Earth versus Heaven¹

Dear seekers, dear brothers and sisters, I have come here to be of service to you. To serve you is to please my Inner Pilot and your Inner Pilot. At this place I shall be giving seven spiritual talks. I wish to offer all these talks to the hallowed memory of the late President Kennedy who studied at Harvard. I wish to offer our experiences to the great soul, Kennedy, who envisioned a better America, and not only a better America but a better world. Let us take it as our bounden duty to offer our experiences and dedicated service to this most illustrious soul.

AUM

Here we are all seekers; therefore, we all must needs be lovers of God. A true lover of God is he who believes in God’s existence as both personal and impersonal. In His personal aspect God is all Heart. In His impersonal He is boundless Light, boundless Energy. In His personal aspect God’s Head is Heaven and God’s Heart is earth. Heaven is great because it owns God’s Head. Earth is good because it owns and treasures God’s Heart.

In Heaven we see God’s Eye. On earth we see God’s Feet. With God’s Eye we enter into His world of silence. With His Feet we follow Him into the world of sound, cosmic sound. In the world of silence we see God as many in the One. In the world of sound we see God as One in the many.

Earth is God’s progress-tree. Heaven is God’s success-fruit. Here God aspires in and through us. He achieves like a human being for earth-consciousness. He transcends His Height every day to offer to humanity success-fruit from Heaven-consciousness, which He showers on our devoted heads and surrendered hearts.

Here on earth we, the seekers of the ultimate Truth, listen to God and obey His commands which we feel deep in the inmost recesses of our hearts. He wants us to aspire like Him and climb up the mountain of realisation. In Heaven we do what God Himself does. We swim with Him in the sea of Light and Delight.

On earth there is only one question: who is God? In Heaven there is the answer: everybody is God. Here on earth each human being unconsciously represents God the ultimate Truth. But when he starts aspiring he comes to realise that God-realisation, God-revelation and God-manifestation are his birthrights.

AUM

Two supreme God-lovers: Sri Krishna and the Christ. Sri Krishna taught us that God is our eternal Friend. If we dive deep within, we will realise this Friend. We can easily play with Him in the garden of our heart.

The Christ taught us that God is our eternal Father. We are His children. We pray to our beloved Father to grant us Peace, Light and Bliss in infinite measure so that we can be perfect instruments of His, Him to serve, Him to love, Him to fulfil in His own way. When we dive deep within, we hear God’s message. He tells us that it is His bounden duty to feed us in Heaven and it is our bounden duty to feed Him on earth. He feeds us with His infinite ocean of Compassion, and we feed Him with a drop, an iota of gratitude.

We love Heaven because Heaven tells us secretly that we are of God, our source is God. We love earth because earth openly tells us that we are only for God and God alone.

The seeker of the ultimate Truth eventually discovers two things in the inmost recesses of his heart: what he has is God’s transcendental Beauty in Heaven, and what he is is God’s sempiternal Duty on earth.

Mother Earth, to you I bow. Father Heaven, to you I bow.

Intellectual versus spiritual²

He is intellectual. What does it mean? It means that the weight of his head far surpasses the weight of the rest of his body.

You are spiritual. What does it mean? It means that the weight of your heart far surpasses the weight of the rest of your body.

There is a striking difference between his head and your heart. His head quite often does not love his body. His head belittles the body’s capacity and the needs of the physical. But you have a different story to tell. Your heart loves your body. Your heart inspires your body to love God. From its own personal experiences your heart tells your body that there is only one way to be happy and fulfilled and that is to love God and serve God in every way.

Although his head does not care for God the infinite Light, infinite Energy, infinite Compassion, infinite Delight, still his head wants to capture God, measure God, bind God, scrutinize God. It is impossible, but his head wants to break and cut asunder God, the evolving Cosmic Tree.

But your heart does not want to capture God, bind God and measure God, for your heart knows that God is infinite, God is immortal. Your heart wants only to love God and surrender its very existence to God and God alone. Your heart cries for God and tries to live in God.

Inside his head there is the intellect. This intellect wants the world to kiss the dust of its feet. It wants to prove that its existence on earth is something meaningful and valuable.

Inside your heart is the light that tries to illumine the world within and without. Inside your heart is the love that unifies the inner world with the outer world. Inside your heart is the delight that immortalises your existence here on earth and there in Heaven.

Being an intellectual man, he tries to inform the world at large. Being a spiritual man, you try to transform the world within you and around you.

An intellectual man tries to compel the world around him to see what intellect can do. A spiritual man tries to offer to the world around him only what God wants him to offer and reveal.

My intellect-friend and my spirituality-friend play their respective roles. My intellect-friend fascinates me; my spirituality-friend illumines me. My intellect-friend has all the time in the world to criticise my shortcomings. My spirituality-friend forgives me day in and day out and accepts my mistakes as his very own. My spirituality-friend accepts me as I am. Slowly, steadily and unerringly my spirituality-friend carries me into the world of self-transcendence, where I eventually become inseparably one with the Beloved Supreme.

The intellect has an intimate friend: the reasoning mind. This reasoning mind is unfortunately quite often assailed by the doubting and suspicious mind. The mind of destruction has a free access to the suspicious mind. In the reasoning mind there is rarely any happiness. In the doubting and suspicious mind happiness is never to be found at all. On the contrary, there we notice the dance of destruction, total destruction.

Spirituality has a true friend: faith. This faith abides in the inmost recesses of our hearts. This faith embodies God, reveals God and manifests God. In the conscious embodiment of God, our faith brings us to our first destination. In the revelation of God, our faith carries us to our second destination. In the manifestation of God, our faith carries us to our third and ultimate destination.

In our day-to-day life, in our ordinary multifarious activities, what we need is intelligence. When we go one step forward in our outer life, we see that we need intellect. If we do not have intelligence, we cannot survive. If we do not have intellect we cannot see the truth in minute detail. Both intelligence and intellect know what ignorance is, but they do not consciously try to come out of ignorance-night.

In our inner life we have a bosom friend: intuition. Intuition is the life of the soul; intuition is the express train that expedites our Godward journey. Again, intuition's flame burns the past. It burns our undivine previous life. It illumines our present life. It brings to the fore the remote future within us. With our intuitive power we create a new life within us. With our intuitive power we grow into the very image of our Beloved Supreme.

The so-called intelligence, a seeker of the highest Truth does not need. Nor does he need the so-called intellect. What he needs is an inner cry. On the strength of his inner cry he can easily have a free access to the world of intuition. And inside intuition there looms large salvation, liberation and perfection.

The intelligence which we get from book knowledge cannot help us discover our inmost reality. It cannot help us reach the highest pinnacle. It is our inner cry that helps us dive into the deepest realm of our consciousness, that helps us climb up to the ever-transcending consciousness.

In India Sri Ramakrishna and other spiritual Masters of the highest order did not care for earthly knowledge or intellect. They cried only for God, like children, and intuition became their immediate friend, their constant and eternal friend. Here in the West the Christ also had intuition at his disposal. With his intuitive power he realised his Father and distributed his Father’s Light to the world at large. Intellect is of paramount importance when the physical in us no longer wants to remain submerged in lethargy, in darkest night. Intellect is a beginning rung in the evolving ladder of consciousness. But the intuition-rung is infinitely higher than the intellect-rung.

A seeker of the ultimate Truth may start his journey with knowledge and intellect, or he can start his journey directly from intuition. His inner cry can easily carry him to the intuition plane without entering into the intellectual world.

My intellect-teacher eventually tells me that he does not know the answer. My spirituality-teacher tells me that he knows everything. He tells me something else; he tells me that it is God alone who knows everything in and through him.

My intellect-friend is a mental giant. He wants to devour the world. My spirituality-friend is also a giant, a soulful giant. The soulful giant friend of mine wants to unburden God’s imponderable burden, God’s immeasurable burden. He wants to unburden God according to his capacity, according to the power of his receptivity which God has granted him out of His infinite Bounty.

One giant frightens the world and wants to devour the world. Another giant wants to put an end to the world’s excruciating pangs, wants to change the face and fate of the world radically so that here on earth the Kingdom of Heaven will become a living reality.

Eventually the intellectual giant will be transformed into a spiritual giant. When we are transformed, we feel that this world of ours need not and cannot remain always in ignorance-dream — that it need not and cannot consciously wallow in the pleasures of ignorance forever. In the transformation of the physical the reality of the Beyond claims us as its very own. In the transformation of the vital our aggressive animal qualities are transformed into the dynamism of the soul's light. In the transformation of the mind the finite loses its very raison d'etre in the light and delight of Infinity.

Questions and answers

Question: How can we disassociate ourselves from the desires of the flesh?

Sri Chinmoy: Let us imagine right in front of us two rooms. One room is the room of desire and the other room is the room of aspiration. When we enter into the room of desire, immediately we are caught by the life of pleasure, by the life of bondage, by the finite around us. Here we try to bind and possess everything as our very own. But before we bind something we see that we are already bound by it. Before we possess something as our own we see that we are already possessed by that thing. We see that others are ruling our lives, others are lording it over us. But when we enter into the other room, the room of aspiration, immediately we feel that there is something far beyond the physical. In that room we feel that the body is not all, but God is all. In order to realise that God is all, we have to make friends with our soul. If we remain or live inside the room of aspiration, we see our eternal friend, the soul. And the soul teaches us how to drink in divine nectar and how we can always remain far away from the sea of ignorance.

It is up to us to remain in the room of aspiration. In this room there is constant inner progress. Here we sing the song of self-transcendence. If we want to disassociate ourselves from our desire-life, the best thing is to associate constantly, consciously and soulfully with our aspiration-life. If we associate with our aspiration-life, automatically the desire-life will begin to leave us. We will remain with the friend we have chosen as our very own, and this is our aspiration-friend.

Question: How can we build our intuitive power?

Sri Chinmoy: We can build our intuitive power speedily if we know what intuitive power actually is. Intuitive power is our soul’s light.

The body is like a house. You have a house with quite a few rooms. Each room has some vibration of yours. You may not spend most of your time in the kitchen, but just because you go to the kitchen to eat, it has your vibration. Each room you spend time in has some vibration of yours, but there is one particular room where you spend most of your time, and this room is bound to have your vibration to the greatest extent.

It is the same thing with the soul. The soul is inside the body; that is why you are still alive. If the soul-bird flies away, you will die. The consciousness, the light of the soul permeates your whole body. The light that the soul emanates is found from the sole of your feet to the crown of your head. But there is a specific place where the soul lives and is always available, and that is inside the inmost recesses of your heart. When you pray and meditate, if you try to enter into the heart or bring the heart to the fore, you can easily develop your intuitive power.

Or you can try to feel in your outer existence that you are nothing but the heart. In everything you claim as your own, in all your limbs, feel only the reality of the heart. If you think of your ears, feel that these two ears are nothing but a reflection of the heart itself. If you look at your finger, think that it is an expression of your heart. The heart means love and oneness. When you think of oneness, when you feel that oneness of your body with your spiritual heart, you become the universal reality. When you become the universal reality, when you claim this reality as your very own, you will see that the universal reality needs something to reveal itself, to manifest itself, to fulfil itself, and that is intuitive power. If you can focus your attention on the heart soulfully and devotedly, then you will develop slowly, steadily, confidently and unerringly the intuitive power.

Question: How can we purify our minds?

Sri Chinmoy: We can purify the mind either by emptying the mind or by invoking light from above or from within. We can think of the mind as a vessel. The vessel is full of dirty, filthy water, let us say. If we empty it, then only do we get the opportunity to fill it up again with pure water. Or we can think of the mind as a dark room, a room that has not seen light for many, many years. If we take the mind as a dark room, we see that we need someone who can bring light into the room. That person is the soul. So we have to make friends with the soul. We have to invoke this most intimate friend who has the capacity to help us and the willingness to illumine anything that is dark within us. We have to consciously feel that we need the soul just as we need the body. If our need is sincere and genuine, then the soul will come forward and illumine the darkness that we have in our minds.

Question: Do you advise one to leave society in order to make spiritual progress?

Sri Chinmoy: No, I will never advise anybody to leave society. You want to leave society because you are afraid society will pull you down. But if you go deep within, you will see that it is not society that pulls you down; it is your own mind. It is the unruly mind, the undivine mind, that pulls you down. You may be afraid of society and want to enter into the Himalayan caves, but I wish to say that there also your mind will dog you. If your mind is illumined, if your mind is transformed and purified, then you can live anywhere you want to. If you want to escape from society, you will never be able to see the face of reality. It is not the spiritual hero, it is the culprit in you who wants to escape. If you have not done anything wrong, why do you have to escape?

You may feel that your inner life, your efforts to renounce your own undivine thoughts, undivine qualities, will suffer if you mix with society. You may feel that since the members of society are full of the same undivine qualities that you are suffering from, if you mix with them it will be very difficult to get rid of these undivine qualities. If you feel this, then you should remain a little aloof for your inner cure. You are sick and somebody else is sick. If both of you stay together all the time, neither one will be cured. It is for your good and his good that, for some time, you remain a little apart. Once you are totally cured, you can come and cure your friend who is suffering. But to leave your friend altogether, to never again look at his face because you feel that if you mix with him you will also become a victim to suffering — this is a mistake.

We shall not shun society completely. We shall let the inner being be the judge as to how much we can mix with the members of society. In our spiritual life we have to know whether we are a huge banyan tree or only a tiny plant. If we are a tiny plant, we have to be very careful, because at any moment we can be uprooted and destroyed. But if we have become a huge tree, then we don’t have to be afraid of anything.

Question: Could you kindly explain what samadhi is and whether there is a state of consciousness higher than this?

Sri Chinmoy: There are three types of samadhi: Savikalpa samadhi, Nirvikalpa samadhi and Sahaja samadhi. In Savikalpa samadhi there can be thoughts inside the trance, but the trance will not be disturbed or perturbed. The thoughts are like children playing in a room when the father is deeply absorbed in his studies. The children are playing, but they do not disturb him. So in Savikalpa samadhi there can be a turbulence of thoughts and ideas, but the divine trance that the seeker is enjoying will not be affected.

In Nirvikalpa samadhi there is no thought, no idea, nothing whatsoever. All is tranquility, or you can say tranquility’s flood. Here nature’s dance comes to an end. The restless activity of human nature cannot play its role. There is no thought, no idea, no form, only the transcendental Silence and boundless Peace, Light and Delight. In this expanse of infinite Peace, Light and Delight there exist only the seeker and his Beloved Supreme, who have become one.

Then comes a samadhi known as Sahaja samadhi. In this samadhi, after having attained the highest realm of consciousness, one can remain on earth and enter into multifarious activities while maintaining his highest realisation. It is as if one is sitting quietly inside a jet plane, which is flying at a speed of seven-hundred miles per hour, but one does not notice any motion at all. In Sahaja samadhi one maintains the highest transcendental consciousness within and, at the same time, throws himself into the world’s activities in order to transform humanity and free humanity from ignorance. This samadhi is for those who have reached the Highest and whom the Highest Absolute Supreme wants to manifest Himself in and through.

Fathers' Day Meditation

Norwalk Meditation for Sri Chinmoy

A special Father’s Day Meditation was held Saturday, June 14 in the garden of the Norwalk Sri Chinmoy Centre, 80 Perry avenue. The program consisted of seven hours of silent meditation led by Sri Chinmoy, director of the United Nations Meditation Group. Present were 200 people, mostly members of the Norwalk Sri Chinmoy Centre. Also attending were members of Sri Chinmoy Centres of Chicago, San Francisco, Miami and Canada who came specifically for this event.

The meditation began at 6 A.M. and ended at 5 P.M. with several intervening breaks. After the meditation a 13 course vegetarian meal topped the festivities.

Several members of the Norwalk group also attended a similar meditation at the Sri Chinmoy Centre in Queens, N. Y. held the next day, which lasted for 14 hours.

Sri Chinmoy conducts regular meditations at the Norwalk centre every Saturday at 1 P.M.

— from The Norwalk Hour

Wednesday, 18 June 1975

Questions asked by Dulal, President of the New York Sri Chinmoy Centre

Question: How can I see the light of my soul?

Sri Chinmoy: You have to feel that you are not the body, you are not the vital, you are not the mind, you are not the heart, but you are the soul itself. In order to have this experience you have to feel that you need God and God needs you. You need God to raise your consciousness as high as possible — high, higher, highest. God needs you to manifest Himself in and through you here on earth.

Question: Can Bliss be experienced by man on earth?

Sri Chinmoy: Certainly Bliss can be experienced by man on earth, but not by an ordinary man. It can be experienced by spiritual men who know that God is the only Reality and who try to experience God in and through everything. A seeker of the highest absolute Truth is bound to experience Bliss in the course of time, when the God-Hour strikes. Bliss can easily be experienced, but for that experience real preparation is necessary. Otherwise it happens that many times we confuse pleasure with Bliss. When we have real Bliss, we get an inner sensation inside our heart, a kind of ecstatic peak inside our heart.

Question: Does creation continuously renew itself?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, creation continuously renews itself and, at the same time, it is in constant evolution. Creation is evolving; that is to say, God is evolving in and through His own creation. In our own life we make constant progress, which is our gradual transformation. So in God’s creation we see constant transformation, we see gradual progress.

Question: Is physical weariness an indication of lack of aspiration?

Sri Chinmoy: Sometimes it may happen that lack of aspiration is the cause of physical weariness. Otherwise, there are many reasons why one experiences physical weariness. But if one can aspire soulfully, consciously and constantly, then there can be no physical weariness because aspiration itself embodies new life, new energy, new hope, new dawn, new fulfilment. Such being the case, if one constantly remains in the world of aspiration, there can be no physical weariness.

Question: Why did God curse men with the lower vital?

Sri Chinmoy: God did not curse man with the lower vital. God gave us the dynamic, energetic, all-conquering vital to use for a divine purpose. But God also gave us limited freedom, and in the vital world we did not use this freedom properly. We entered into the world of ignorance-pleasure. God is like the father who gives his child a penny because he wants to see what the child will do with it. If the child uses it properly, then the father gives him a nickel, a dime, a quarter. When God gave us the vital, He wanted us to expand the vital, not use it to dominate others or to destroy others. He wanted us to spread the wings of dynamic energy so that we could put an end to the life of ignorance. But instead of putting an end to the life of ignorance, what do we do? We consciously cherish the life of ignorance; we wallow in the pleasures of ignorance. On the one hand, we are crying to come out of the sea of ignorance, and on the other hand, we are just jumping into the sea of ignorance.

From the highest spiritual point of view, everything exists with God’s approval and sanction. But we have to know that God, being the Author of all good, originally gave us only good, divine gifts. He gave us a little freedom so that we could also be like Him — good, divine, supreme beings. But instead of that, with our limited freedom we tried to destroy His creation, the ever-lasting, ever-illumining creation. The lower vital movements which we indulge in only increase our ignorance and bondage until finally we are devoured by them. God wants and needs us to use our capacities, potentialities and possibilities in a divine way so that at every moment we can make progress.

Question: Can God reveal Himself to the human mind?

Sri Chinmoy: Certainly, God can and does reveal Himself to the human mind, just as He reveals Himself to the human heart and the human soul. The only thing is that the mind has to be fully illumined first. Once the heart is awakened, it is possible for God to function satisfactorily in and through the aspiring heart. Similarly, if the physical mind, intellectual mind, sophisticated mind is awakened and illumined by the light of the heart, which comes from the soul, then God can easily reveal and manifest Himself there, too. But the physical mind has to aspire consciously. It has to invoke light from above. Once it is illumined, then God will definitely reveal Himself in and through the human mind.

Question: Can a crying heart ever displease God?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, it can. Unless it is perfect, it can displease God even while it is crying. It can cry for peace, light and bliss for half an hour and then it may not cry any more or it may cry for earthly gifts, for earthly name and fame. While it is crying for peace, light and bliss, definitely it is pleasing God. But how long does a heart cry for light, truth and bliss? For half an hour or so. Then the same heart will mix with the impure mind, or the aggressive devouring vital will enter into the heart. Then the heart becomes a victim to the undivine members of the family. At that time, naturally the heart will displease God. But while the heart is crying for peace, light and bliss, definitely it will not displease God. It will always please God at that time.

Question: What prevents the soul from manifesting its divinity?

Sri Chinmoy: When the physical, the vital, the mind and the heart are not co-operating with the soul, the soul finds it difficult to manifest its divinity. The soul has infinite Peace, Light and Bliss, and the soul has the potentiality and capacity to manifest the Light of the Supreme. But if the body, the vital, the mind and the heart consciously refuse to accept the soul’s light, the soul’s mission will be temporarily delayed. But all the unruly members of the family are bound to surrender to the soul's light eventually. We can expedite this event by consciously trying to become one with the soul’s Peace, Light and Bliss through our prayer and meditation.

Question: Can there be any life without spirit?

Sri Chinmoy: No, there cannot be any life without spirit. Here spirit refers to the divine, the transcendental Spirit with a capital “S”, and not to the vital beings that we call spirits. The transcendental Spirit is all-pervading; it is light, life-energy, silence. Without that, nothing can exist on earth. Without having a connection to the transcendental Reality, the transcendental Spirit, there cannot be any life either on earth or in Heaven.

Question: How can I learn to speak with God?

Sri Chinmoy: You can learn to speak with God by constantly feeling that there is Someone who is ready to talk with you, only you are not paying attention to Him because you are so fond of hearing the sound of your own voice. If you can start to feel that you have heard the sound of your own voice millions of times, and now you want to hear a much more meaningful and fruitful voice, then you will hear the Voice of God very clearly.

Again, there is a great difference between hearing and listening. You can hear the divine in me now, but you may not listen to it; you may not apply it to your day-to-day activities. If you hear what somebody says, its importance lasts for a second or two, or it may not last even for a second. But if you really listen, then the words are recorded on the tablet of your heart, inside your aspiring being. Then spontaneously that divine message will be manifested in your inner or outer activities. So if you want to learn to speak to God, I wish to tell you that you have to allow God to speak to you. You have to stop talking all the time. Then, when God speaks to you, you have to listen; you have to apply God’s divine Message in your day-to-day life.

Selected poems_

From Sri Chinmoy's forthcoming book Yesterday I Was a Crying Dream

Something between us

You are everything, my Lord.
I am nothing.
Can there be anything
Between You and me?

Yes, My son, there can be something
Between you and Me.

What is it, my Lord?

My son,
It is the union of your
Surrender-height
And
My Satisfaction-Delight.

Everybody and nobody

The difference
Between
Everybody and nobody
In earth-bound consciousness
Is this:
Everybody ceaselessly cries.
Nobody sincerely tries.

Nobody and everybody

The difference
Between
Nobody and everybody
In Heaven-free consciousness
Is this:
Nobody really becomes,
Everybody eternally is.

All have failed

All my exciting plans
Have failed.

All my stimulating ideas
Have failed.

All my elevating ideals
Have failed.

Why?
Why?
Why?
Because I have not done
The first thing first:
I have not loved God.

You and he love war

You and he love war,
But both of you have
Different ideas about war.
Your idea about war is:
Immediate destruction.
His idea about war is:
Slow, steady, unending torture.

God and I love peace

God and I love peace,
But both of us have
Different ideas about peace.
My idea about peace is:
Sleep — an unbroken, endless sleep.
God’s idea about peace is:
Oneness inseparable,
Oneness within,
Oneness without.

Stay wherever you want to

My sweet beloved Lord,
If You find it difficult
To stay in my mind,
Please stay at least in my heart.

If You find it difficult
To stay in my heart,
Please stay at least in my soul.

If you find it difficult
To stay in my soul,
Please stay wherever You want to.
I shall definitely
Come and meet You.
I promise,
And I shall do it.

Questions and answers on patriotism

Asked by disciples on a trip to Boston, 9 June 1975

Question: In what manner does a large physical object, such as a mountain, show its patriotism towards the country that it is in?

Sri Chinmoy: Here we have to know the spiritual significance of a mountain. A mountain signifies aspiration. It is climbing up high, higher, highest. If something in a country aspires, the country receives the benefit and profit. And the result of this aspiration is nothing but patriotic feeling, for the country and patriotic feelings are inseparable. In this case the country represents the individual, and inside the individual is his capacity, which is patriotism.

Question: What does the soul of America think of patriotism?

Sri Chinmoy: The soul of America is extremely fond of patriotism and proud of patriotism because it was the patriotic feeling of some brave, divine human beings that brought about liberty in America. America’s soul was in bondage. The soul could not come to the fore in the country as a whole. The life of reality could not come to the fore. But there came a time when a few heroic divine soldiers felt the necessity of liberating their country. The soul of America came forward to offer its own light and delight to these brave souls. The soul of America got the opportunity to inject the feeling of patriotism into these few selected children of America so that they could be true and humble instruments of God to please God according to their capacity, according to their understanding, according to their inner and outer awakening.

Question: Why do Americans tend to be unpatriotic?

Sri Chinmoy: Unfortunately I cannot see eye to eye with your assumption. You think that Americans are unpatriotic precisely because some of your friends or some Americans pay no attention to patriotism. When they see people talking about patriotism, they feel that in the name of patriotism these people are becoming prosperous or well known, while true patriotic feeling, true love of their country, they badly lack. There are people of that type, no doubt. But I wish to say that America on the whole has tremendous patriotic feelings. If there had been no patriotic feeling, there would not have been a revolution. Now we are observing the bicentennial because Americans do have these feelings.

Americans fought and they won the victory. At that time it was America’s personal need, immediate need, to be freed from English rule. Now America has a wider vision and that vision is called principle. Whether the principle is divine or undivine, perfect or imperfect, is up to God to judge. Only God knows which human principles are correct or incorrect. But America has a principle of its own and America feels that that principle comes from the very depth of its heart, from the inmost recesses of its heart. If that principle is thwarted or challenged, naturally America tries to prove the efficacy, the capacity, the reality, the divinity of that principle.

Wherever America’s principles are attacked, America goes to fight for its cause. When two of your neighbours are fighting, you will naturally take the side of the one you like because he has the same opinion as you have. Patriotic feeling is not limited to your own country. It is founded upon principle. You love your country and gradually your love of your country increases until it becomes a love of the entire world. America did not enter the first world war until other countries needed help in order to preserve the principles of freedom that America stands for. Then America came to the rescue. America took the side of the Divine in both world wars. Is this not America’s patriotic contribution to the world? If one country is attacked by another country and is going to be destroyed, if America comes to its rescue, what does it prove? America not only loves itself but it loves other countries as well. America could have said, “Let us remain at peace.” America could have remained peaceful during World War One. Only toward the end of World War Two America was also being attacked, and at that time America could have fought only against her direct attackers. But America stood up for the entire freedom-loving world. America has that kind of wide patriotism.

If there are some individuals who exploit the term patriotism, we can’t say that Americans have no patriotism. Just, because some Americans have a cynical attitude toward patriotism that doesn’t mean Americans have lost their patriotic feeling. Far from it. We see some individuals who have a cynical view of patriotism, but these people are very few. The only thing is that if we see one bad person who is doing something very undivine while ten persons are doing the divine thing, instead of ignoring that one person we make a mountain out of a molehill. We pay attention to the one person who is undivine, and we ignore the fact that ten individuals are good, wise, divine. When one person in a group is not listening to the captain, everybody will pay attention to him, whereas to the ten who are listening devotedly, we don’t pay any attention. Anything that is not disciplined, that is contrary to the proper rule, draws our immediate attention. We feed our curiosity by observing the fact, and then we tell others that this is what the reality is. But reality is something which everybody must feel from within. If we go deep within, we will feel that America does have a tremendous sense of patriotism.

Question: How can I increase my patriotism?

Sri Chinmoy: You can increase your patriotism by increasing your heart-power. Think of yourself as a climber who can climb up a tree. Now, you know how to climb up a tree, but your little brother does not know how to climb. You climb up the tree and pluck a few mangoes from the top of the tree. Then what happens? You come down because you see that your younger brother does not know how to climb up. He is at the foot of the tree looking for a mango and expecting your return. He is eagerly waiting for you so that he can get a few mangoes from you.

You can climb up inwardly with your spiritual feeling and get a little peace, light and bliss. You see that your countrymen, your little brothers and sisters, need that peace, light and bliss in order to feed themselves, so you share it with them as much as you can. You can increase your patriotism only by loving your countrymen more. If there are people who want to have the thing that you have received and achieved on a higher plane, if you bring it down and distribute it to them, that means you love your countrymen. You have given what you have to those who were not in a position to get what they really want and need by themselves.

Bankers Trust Company

280 PARK AVENUE, NEW YORK

J. PHILLIP BURGESS, ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT TELEPHONE 212 692-5577

MAILING ADDRESS POST OFFICE BOX 318 CHURCH STREET STATION NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10015

July 11, 1975

Sri Chinmoy 85-45 149th Street Jamaica, New York 11435

Dear Sir:

Thank you for letting Bankers Trust Company host an exhibition of reproductions of your work at our office at the corner of Third Avenue and 52nd Street from May 22 to June 17, 1975.

The exhibition attracted considerable attention both from passers by on the street and from visitors inside the office.

May you have every success in your artistic endeavors.

Sincerely,

JPB/bsc

Asha nadi boye jai — Bengali song

Asha nadi boye jai

Asha nadi boye jai asha nadi
Hasi parabar ajanar kole
Asha sathe ami kandi nirabadhi
Prabhu sathe nachi ananda dole

Hope-river flows, hope-river flows.
In the lap of the unknown
Is the river of smile.
At every moment I cry and weep with hope;
Again, it is I who dance with my Lord
In the swing of delight.