is possession. What is prayer? Prayer is renunciation. What is prayer? Prayer is fulfilment.

With our human prayer we possess. With our divine prayer we renounce. With our supreme prayer we fulfil — we fulfil the Will of the Supreme soulfully, unreservedly and unconditionally.

The human prayer says, “Lord, give me.” The divine prayer says, “Lord, take me.” The supreme prayer says, “Lord, give me, if so is Your Will; take me, if so is Your Will. I have only one message for You: I am all for You, only for You.”

Human prayer says, “Lord, give me what You have, and make me happy.” Divine prayer says, “Lord, take me, along with all my possessions, and make me happy.” The supreme prayer says, “Lord, in me and in others, please Yourself only in Your own way, and thus make me happy.”

Earth’s prayer is a slowly ascending cry. Heaven’s prayer is a speedily spreading smile. Earth prays for the immortal life. Heaven prays for the eternal satisfaction. Earth-prayer is God-Beauty’s Perfection. Heaven-prayer is God-Duty’s Satisfaction.

Prayer has a soulful brother, meditation. Prayer’s God is high above. Meditation’s God is deep within. Prayer is the strongest intensity in a seeker’s life. Meditation is the steadiest immensity in a seeker’s heart. Prayer’s God is greatness and goodness. Meditation’s God is fulness and oneness. When I pray, I speak to God devotedly. When I meditate, God speaks to me affectionately. This is how we enjoy our fruitful conversation.

On the strength of my prayer I can go to God. On the strength of my meditation I bring God to me. I go to God and tell Him what He can most compassionately do for me. God comes to me and tells me what I can cheerfully do for Him. Prayer is humanity’s momentous success. Meditation is divinity’s continuous progress. Prayer’s ultimate goal is God-Infinity’s Sound-Glory. Meditation’s ultimate goal is God-Eternity’s Silence-Beauty.

Peace¹

Peace. Peace. Peace.

Peace is love unmistakably realised.
Peace is joy unreservedly shared.
Peace is oneness soulfully expanded.
Peace is fulness permanently founded.

The animal consciousness is completely unaware of peace.

The human consciousness is rarely aware of peace.

The divine consciousness is constantly and lovingly aware of peace.

The supreme Consciousness is constantly, lovingly and blessingfully aware of peace.

Peace is the inner man’s inner goodness.
Peace is the outer man’s outer greatness.

Goodness proceeds.
Goodness loves.
Goodness serves.
Goodness proceeds along Eternity’s Road.
Goodness loves God the Creator.
Goodness serves God the Creation.

Greatness succeeds.
Greatness sings.
Greatness dances.
Greatness succeeds in the battlefield of life.
Greatness sings the real victory-song.
Greatness dances the real freedom-dance.

Goodness reveals God the Silence-Creator.
Greatness fulfils God the Sound-Creation.

The inner peace and the outer peace are interdependent. The inner peace grows. The outer peace glows. The inner peace feeds. The outer peace leads. The inner peace grows with Infinity. The outer peace glows with Eternity. The inner peace feeds the divine in us. The outer peace leads the human in us. The inner peace reveals God the transcendental Beauty. The outer peace fulfils God the universal Duty. The inner peace constantly awakens us to a higher and supreme reality.

Peace. Peace. The nations that seek peace more than anything else are divinely excellent. The individuals who seek peace more than anything else are divinely excellent. The nations and the individuals that have peace, both inner and outer, are supremely perfect.

The outer world hungers for power. What else is power, if not peace? The outer world hungers for satisfaction. What else is satisfaction, if not peace? Peace-power illumines the earth-consciousness. Peace-satisfaction fulfils the Heaven-reality.

Man hungers for world-dominion. Man thinks that world-dominion will give him satisfaction. To his wide surprise he finds that world-dominion is nothing short of sense-slavery. World-dominion is another name for shameless treachery. Not world-dominion, but world-union. Not world-conquest, but truth-quest.

Peace is self-mastery. Peace is God-discovery. The inner man who is fully awakened knows that self-mastery and God-discovery are of paramount importance. God-discovery is God’s Satisfaction in man. Self-mastery is the perfection of man in God. Man’s perfection in God and God’s Satisfaction in man can change the face of today’s world. Today’s world can be transformed into God’s Perfection-Dream, which is flooded with Light and Delight, only when we the seekers cry for peace, peace alone.

Poems

This body

This body’s birth
Helplessly
Smiles at the fast-approaching death.

This body’s death
Ruthlessly
Roars at the fast-diminishing birth.

Not available

Rest-life not available on earth.
Never.
Pleasure-life not available in Heaven.
Never.
Dissatisfaction-life not available in God.
Never.

O my desire-life

O my desire-life,
Why do you force me
Always
To carry this heavy load
Of constant grief?
Why?
Why?

O my aspiration-life,
I am dying for you.
I really am.
Where do you hide?
How do you hide?
Why do you hide?
Why?
Why?

I remember

I remember with my tearful heart
My total failure-life.

I shall remember with my joyful soul
My complete success-life,
My perfect progress-breath,
My sweet Lord’s Himalayan
Satisfaction-Smile.

Nourish your searching mind

Nourish your searching mind.
You will be happy.
Nourish your serving heart.
You will be more happy.
Nourish your loving soul.
You will be most happy.

Scoffers and defamers

Scoffers and defamers:
Where are they?
They are everywhere.
Scoffers and defamers:
Who are they?
They are my own
Ignorance-loving brothers
And
Ignorance-feeding sisters.

O my mind-song

O my mind-song,
I have sung you many many times.
I am now bored.
I now want to unlearn you.

O my heart-song,
I have not sung you even once.
I am all eagerness.
I am now crying and dying to learn you.

Another God

Man’s birth tells the world
He can be another God.
Man’s death tells the world
He will be granted another chance,
No, chance after chance,
Until verily he becomes
Another God.

My dream, my reality

I am God’s supremely chosen instrument:
So runs my faultless dream.

I am God’s stark failure
Right from the beginning:
So runs my unquestionable reality.

My sound-life, my silence-life

My sound-life tells me
What I eventually can become.

My silence-life tells me
Who I eternally am.

Compassion-sea and satisfaction-waves

1.

A true spiritual Master is he whose self-giving compassion and God-becoming love are bound to pass into the heart-currency of the human race, not only for humanity’s total perfection, but also for divinity’s complete satisfaction.

2.

To be the standard-bearer of the human race what my life needs is perfection in the thought-world and satisfaction in the action-world.

3.

Do you really love God? If so, then speak like God compassionately, and act like God unconditionally.

4.

The human in us desires patronage. The divine in us desires fellowship. Man appreciates patronage. God treasures fellowship.

5.

Obstructions loom large within and without. Nevertheless, like a kite I shall rise without fail against the wind.

6.

Because of your constant and unconditional love for God nobody can inspire you to do anything wrong.

7.

Even an adventitious meeting with a spiritual Master can totally transform the seeker’s life.

8.

Impurity is destroying the entire-world. Do you know the name of its main accomplice? Ingratitude-night.

9.

O my idle body, accelerate, accelerate! How many more years do you expect the goal to wait compassionately for you?

10.

O my impurity-vital and insincerity-mind, if you dare to abscond with my satisfaction-life, sooner than at once you will be caught by my purity-soul and sincerity-heart. My soul and heart are eager to help you. Just give them a chance. They will transform you not only radically but also unconditionally.

11.

God loved you, loves you and will always love you. But you will feel His Love infinitely more than you feel it now if you can soulfully say only once that you are of Him and for Him alone.

12.

The human heart is an ascending hope. The divine soul is a descending rope.

13.

Happy I am with my Lord’s Compassion-Feet. But happy I am not with my aspiration-heart, dedication-body and realisation-life.

14.

My mind does not know that it abides in its opinion-slavery. My heart does not know that it dwells in its aspiration-discovery.

[To be continued]

Questions and answers

//Sri Chinmoy:// Please ask me three most significant spiritual questions that nobody has ever asked me. The following questions were asked by U. at her birthday party on 30 January 1979.

Question: How can we inspire you?

Sri Chinmoy: You can inspire me by being sincerely, sincerely, sincerely happy. You can inspire me by being soulfully, soulfully, soulfully self-giving. You can inspire me only by smiling, and that smile has to come directly from the heart. When I look at your eyes, I must feel and see that your eyes have become mere instruments of your heart’s message or your heart’s reality.

On the physical plane you can inspire me by doing the things that I like. I like running. I like playing tennis. You run every day; therefore, you inspire me. And you play tennis; therefore, you inspire me. The things that I do, if you can also do in a divine way, according to your own capacity, then without fail you will inspire me to transcend my own capacities.

Question: One day I saw a father standing on the sidewalk holding his daughter. He looked serious and he was pretending that he was going to throw her into the traffic. But she was so secure that he would not do that, she was smiling and laughing. I don't feel that you want to throw me out, but how can I feel as secure as that child?

Sri Chinmoy: By this time you know that God has given me infinitely, infinitely more Compassion than any human parents. I have more Compassion even in the human way than most, if not all, human parents. But the divine heart that the Supreme has given me has infinitely more Compassion that the heart of any human being. Again, in the human heart also there is always room for comparison. Somebody has a smaller heart and somebody else has a bigger heart in a human way. Some people are kind, some people are generous, some people are sympathetic, some people have closeness and oneness with the suffering of the world. So in the human way also, God has given me, out of His infinite Compassion, an extremely, extremely, extremely vast heart.

When I am strict with someone, it doesn’t mean that my human heart is closed at that time. Far from it. My human heart has become inseparably one with the divine Heart, which is all Wisdom. The divine Heart knows the ultimate Reality, ultimate Truth, ultimate Divinity. If the human heart becomes inseparably one with the divine heart, when the divine heart wants to do something, the human heart knows perfectly well that that is the right thing, so it does the right thing in a divine way. An ordinary human being will think, “How could he do that? Even I could not have done that; even I could not have been so unkind.” But here the question of unkindness does not arise at all. It is only that the human heart has surrendered to the divine heart, which knows the ultimate Reality.

To come back to your question, if you have a sincere longing not to leave me, do not think I will ever want to inspire you or instigate you or compel you in some way to leave the path. No, it is not possible. When someone sincerely says, “I don’t want to leave you, so please don’t let me go,” I tell you, that person will never go. But there are some who outwardly say, “I don’t want to leave you,” but inwardly they have left me six months before or two years or even eight years before. Outwardly I may not tell them, “Go! You have been very undivine, very unaspiring,” but those people have left me long ago, in the inner world of aspiration and in the outer world of dedication. If I tell them outwardly that they should leave, they may feel that they have got the shock of their life. But actually they have left long ago. Only with infinite Compassion I wait and see if there is any hope. The doctor has said that the patient is about to die, but those who love him sincerely wait and pray that perhaps some miracle will take place and the patient will recover.

But I wish to say that if anybody sincerely says to me, “Don’t let me go; I don’t ever want to go,” if it comes directly from the heart of that person, I tell you that person can rest assured that I will never compel him to go. What actually happens is that people become complacent after a couple of years. They have worked for a while, so now they feel that they can enjoy their pension. But spirituality is not like that. At every moment a tug-of-war is going on between good thoughts and bad thoughts, between ignorance-night and wisdom-light. And, unfortunately, the undivine forces are much more vigilant. The divine forces have a complacent feeling. They think that since God is divine, God is perfect, God is dealing with Eternity, Infinity and Immortality, ultimately He will grant them the victory, because they have taken God’s side. True, they have taken God’s side, but that doesn’t mean that they can sleep most of the time and on occasions they can serve God. The divine forces know perfectly well that ultimately they will win; therefore, they take rest. It is like a very good runner who does not run his fastest in the race because he knows that ultimately he will win, whereas the weaker one tries his utmost to defeat the better runner. The hostile forces always like to attack us. When we succeed in one particular field, they attack us more vehemently. So when we achieve victory, we have to be very careful, for at that time the hostile forces will attack us most powerfully.

The thought-world is the most creative world or it is the most destructive world. One thought is enough to totally ruin the entire day for a sincere seeker. The bad seeker indulges in bad thoughts, undivine thoughts, unhealthy thoughts, vital thoughts all the time. His standard is at the foot of the tree, and he is more that willing to remain there. But seekers who experience good, divine, healthy thoughts most of the time know perfectly well the value of good thoughts and the value of bad thoughts. A sincere seeker will feel miserable if one undivine thought enters into his mind. Then he becomes insecure. But if he becomes deeply disturbed, he will not be able to transform that undivine thought into a divine thought. He should feel, “I am sorry I was not guarded, but since this thought has come, the thing to do is to fight it out.” You have to say to the bad thought: “You have come, but I have ten good thoughts to challenge you. Ten good things that I have done will come to retaliate.” In that way fight against the bad thought.

It is from the mental world that insecurity starts, not from the physical world or the vital world. In some rare cases insecurity starts in the psychic world when the heart mixes too much with the emotional vital. Then the heart becomes a prey to the vital forces; it becomes weak and it cannot feel the light or see the light of the soul, so it becomes really weak and insecure. Then insecurity starts in the heart. Otherwise, the heart always feels oneness with the soul, oneness with God, and it cannot be insecure. But the mind is so tricky and, at the same time, so helpless. The mind as such is not bad, but thoughts come and strike the mind, and then the mind gets agitated. If you can remain thoughtless — not like an idiot, but thoughtless in the sense that the mind is absolutely calm and quiet — then you will constantly feel peace in boundless measure. When you feel peace in infinite measure, the question of insecurity does not arise.

Insecure people are digging their own graves at every moment. People who are secure are climbing up the tree of evolution at every moment. Security must be based on the Supreme’s Compassion. It is not because I have done this, not because I have said this, that the Supreme has granted me security, but because He knows that I am entirely His. I shall always be for Him, because He has given me the capacity to be on His side. Otherwise, I shall always be only for myself. Because He has given me the capacity, He is giving me the capacity and He will be giving me the capacity, I am on His side.

Question: What is the best way of making progress?

Sri Chinmoy: The absolutely best way of making progress is by constantly praying to the Supreme to fulfil Himself in His own way through you. There is nothing wrong with praying to the Supreme for peace, light and bliss, or for anything that is really good. But if you want to go beyond that, then you will pray, “Please fulfil Yourself in and through me in Your own way.” That is absolutely the best way to make progress. Occasionally you may feel that you need something specific for your human or divine personality, and you will ask for peace, light, bliss or some other divine attributes, which will help you to realise God and fulfil God in God’s own way.

The best way to make progress is to pray to God to fulfil Himself in and through you in His own way. But if you can’t do that all the time, then do the second best thing, which is to pray for peace, light, bliss and other divine qualities which will eventually take you to Him and enable you to please Him in His own way.

Question: I've been having some difficulty meditating. What would you say would be a good idea?³

Sri Chinmoy: No matter what kind of difficulties you are facing, it is always advisable to try to empty the mind. Most of our difficulties arise in the mind or from the mind, so if you can empty the mind, you will have no trouble meditating. Once you have peace of mind, all your difficulties — physical, vital, mental, psychological and otherwise — are bound to disappear. So please try to empty the mind. When you notice thought-waves inside your mind, try to destroy them, or at least banish them. Of course, there will come a time when you will have to illumine them. Eventually we have to illumine everything. If we do not illumine, we will remain imperfect. But at the beginning, the things that disturb us or delay our progress, we try to annihilate for the time being. So in your case and everybody else’s case it is advisable to empty the mind completely for half an hour or an hour or for as long as you can according to your inner capacity. Then you will have no difficulty whatsoever in meditating.

Question: Guru, how should we handle our parents who misunderstand the path and worry about us, and detach ourselves from our families when they stand in the way of our progress?

Sri Chinmoy: How old are you?

Seeker: Nineteen.

Sri Chinmoy: So you are no longer a minor. At the age of nineteen you are old enough to decide what is best for you, who can guide you, who can satisfy you. It is the Inner Pilot, the Supreme Pilot, who can satisfy you, nobody else. In order to attain free access to the Inner Pilot, it is necessary to have a spiritual teacher or Master, if your own commitment to your Inner Pilot is of paramount importance to you. When you are a minor it is a different matter. But when you are nineteen you have to take life seriously.

You have to decide what kind of satisfaction you want from life. Do you want desire-life satisfaction? If so, you are doomed to disappointment, for there is no satisfaction in the desire-life. But if you sincerely want aspiration-life satisfaction, you will discover that aspiration itself is satisfaction. It is not that from aspiration you will get satisfaction. No, while you are aspiring you will be satisfied, whereas while you are desiring you will become a victim to worries, anxieties and frustration. Even when your desires are fulfilled you are not satisfied. As soon as your desires are fulfilled, they multiply, and you become at that time a worse beggar. When you get $1 you want to have $10. When you get one car you want to have a better car. When one desire is fulfilled, immediately ten desires loom large in your body, vital and mind. But while you are aspiring, while you are trying to become a good, divine and perfect instrument of God, you are getting satisfaction. Even though you may see that perfection is still a far cry, the very fact that you are walking along the right road, along the road of aspiration, gives you tremendous joy, and this joy is satisfaction.

There is only one thing in life that you really need, and that is abiding satisfaction. It is only from the spiritual life, from the inner cry, that you can get true satisfaction. You have to pay all attention to your inner cry; you have to feed the inner cry. God is inside your parents. God is inside each and every individual. So you can pray to the Supreme to do the needful inside your parents, and He will do it. Your soulful prayers He will answer. But if you want to curtail your spiritual life because your parents are hostile, then you will be committing a Himalayan blunder. If your inner cry is sincere and genuine, if you really want God and God alone, then God must come first in your life. Your choice entirely depends on your own heart’s inner cry, how sincerely you need God.

Question: You keep on mentioning God. What is the God you believe in?

Sri Chinmoy: I believe in both a personal God and an impersonal God; God with form and God without form. I use the term ‘Supreme’. But each individual has to discover God in his own way, from within, according to his inner need, according to his own inner satisfaction. God appears either with form or without form depending on the seeker’s need. Some seekers find it extremely easy to believe in a personal God, while others find it extremely easy to believe in an impersonal God. There is nothing wrong with either approach. God is at once personal and impersonal. He satisfies all seekers according to their own individual needs.

Question: During meditation I have the feeling that there is a stranger inside me looking out. It is not me looking out through my eyes, but someone else. Is that usual?

Sri Chinmoy: It is quite usual. It is nothing abnormal. At that time you are not identified with your body-consciousness. When you do this, you become the observer. That is to say, the soul-consciousness is observing the physical consciousness. When you feel that someone else is observing through your eyes it is the soul-consciousness that is observing the physical world. It is a very healthy, good experience, very inspiring.

Question: Can music change a person's consciousness?⁴

Sri Chinmoy: Music can change the consciousness provided it is the music that comes from the heart and enters into the heart. The music that touches the very depth of our heart can elevate our consciousness. God Himself is the Supreme Musician, and we are His children. Anything that our Beloved Lord Supreme does, if we can do it also, soulfully, according to our very limited capacity, it helps us to elevate our consciousness considerably. So soulful music is one of the instruments to help us raise our consciousness high, higher, highest, to the Absolute.

Question: I have sat through this meditation and have not felt my consciousness elevated at all. Why is that?

Sri Chinmoy: In order to have your consciousness elevated, you have to come as a seeker. When you come to a spiritual Master, you have to come with an open heart and a mind that is calm and quiet. The first thing which is required when you go to learn anything, even if you go to an ordinary teacher, is that you believe that the teacher knows the subject. Then, you must want to learn it. Similarly, in the spiritual life, you have to believe in spirituality, and then learn it in the way the teacher wishes to teach it. If you sat here and did not feel anything in my meditation, that is, unfortunately, your bad luck.

Question: Sri Chinmoy, considering all of humanity's past and present physical aggressions against each other and lack of inner peace and unity, do you foresee in our future, our physical future, a spiritual oneness and peace, complete peace, among nations and peoples?

Sri Chinmoy: Being a spiritual seeker and God-lover, I clearly see that today’s world of aggression, today’s world of negativity, quarrelling and fighting, will not last forever. We believe in progress. When we become sincere seekers, we see how many bad things we have to give up in order to become good. Today if you become good, tomorrow I will follow your example. Tomorrow I will try to become good, and the day after tomorrow somebody else will follow my example. This is how the whole of humanity changes. Today one nation comes forward with the message of peace, love and oneness. Then tomorrow another nation tries to do the same. Unfortunately, all the nations do not cry for peace, love and oneness all at once. First an individual realises the Truth, as the Christ did, and then other sincere seekers try to follow their example. The Lord Buddha, Krishna and other spiritual Masters of the highest magnitude realised the highest Absolute Truth and tried to offer it to the world at large. Their message is always the same: peace, love and oneness. Many have been inspired to try to follow their example.

When we pray soulfully, when we meditate sincerely, God, out of His infinite Bounty, showers His choice Blessings on us. Then today one individual becomes really good, tomorrow another individual, the day after tomorrow, somebody else. Individually we become good until collectively we are good. This is how a nation becomes good, and gradually other nations will follow that particular nation. Unfortunately, we cannot all become perfect at once. But slowly, steadily and unerringly, eventually all will become perfect, for our Source is all Perfection. The Supreme is all Perfection. He created us, and eventually we will also grow into His very Image.

Question: Does a person have to renounce the world in order to make spiritual progress?

Sri Chinmoy: Renunciation is an ancient spiritual concept. I can even say it is old-fashioned. The world is not at that stage of development anymore. Instead of renouncing the world, slowly and steadily we can illumine the world according to our inner spiritual capacity. There was a time in India when renunciation was advocated as a high spiritual goal. The Vedic seers of the hoary past taught us to renounce everything. “Neti neti,” “Not this, not that,” they said. Give up everything. But the spiritual Masters of the 19th and 20th centuries said, “If you give up everything, then what will you be able to do for God here on earth?”

Renunciation is not the best way, but transformation. If we have a desire, let us transform that desire into aspiration. That will be the right thing. If we enter into the world of aspiration, we can replace desire with aspiration. Then instead of praying for a house or a car, I will pray to God to give me peace of mind. If we cry to our Beloved Supreme for peace, love, light and bliss, only then shall we be happy and satisfied. So instead of renunciation, let us think of transformation of our nature. If our home is in darkness, what do we do? We try to put light into it. Similarly, if there is darkness in our own consciousness — in body, vital, mind or heart — then we shall pray to God and meditate on God to transform our darkness into light. Transformation of our nature is the right thing. God has created us. Now, if we renounce and neglect the body, the vital, the mind and the heart, how can He manifest Himself in and through us? The proper method is the transformation of our dark nature into an illumined nature.

Question: What is the difference between Truth and God? Does God have a form that we can see?

Sri Chinmoy: They are the same thing, like the obverse and reverse of the same coin. You cannot separate them. One side of the coin shows you one thing, and the other side shows you something else. So Truth and God are the same thing. God is Absolute Truth. He is formless and, at the same time, He has form. It is like water and ice — sometimes it is formless, sometimes it can take any form. God Himself can incarnate in a human body, as He did in the Christ. But at the same time, He is not limited to the physical. At one and the same moment He is in the spirit, invisible to our human eyes, He is in human form, or He may be the incarnation of the Absolute Truth or some other divine quality. When the Christ said, “I and my Father are one,” He was alive on earth to give that message. His followers saw Him, and since then millions and billions of people have believed in Him. God in human form has been seen by many with their human eyes, living in a human body. Again, in spiritual form He is always available to all human beings.

Song

//During the Christmas holidays groups of disciples from Europe, Canada and Puerto Rico participated in a singing competition. Each group sang the same seven songs in the same order. The competition was won by the Swiss and German boys. Following is one of the seven songs.//

Pujite tomar kamal charan

/Pujite tomar kamal charan/
/Shuno shuno mor hiya krandan/
/Dakite tomai jibana bhariya/
/Khudra amire rakhibo bandhiya/

To worship Your Lotus-Feet
Listen, listen to my heart’s tearful cries.
To invoke You all my life
I shall bind my little “i ”.