Father's Day Message — 1973¹

It is Father’s Day — a very special day — and I bless each one of you from my highest height and deepest depth.

I am your spiritual Father. You have an earthly father. Your connection with him lasts fifty or sixty years — for one incarnation. But your connection with me will last for eternity. In the ordinary life the father demands of the children and the children demand of the father. But we do not demand anything. In the spiritual life the relationship depends on give and give and give. What you have you give me and what I have I give you. What you have is your aspiration and what I have is my realisation. Here everything is self-offering. I am offering you what I have — realisation, and you are offering me what you have — aspiration. This is spiritual self-giving. Yours is spiritual self-giving and mine is spiritual self-giving. When we do this devotedly our oneness, inseparable oneness, will last for Eternity.

Poetry selections

AUM 1125-1129. The following five poems are taken from Sri Chinmoy's book entitled, 365 Father's Day Prayers: 1974.

Come

O Lord of inseparable oneness,
Come to me first.

O Lord of supernal love,
Come to me next.

O Lord of supreme glory,
Come to me last, very last.

Nowhere

Nowhere to live?
Try my heart-home.
I think you will like it.

Nowhere to sleep?
Try my soul-room.
I am sure you will love it,
Just love it.

For you alone

Father, here is my crying heart.
It is all for You,
For You alone.

Daughter, here is My shining Pride.
It is all for you,
For you alone.

Father, here is my smiling soul.
It is all for You.
For You alone.

Daughter, here is My ever-transcending Height.
It is all for you,
For you alone.

Excess beauty and excess stupidity

Father, what do You do
With Your excess Beauty?

Daughter, with My excess Beauty
I perform My extra Duty.

Daughter, what do you do
With your excess stupidity?

Father, with my excess stupidity
I delay Your Manifestation-necessity.

Truth, Heaven and God

Truth, my truth,
You are still unemployed.

Heaven, my Heaven,
You are still ignored.

God, my God,
You are still unsought.

Announcement

On Wednesday, 12 June, Sri Chinmoy had a significant interview with the Governor of Puerto Rico. The plaque pictured on the facing page was presented to Sri Chinmoy by the Governor during their meeting. The inscription reads:

THE PEOPLE OF PUERTO RICO
TAKE GREAT PRIDE IN HONORING

Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose

The world renowned Spiritual Master,
for his unprecedented and illumining
service to the Soul of our Island
and Humanity at large

HON. RAFAEL HERNANDEZ COLON
Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico

June 12, 1974

[Sri Chinmoy with Governor Colon.]

Short story — the death of Goroksha's Master

There was once a spiritual Master who was seventy-five years old. He was suffering from a very serious heart condition. Goroksha, one of the intimate disciples who had tremendous love for him, became very alarmed. Goroksha called in many eminent doctors, but the doctors could not cure his Master. Day by day the Master’s condition worsened. Finally, with a heavy heart, Goroksha went to a great occultist in order to find out whether his Master would long survive or whether his death was imminent.

The occultist, who happened to be a family friend, was extremely kind to Goroksha. He asked Goroksha about his wife and children, and Goroksha gave him all the news about them. The occultist was pleased with Goroksha and said, “Look here, I shall write down on a piece of paper exactly when your Master is going to die. There, now I have written the exact date, but I am sealing it in this envelope. It is entirely up to you to decide what to do with this envelope. If you open the envelope and see that your Master will live for a long time, then you will be very happy. On the other hand, if you see that your Master is going to live for only a few days, then because of your extreme sorrow you will be of no further use to your Master during the brief remainder of his stay on earth. But if, out of fear of losing your Master very soon, or out of a smug feeling that your Master will not die for another twenty or thirty years, you one day have the inclination simply to discard the envelope, I tell you, on that very day you yourself will die.”

One month passed and Goroksha did not open the envelope, nor did his Master die. Then Goroksha had a dream. In the dream he saw that his Master had died. His whole being was thrown into a sea of grief, and he became senseless. The next morning, even when he saw that his Master was still alive, his whole body continued trembling with uncontrollable fear. He felt that on that very day his Master was going to leave the body, so he told his family that he intended to discard the envelope. They immediately protested, “How can you do that? If you discard the envelope, you will die today.”

“That is what I want to do,” he replied. “I don’t want to see my Master’s death.”

Goroksha’s wife pleaded with him. “Master is an old man,” she said. “Even if he dies today, he has played his role. But you are only fifty years old. You should stay on earth for a long time to do Master’s work.”

“After Master’s passing, what joy will I have in life? If I will never see his beloved face again, what beauty will there be to appreciate on earth?” said Goroksha. “Other people can do Master’s work as well as I. I don’t want to stay on earth after his death. There will be nothing for me to live for.”

“But you know that for a great spiritual Master, the inner world and the outer world are the same,” said Goroksha’s son. “He does not have to stay on earth physically in order to guide us; his spiritual light and power will guide us even after he leaves the body.”

“True,” said Goroksha, “even when he leaves the physical body, he will continue guiding everyone as he does now. But I wish to say that I won’t be able to bear the loss of my Master. I strongly feel that Master will die soon, either today or tomorrow, and so the best thing will be for me to discard the envelope and die.”

Again Goroksha’s wife, daughter and son vehemently protested, but he was adamant. He tore the envelope into shreds and discarded it. And lo and behold, Goroksha got an immediate heart attack and died then and there.

When the Master learned of his dearest disciple’s death and of his dealings with the occultist from Goroksha’s grief-stricken family, he felt miserable. He said to himself, “I never knew, I never even suspected that my Goroksha was a rogue. I thought that he would work for me in my physical absence. Such a clever fellow! He has deserted me. Now I won’t be able to punish him here in this world, but I can enter the other world and send him back to earth again.” With that, using his occult power, the Master left the body and entered into the higher worlds in search of his dear disciple.

While he was travelling through the vital world in eager quest of Goroksha, the denizens of that world asked the Master, “Have you really entered into the soul’s world with the idea of sending your dearest disciple back to earth to work for you and propagate your views, or have you come here because you badly missed your dearest spiritual son on earth?”

The Master gave a broad smile to the denizens of the vital world and said, “It is up to you to decide.”

If you sincerely want peace in the outer world, then offer all your wisdom.

If you sincerely want peace in the inner world, then offer all your silence.

Questions on God — from the New York Centre

Question: Why does God hide from Himself?

Sri Chinmoy: God hides from Himself so that He can get ever-increasing joy from Himself-seeking.

Question: Is there any limit to God's Forgiveness?

Sri Chinmoy: As there is no limit to man’s ignorance, even so there is no limit to God’s Forgiveness. Man’s infinite ignorance can come to an end the day man becomes sincerity’s intensity and intensity’s sincerity. Sincerity’s intensity and intensity’s sincerity can be found only in cheerful and constant self-offering to the Will of the Inner Pilot.

Question: Does God like speed or patience more?

Sri Chinmoy: When God’s Hour strikes, He loves speed more. And when the Hour has not yet struck, He loves patience more. In your case God’s Hour has struck, so you should do away with your patience.

Question: What is God's favourite food?

Sri Chinmoy: God’s favourite food is man’s constant and soulful smile.

Question: What is the easiest way to make God love me?

Sri Chinmoy: The easiest way to make God love you is to make your mind feel that it is God’s business to perfect His entire creation and it is your business to grow into a garland of gratitude to God’s ever-illumining Life and ever-fulfilling Will. In your case, God does love you, but where is your heart to feel it? Where is your mind to think of it?

Question: When will we all see God?

Sri Chinmoy: We all have seen God; what we are trying to do now is consciously reveal God and soulfully manifest God.

Question: Why are some people closer to God than others?

Sri Chinmoy: God loves all His children equally, but some of His children are infinitely more devoted than others. Naturally, on the strength of their devotedness, constant love and constant surrender, they become much closer to God than others. God’s Love is like the sunlight. Sunlight is for everyone, but if someone wants to use more sunlight than someone else, naturally he will get more benefit. He who surrenders himself more to God gets the opportunity to use Him more. And how does God give him this opportunity? Just by making that person closer to Him.

Question: Does God ever doubt?

Sri Chinmoy: God does not doubt. God never doubts because His Light is all-illumining and all-fulfilling. There can be no doubt in illumination, and there can be no doubt in fulfilment.

Question: When am I pleasing God?

Sri Chinmoy: You are pleasing God when you feed your inner cry and when you fulfil the soulful wishes of your daughter, Vela.

Question: How can I open my heart of gratitude to God?

Sri Chinmoy: You can open your heart of gratitude to God just by repeating the word gratitude as you breathe in and out.

Question: Why does God like to play hide and seek?

Sri Chinmoy: God says that He likes to play hide and seek because it is the only way that He can know how much love He has for Himself and how much love man has for Him.

Question: Why can God change His mind?

Sri Chinmoy: God is all Freedom. He has every right to change His mind provided He knows that this change is going to be an improvement, a better accomplishment and a more fulfilling manifestation of light on earth. When you change your mind it is because your mind is restless and it cannot achieve anything substantial. But when God changes His mind He proves to Himself and others that His Capacity is endless.

[to be continued]

Questions on purity

AUM 1143-1145. On 1 February 1971, at the Connecticut Centre, Sri Chinmoy invited questions from his Connecticut disciples on purity.

Question: What is the most effective way I can attain purity?

Sri Chinmoy: The most effective way to attain purity in your case is through conscious offering of your life-breath to the Supreme. Early in the morning breathe in consciously seven times, and while you breathe in try to feel that you are actually breathing in through your heart and not through your nose. Try to feel that your breath is entering you through your heart centre. And while you are breathing out try to feel that your breath is going up, up to the top of your head, and out through the thousand-petaled lotus, the crown centre at the top of your head. If you can feel, and not just imagine, that you are breathing through your heart, immediately purity will enter and start revolving and functioning in you. When purity starts performing its role, impurity from the navel and below travels up and is released.

First the divine soldiers enter and see that the undivine soldiers are there. Then the opponents fight until the divine soldiers push the undivine soldiers up and throw them through the thousand-petaled lotus into the infinite cosmos. It is our mind that unconsciously attracts impurity, so we have to go beyond the mind. We have to carry the impure, undivine soldiers higher, and throw them into something which is beyond the mind. Do this early in the morning, and in the evening also, if possible. Then your system is bound to be purified.

Question: Guru, what is the highest kind of purity I can aspire to?

Sri Chinmoy: Purity in the physical. The lower physical and the emotional vital below the navel have to be purified totally. Human beings have purity to some extent in the heart. In the mind the quantity is very small. In the vital, purity is totally mixed with impurity. There dynamism and aggression play together, but aggression is impurity and dynamism is purity. Below the vital is the physical. There, because of inertia and sloth, darkness reigns supreme. And where there is darkness, you can rest assured that impurity is the lord.

You have to aspire for purity in the gross physical. How can you do it? It is through constant elevating prayer and constant inner cry for light. Light and darkness cannot stay together; it is impossible. Similarly, purity and impurity cannot stay together. When you pray for purity you have to feel that what you actually need is light. And you must not just repeat the word “purity” like a parrot. You should meditate on the transcendental Light. When light descends into your emotional vital and physical body, then automatically, spontaneously, the light will purify the conscious, the superconscious and the unconscious or lower worlds within you.

Please pray for and meditate on the inner light, the higher light, so that light can enter into your system and illumine you. First it will purify and then it will illumine your consciousness, which is now unconsciously expressing the physical truth: the world of temptation, frustration and destruction. You should try always to invoke light in the unaspiring body. The heart is aspiring, so you do not have to worry about it right now. It is the physical in you that needs radical transformation, and for that what you need is physical purity. Purity in the physical can be established only by bringing down light from above into the physical and lower vital consciousness, especially below the navel centre.

Question: Where should I concentrate my efforts towards purity, and how should I do so?

Sri Chinmoy: Everybody has to have a different centre on which to concentrate. In your case, try to concentrate on your forehead, on the third eye. I want you to forget the past totally. Your past has been a deplorable past. Even now the past is coming to the fore and eclipsing your present. This is a very sad situation. I wish to say that when you think of the past consciously or unconsciously, the impure thoughts and unfulfilled desires of the past will come to you; and when you unconsciously enjoy them, at that time you are actually cherishing impure thoughts, unhealthy thoughts.

From the past you cannot expect anything. It has already given you what it had to offer. The past offered you its wealth, but this wealth was not fulfilling; it was all frustration. And when you dwell upon this frustration you have to feel that you are consciously and deliberately entering into something obscure, uncertain, and more than that, unfulfilled.

What is unfulfilled, unrealised, unmanifested, from the spiritual point of view, is now unwelcome. Things that we want to manifest and reveal in a spiritual way have to be pure. When you concentrate on your third eye, try to look forward and envision the future — a future which is flooded with light and delight, where there is no darkness. When we see something with our ordinary eyes, very often we see through uncertainty, through bias, through unclear light, and whatever we see is not clear, certain or fulfilling. But when the third eye sees something, it sees through light, and it sees the light that is embodied in that thing. When we concentrate with the third eye everything is clear; there is no darkness; there can be no impurity.

So concentrate on the third eye and see the light, enter into the light, grow into the light. You will see that this light has given birth to purity. If you cherish the past, if you constantly dig up the grave of the past, you will only find obscurity and impurity. Run toward the light. Concentrate on the third eye, the Ajna Chakra, and you will see only light around you, before you and within you. Purity is there, within the light that you envision and the light that you are growing into.

[to be continued]

1.

Peace is fulfilled Delight.

Where Peace is, the light of Delight has replaced the right of ignorance-night.

Poetry selections

AUM 1147-1153. The following seven poems are taken from Sri Chinmoy's book entitled, //The Goal Is Won//.

Needless to say

Deeper than the sea
    Is devotion.
Who has it?
Not I, not I,
I solemnly declare.
God compassionately says:
“Amen.”
Needless to say, God is divine.

Vaster than the sky
    Is surrender.
Who has it?
Not I, not I,
I solemnly declare.
God proudly says:
“Amen."
Needless to say, God is perfect.

The bridge

I was the frustration-despair-bridge
    Between
My vital’s first dark hour
    And
My body’s last deep sleep.

I am the rapture-treasure-bridge
    Between
My heart’s birthless hour
    And
My soul’s deathless life.

They speak louder

Man’s passion-flood
Speaks louder than reason-sun.
    Man already knows it.

God’s Compassion-sea
Speaks louder than temptation-moon.
    When will man learn it?
    Will man ever learn it?
    No, never!

What and who

What is Heaven?
Harmonious madness.
    What is earth?
Contagious sadness.
    Who is God?
Precious Dream-sky.
    Who is man?
Suspicious reality-sigh.

Your life-book

Do you want to exclude something
From your life-book?
    Then
Exclude your doubt-chapter.
God will bless you
    Immediately.

Do you want to include something
In your life-book?
    Then
Include your confidence-chapter.
You will bless yourself
    Eternally.

Just wait and see

With Compassion-rain
God will clasp your life-dreams.
    Just wait and see.

    With Liberation-train
God will carry your heart-blossoms
    To His Promise-Paradise.
    Just wait and see.

    With Perfection-reign
God will offer you
    His Throne of Infinity’s Silence-light
    And
    His Crown of Eternity’s Sound-might.
    Just wait and see.

Why they are chosen

Do you want to know
    Why she is chosen?
She is chosen
    Because
She loves nobody else
    But God.

Do you want to know
    Why he is chosen?
He is chosen
    Because
He wants to challenge nobody else
    But God.

University lecture — friendship⁵

Dear sisters and brothers, dear seekers of the transcendental Truth, I wish to give a talk on friendship, which is the motto of Texas. Friendship is extremely significant in all phases of our life. Friendship is the bridge between two human beings. Friendship is the bridge between earth and Heaven. Friendship is the bridge between the known and the unknown.

Here on earth we try to establish friendship with our fellow human beings. Sometimes we are successful, sometimes we are not. But even when we are successful, this friendship does not satisfy us completely. Then we go deep within and discover our Eternal Friend, God, the Inner Pilot. God and each individual on earth are eternal friends. But only when we begin to aspire do we come to realise this truth.

There are three types of friendship: animal friendship, human friendship and divine friendship. The friendship that exploits us is animal friendship. The friendship that mutually helps two persons is human friendship. The friendship that unconditionally gives, that gives with no expectation whatsoever, is divine friendship.

Friendship can arise out of necessity and also out of generosity. If two human beings are in the desiring world, their friendship is founded upon necessity. But if one is in the desiring world and the other is in the aspiring world, then yre have to know that the friendship of the aspirant is founded upon generosity, while the friendship of the desiring person is based upon necessity.

Desire makes unending demands; its hunger can never be appeased. No matter how much experience or possession is accumulated, still satisfaction does not dawn in the heart of a desiring individual. Aspiration also has an eternal hunger, but when aspiration achieves an iota of Peace, Light and Bliss, it feels a kind of satisfaction. Although an aspirant aims to reach the Highest, the Absolute Pinnacle, although he longs for infinite Peace, Light and Bliss, an iota of Peace, Light and Bliss satisfies his grateful heart. But he knows that today’s achievement is not complete. If he looks forward, or dives deep within, or climbs high, higher, highest, he knows he is bound to be inundated with Peace, Light and Bliss in boundless measure. At God’s choice Hour, God will give the aspirant infinite Peace, Light and Bliss.

In our ordinary human life we have two friends: fear and doubt. Fear tells us, “Stay inside your body-cage, where you are safe. If you come out, the ferocious world-tiger will devour you, so don’t come out of the cage of your body.” Doubt tells us that our real friend is our physical mind, the mind that cautions us, that warns us, that tells us that the outer world is a real stranger. Doubt says, “If you allow the outer world to enter into you, it is like dealing with a stranger. At any moment you may be exploited, deserted and destroyed for good. Have no faith in anybody on earth. Expect nothing good from anybody on earth. You are your own saviour, you are your own salvation — you and nobody else. Exist for yourself.”

Now, the moment we are awakened, the moment our inner light comes to the fore and awakens us from our ignorance-sleep of millennia, we discover that fear and doubt are not our friends at all. Our true friends are courage, indomitable courage, and faith, boundless faith. Our inner courage tells us, “Go out, look around the rest of the world; all of earth’s inhabitants are your friends, your brothers and sisters. If you stay in your physical consciousness, you are binding yourself, you are limiting your possibilities and potentialities. Go out. The world is eagerly awaiting your arrival.” Our dear friend, faith, tells us, “We are all of the same Source and for the same Source, so how can we be afraid of others? The Source is one, but the One wanted to play the game of many. The tree is the Source, and the branches, flowers, leaves and fruits are the many. From the same root we all came into existence, so let us consciously establish our inseparable oneness with all human beings. Let us sing together, dance together and play together. In this way we will please and fulfil the Absolute Supreme with our universal oneness.”

Each individual has faith in something or in someone. We cannot say that someone has no faith at all. This moment he has faith in God, another moment he may have faith in himself and a third moment he may have faith in somebody or in something else. Now, when an individual has faith in God, he is in the world of aspiration and vastness, in the world of Infinity, Eternity and Immortality. When he has faith in himself, he is in the world of desire, in the world of possession, limitation, bondage and death. When he has faith in neither God nor himself, then he has faith in destruction — in world-destruction or in self-destruction. But he always has faith either in God or in himself or in some undivine force.

Here we are all seekers, so we shall have faith in God. If it is impossible for us to establish divine faith today, we can start with faith in ourselves. In spite of knowing that we are limited and bound, let us have faith in ourselves. Then this limitation and bondage of ours can be transcended on the strength of our inner cry. But if we have faith in an undivine force, a force that destroys, then in addition to destroying others, we will ourselves be destroyed. A similar thing happens when we have faith only in ourselves. We try to possess others, but before we can actually possess them, we are ourselves possessed. It is only in divine faith that we do not possess. There we just expand — expand our consciousness, expand our reality, expand what we have and what we are. But let us start, if necessary, with faith in ourselves, and then go beyond and attain divine faith. In divine faith we see that there is no end to our journey and achievement. We are in the flow of an ever-transcending, ever-illumining Reality, which is perfection.

Friendship is harmony, friendship is peace, friendship is bliss. Friendship is harmony. Mutual harmony removes all dark conflicts. Each individual has opinions of his own, but when friendship becomes the connecting link between two persons, all conflicts are removed and they become one.

Friendship is peace. Here, peace means confidence. I have confidence in you and you have confidence in me; our mutual confidence is peace. I shall not speak ill of you or try to ruin you; you will not speak ill of me or try to ruin me. On the contrary, I shall give you what I have: my love, my sympathy, my concern, my compassion, my total support of your cause, and you will do the same for me.

Friendship is bliss. When friendship lasts, it offers bliss. The Kingdom of Heaven is established when love inundates our beings, when the feeling of oneness reigns supreme and there is no sense of separativity. At that time illumining, fulfilling and perfect Perfection dawns in our life of aspiration. Thousands of years ago the Vedic seers offered us the message of bliss.

Ᾱnandādd hy eva khalv imāni bhūtāni jāyante…

Friendship is sweet when it is all harmony.
Friendship is sweeter when it is all peace.
Friendship is sweetest when it is all bliss.

Friendship is service, the dedicated service we offer to Mother Earth and Father Heaven. When we want to offer our dedicated service to Mother Earth, we pray to the Lord Supreme to grant us a life of ceaseless duration. When we want to offer our dedicated service to Father Heaven, we pray to the Lord Supreme to grant us a life of selfless contribution. With our service, Heaven gets the opportunity to manifest itself here on earth, and earth gets the opportunity to realise the Highest, the Absolute.

In the spiritual life friendship is founded on inner acceptance. A spiritual teacher and a seeker become one on the strength of their inner friendship. The seeker goes to a Master and says, “Master, I love you, I trust you, I give you my life.” The Master immediately says, “My son, I love you, I trust you and I give you my life and also God’s Life.” The disciple says, “Master, I offer you my solemn promise that I shall serve the Supreme in you.” The Master says, “Son, I offer you my solemn promise that unless and until I have taken you to our Father, the Absolute Supreme, I shall not rest. Your promise is just to me, but my promise is to two persons. Here on earth I am promising you that I shall carry you and guide you to the Golden Shores of the Beyond, and the same promise I am making to the Inner Pilot, who is your Master, my Master, the Eternal Master; to Him I am giving the same promise. With your friendship you will give me what you have: ignorance. With my friendship I will give you what I have and what I am: Wisdom-Light. This Wisdom-Light the Supreme has granted me out of His infinite Bounty, and this I offer to you. If you think that you are a beggar, then you must know that I am more of a beggar than you. You have to go begging only to one place, but my condition is more deplorable; I have to go to two places. I go to you with folded hands and beg you to give me your ignorance. Then I go to God with folded hands and beg Him to give me His Compassion-Light for you. I am the messenger between you and God. This is the friendship that I have established with earth and Heaven. Earth’s pangs and penuries I take to Heaven, to the Eternal Father in Heaven, and from Heaven I bring down Peace, Light and Bliss in abundant measure for sincere seekers.” This is the eternal friendship between the Master and the disciple.

The Master also says something else to his disciples. He says, “Your Master is not and can never be myself. The real Master is somebody else — the Supreme, the Absolute Supreme.” A spiritual teacher is only an elder brother to humanity. When seekers are aspiring for the Highest, the teacher shows them where the Father is. Once he leads them to the Father, his role is over. And the seeker of today becomes the leader, the teacher of mankind tomorrow. When his time comes, he shows aspiring humanity, his younger brothers and sisters, the same God, the same eternal Friend, the same transcendental Supreme, that his own teacher once showed him.

1.

Introduction is God the Love.
Conclusion is God the Peace.

Tumi shudhu bandu amar

[Bengali Transliteration]

/Tumi shudhu bandu amar/
/Tumi amar pran/
/Baul haye desh bideshe/
/Gahi jena bhalobese/
/Jiban bhare tomar jaya gan/
/Tumi shudhu bandu amar/
/Tumi amar pran/

[English Translation]

You are my only Friend,
You are my life.
Like a divine mendicant,
From one country to another
May I sing a song of You
With all my love.
May I sing the Song of Your Victory
all my life.

Aphorisms on peace

1.

Anger has an enemy: Peace.
Peace has no enemy.
Peace has a special friend: Joy.
Anger has only one friend: Destruction.

2.

God has peace of mind because He has thrown away expectation.

3.

Peace is the perfection of one’s mind and the divinisation of one’s thoughts.

4.

Man’s goal is Peace.
Peace feeds him, his life inner and outer.

5.

A life of aspiration is a life of peace.
A life of aspiration is a life of bliss.

6.

Peace begins when we come to realise that the world does not need our guidance.

7.

It is only through inner peace that we can have true outer freedom.

8.

God has infinite children, but the name of His fondest child is Peace.