2801. A feast in the inner world

If you pray for
The satisfaction of your inner hunger,
Your prayer will eventually be fulfilled.
Something more:
God will give a feast in the inner world
To the sincerely hungry seeker in you.

2802. Not looking for the reality

You say that nothing works
In your life.
If it is true, then I tell you,
Either you are not looking
For the reality proper,
Or you are not looking
For the reality in the proper place.

2803. An opportunist society

You want to trust
An opportunist society?
I tell you, to trust an opportunist society
Is no better than trusting
A voracious tiger.

2804. If you want guidance

If you want guidance,
Then look up
With a pure heart.

If you want guidance,
Then look within
With a doubt-freed mind.

2805. Insecurity, I am a clever man

Insecurity, I am a clever man.
I shall not be able
To keep you any more,
For you cannot help me
Become a prosperous seeker.
Insecurity, I do not wish
To keep you any more,
For I now clearly see
That you are more dangerous
Than a naked sword.

2806. The heart-grove

If you want to escape
From the mind-jungle,
Then appreciate and admire
Only the heart-grove.
The magnetic power of the heart-grove
Will free you from the mind-jungle
And pull you towards itself.

2807. Two discoveries

The discovery of my desire-life:
When I say that I know myself,
The animal in me
Fools the human in me.

The discovery of my aspiration-life:
When I say that I know myself,
The divine in me
Reveals the Supreme in me.

2808. The seed of self-observation

Your life is caught between
Outer conflicts and inner conflicts.
You want an escape from both.
There is only one escape,
And that is to
Prayerfully and consciously
Sow the seed of self-observation
Which will eventually germinate
And become an illumination-tree.

2809. What have you lost?

What have you lost
Since you have accepted the spiritual life?
Your mind has lost
Its stupidity.
Your heart has lost
Its impurity.
Your life has lost
Its insecurity.
Now tell me, would they have been
Really worthwhile to keep?

2810. Unparalleled quality

The unparalleled quality
Of your self-inquiry
Will always be
The unparalleled quality
Of your God-discovery.

2811. Sail in the right boat

If you want to reach your ideal shore,
Then right from the beginning
You have to sail in the right idea-boat.

2812. Two questions

Ask your heart
How to live.
Ask your soul
Why to live.
These two questions
Only your heart of love
And your soul of light
Can answer most adequately.

2813. Our real nature

Our real nature
Is not something we see through
Or others see through.
Our real nature
Is something that God Himself
Plays with, corrects and perfects
For His divine Enjoyment.

2814. Unless and until

Your vital wants security
And your mind wants clarity.
But I am telling you,
Unless and until
Your heart has purity-oneness,
Your mind cannot have clarity
And your vital cannot have security.

2815. A God-revealing faith

The sooner we start taking medicine
To cure our sick mind,
The sooner we shall be able
To cure ourselves.
Lo, the medicine
Is right before us:
A life-saving and God-revealing faith.

2816. Your sleepless faith

Whether you know it or not,
Your sleepless faith is taking you
To the right goal.
Why not follow it cheerfully
And, if possible, unconditionally?

2817. Fly with your soul-bird

Look at your soul-bird
Flying far above the snare of your mind.
Appreciate it, admire it and adore it!
Before long, you will be able to escape
The snare of the mind
And fly with your soul-bird.

2818. An unkind mind

If your mind tells you
That it can give you peace,
Then ask your mind
How it is that it has not
Been kind enough to do so
By this time.
You cannot trust an unkind mind.

2819. Permanent sunshine

Looking for favourable conditions
Is like looking for twenty-four hours
Of brilliant sunshine.
Brave the stormy day,
Brave the stormy night!
Then you will not have to look
For permanent sunshine.
The permanent sunshine will itself
Come to you and befriend you.

2820. You have shortened the distance

If you sincerely think and feel
That you have far to go
To reach the Golden Shore,
Then rest assured
That you have already shortened the distance.

2821. What we give

We say that we give one thing,
But we know what we actually give.
We say that we give
A beautiful rose,
But we know that what we give
Is a number of hurtful thorns.

2822. The fragrance of oneness-light

When you are right,
Everything around you is right,
Because the beautiful flow
That is inside your heart
Has the capacity to spread
Its fragrance of oneness-light
Around you.

2823. Only two safe places

There are only two safe places.
One is my purity’s
Inspiration-heart.
The other is my duty’s
Dedication-life.

2824. The flower and fruit

The inner fulness
And the outer soulfulness
Are the flower and fruit
Of the same aspiration-realisation-tree.

2825. Make the correct choice

Is there any time
When you do not surrender?
You surrender
Either to your mind’s ignorance-night
Or to your heart’s wisdom-light.
I pray to you
To make the correct choice.
That’s all!

2826. What is your own

Just try to see correctly
What is your own
And what is not your own.
The doubtful mind
Can never be your own.
The fearful heart
Can never be your own.
The slothful life
Can never be your own.

2827. A big favour

Ask your mind
To do you a big favour.
Let your mind
Give you a sincere attitude.

Ask your heart
To do you a big favour.
Let your heart
Grant you a pure hunger.

2828. Today's nectar-meal

How can we enjoy
Today’s nectar-meal
Unless we forgive
Yesterday’s stale food
And forget about
Tomorrow’s imaginary feast?

2829. A lamb-slave of man

If you want to become a lion-leader
To roar and manifest God,
Then at this very moment
Turn yourself into a lamb-slave of man,
The evolving God.

2830. We have to make ourselves ready

Either we have to invite
Ignorance-night to dine with us
Or we have to make ourselves ready
So that wisdom-light will send us an invitation.

2831. Because my game was a pleasure-life

Because my game was a pleasure-life,
Today I see nothing but pressure
Inside the heart
Of the inner world
And inside the body
Of the outer world.

2832. I have learnt many things

In the morning I am happy
To say I don’t know.
In the evening I am happy
To say that I have learnt
Many things during the day.
From Whom?
From the Compassion-Feet
Of my Lord Supreme
And the Forgiveness-Heart
Of my Lord Supreme.

2833. A power without equal

To say yes
Is to show power.
To say no
Is to show power.
To say my heart is of God
And my life is for God —
This is also a power,
And this power has no equal.

2834. Relief

Say to your doubting mind, “No!”
Say to your loving heart, “Yes!”
You will be relieved
From your nervous tensions.

2835. Nobody can dominate you

You always fear
A domineering person.
How is it that you do not fear
Your domineering vital?
Nobody can dominate you
Unless you do not want
To dominate your own life
By constantly making correct decisions.

2836. Give up and accept

You want to be accepted.
Then immediately
Give up your frustrated vital,
Give up your sophisticated mind
And accept your liberated heart.

2837. Yes and no

Do not switch from no to yes
Or from yes to no
Like an opportunist.
But to God-Satisfaction
Immediately say, “Yes!”
And to self-satisfaction
Definitely say, “No!”

2838. Say "No" to your doubt-life

Say “No” to your doubt-life.
Immediately a heart of faith
Will knock at your door
And a soul of satisfaction
Will enter your room.

2839. Surrender to your higher life

Surrender to your higher life.
Your lower life will be blessed
With a beautiful Smile from God
And your higher life will be blessed
With a new Message from God.

2840. The higher power

The higher power sees and knows
What is right for you.
The lower power compels you unconsciously,
Even consciously,
To do what is right for it.

2841. A "No" from your heart

One thing you must know:
A “No” from your heart
Is infinitely stronger
Than all the hostile forces in the world.

2842. Your friends

People who plead with you for favours
May eventually prove to be great flatterers.
Your friends are only those
Who all the time cheerfully support
Your heart’s aspiration-flames.

2843. A time-wasting idler

Because you are a time-wasting idler,
Your friends are deserting you,
God is ignoring you
And what you yourself are doing
Is nothing but deceiving yourself.

2844. Your heart knows best

Your heart knows better than anyone else
What is best for you.
Protect your heart,
Strengthen your heart
And liberate your heart.
Never allow it to be perfected by others.

2845. Do you want to be happy?

Do you want to be happy?
Then do not allow yourself to be caught
By your unaspiring heart,
Your unhappy vital
And your God-ignoring body.

2846. To be a good walker

You just do not know
How to walk properly
Or which way to go steadily.
I tell you, to be a good walker
You have to give up your hesitation-mind,
And to know the right way
You have to give up your frustration-vital.

2847. Adhere always to your firm decision

Adhere always to your firm decision.
Your choice and the opposite choice
Will start fighting for their rights.
You have to feed your choice,
Convince your choice
And enlighten your choice.

2848. Do not surrender to exhaustion

Do not surrender to exhaustion.
If you surrender to exhaustion,
Then you will have to surrender to chaos.

Do not surrender to chaos.
If you surrender to chaos,
Then you will have to surrender to barrenness.

2849. Demands

The body demands concern.
The vital demands attention.
The mind demands importance.
The heart demands satisfaction.
And what do I demand?
I demand constantly a perfection-life.

2850. Endless talking

You indulge in endless talking
In order to appear wise.
Do you realise what you do to yourself
When you indulge in endless talking?
You just load up troubles
And more troubles
Until you are totally confused and totally lost.
Stop talking, unless you can talk to
God’s Compassion-Eye,
Forgiveness-Feet
And Illumination-Heart.

2851. My mind is fascinated

My mind is fascinated
By the short-lived power of miracles.
My heart is fascinated
By the soul’s eternally living
Satisfaction-power.

2852. Only one competition

Only one competition
I appreciate, admire and adore,
And that competition
Is my daily self-transcendence
In God’s own Way.

2853. He is faultlessly right

He is faultlessly right,
Not because he is exceptionally great,
But because he is supremely good.

2854. The cave of false protection

Because you are afraid
To tell the truth,
You will always be compelled
To live in the cave of false protection.

2855. My life of progress

My life of progress
Is the result of
My heart’s little cry
And
My Lord’s big Smile.

2856. You have almost realised

If you have realised
That you are not aspiring,
That means you have almost realised
That you have the capacity
To aspire regularly and soulfully.

2857. The capacity to deceive

You may not have
The capacity to deceive others,
But you do have
The capacity to deceive yourself,
And you are using that capacity
Either to belittle your soulful heart
Or to extol your doubtful mind
To the skies.

2858. In one spacious room

My prayerful life,
My soulful religion
And my fruitful God
Live together in one spacious room,
Satisfactorily and peacefully.

2859. Make haste

Life is very short.
Make haste to have a searching mind.

Life is very short.
Make haste to have an aspiring heart.

Life is very short.
Make haste to have a self-giving life.

Life is very short.
Make haste to sit at the Feet
Of the real God.

2860. When you are ready

When you are ready to tell God
That you have the willingness,
God will say to you:
“Lo, My child, I am here
With My Fruitfulness for you.”

2861. Something special

God gave me something special:
Awareness.
I gave God something special:
Willingness.
Now God wants to give me
His Satisfaction
And I want to give God
My gratitude.

2862. Feast and hunger

For a long time
You have not looked around you.
Now that you are looking,
What do you see?
Do you not see that God has brought you
A magnificent feast?
Alas, why then are you not able to bring Him
A weak and fleeting hunger?

2863. To make my Lord happy

To make me happy
My Lord gave me a simple mind.
To make me happy
My Lord gave me a kind heart.
To make my Lord happy
Can I not give Him a soulful cry
Once and for all?

2864. You have not forgiven me

You have not forgiven me.
That means you do not love me.
You have not loved me.
That means you do not know yourself.

2865. No sincere seeker

No sincere seeker
Can outgrow his aspiration-cry,
For his aspiration-cry
Widens and deepens itself
With his blossoming years.

2866. Thousands of strong reasons

There are thousands of strong reasons
Why you should realise God
And not even one weak reason
Why you should not.

2867. To end your unhappiness

You want to end your unhappiness.
I tell you, there is one way
To end your unhappiness,
And that is to end your constant feeling
Of unpleasant unworthiness.

2868. Confidence tells you

False confidence tells you
What you can eventually become.
True confidence tells you
What you eternally are.

2869. The face of your future regrets

You will succeed
Infinitely more than you can imagine
If you do not see
Night’s ever-present doubts,
And if you do not want to see
The face of your future regrets.

2870. You call it misunderstanding

You call it
Misunderstanding.
He calls it
The wrong flow of energy.
I call it
A stabbing sword.

2871. One thing will never frighten you

Many are the things
That can and will frighten you.
But there is one thing
That will never frighten you,
And that is your God’s
Sleepless Love for you.

2872. God the Conqueror

Truth the conqueror
Is powerful.
Love the conqueror
Is beautiful.
God the Conqueror
Is eternally powerful
And infinitely beautiful.

2873. Something new you should know

You know that
A concealed frustration
Is the name of your vital.
Something new you should know
Is that a revealed illumination
Can easily replace your constant frustration.

2874. Not what you appear to be

You will be happy
Only when you know
That you are not
What you appear to be:
A lifeless cry
And
A soulless smile.

2875. God's Inspiration-Victory

I know what my mind can become.
My mind can become
God’s Forgiveness-Victory.

I know what my heart can become.
My heart can become
God’s Inspiration-Victory.

2876. Only one way

There are many ways
To see the Face of God,
But there is only one way
To sit at the Feet of God,
And that way is to breathe in constantly
The breath of gratitude.

2877. The heart of oneness

Ask your mind to be clever.
What your mind needs is peace,
And this peace it can get
Only from one place:
The heart of oneness,
And nowhere else.

2878. Capacity and necessity

If you have the capacity
To develop a pure heart,
Then God will feel the necessity
To grant you a supreme boon:
He will give you His saint-children
To play with.

2879. Courage means

Courage does not mean
That you have to overlook
The hungry wolf.

Courage means
A sleepless yearning to overcome
The fear of the hungry wolf.

2880. A divine family

You were not happy
In a human family.
Therefore, you are looking
For a divine family.
Needless to say, this is the only family
Where happiness will always reign supreme.
And the members of this family are
A blossoming faith,
A surrendering life
And
A God-pleasing heart.

2881. Let your heart-bud bleed

Let your heart-bud bleed.
Lo and behold,
Your life-flower
Is in full blossom.

2882. The life-meter clicks

Each moment is a journey
Inside a taxi
Towards a great destination.
The life-meter clicks
Whether we are moving forward
Or moving backward
Or not moving at all.

2883. Radios

The vital and the body
Are like radios.
The vital is the volume.
The body is the station.

2884. Only one satisfaction

What we call satisfaction
Either on earth or in Heaven
Is not satisfaction at all.
There is only one satisfaction,
And that satisfaction is
Our life-recovery in God-discovery.

2885. The uncomely things

Avoid the uncomely things
That are around you,
But never avoid the uncomely things
That are inside you.
Every day you have to
Empty your mind-vessel
Of all uncomely thoughts,
And replace them with comely thoughts.

2886. Escaping the confusion

You want to escape the confusion
That you see before you.
I tell you, you will never be able
To escape the outer confusion
Unless and until
You have escaped the inner confusion.
And the inner confusion
Is your continuous doubt-indulgence.

2887. The mistakes in your life

You see the mistakes in your life,
But you are not brave enough
To tell the world that these mistakes
Are all your own.
Unless and until you dare to claim them
As your own, very own,
God the Perfection is not going to claim you
As His Eternity’s own, very own.

2888. We pretend to know

We pretend to know man.
We even pretend to know God.
As long as we pretend to know
But do not know something in reality,
God’s Compassion-Eye
And even His Forgiveness-Heart
Will remain a far cry.

2889. Clever evasions

When we start making genuine progress
In our spiritual life,
We come to realise that our previous actions
Were not actual starts
But just clever evasions.

2890. Discouragement

The foolish seeker thinks
That discouragement marks the end
Of his journey.
The wise seeker feels and knows
That discouragement strengthens his heart
To love God the Supreme Lover
Infinitely more.

2891. The more you try to convince yourself

The more you try to convince yourself
That you are perfect,
The farther you will be compelled to go
To see the Perfection-Smile
Of God the Perfection.

2892. Challenge your frustration-vital

Challenge your frustration-vital.
Challenge your depression-mind.
Lo, you have all at once
Become a perfection-heart.

2893. Your false imagination

Who says that you have to renounce
Many things in your life?
You have to renounce only one thing:
Your false imagination,
The imagination that tells you
God does not love you
And care for you sleeplessly
And the imagination that tells you
You can never grow into
Another God.

2894. God's Nectar-Smile

You cannot radiate
What you have seen.
You cannot radiate
What you have known.
You cannot radiate
What you have felt.
You can radiate
Only what God has granted you.
What has He granted you?
His Nectar-Smile of the Beyond.

2895. You have come to learn

From your self-observation
You have come to learn
That you and your mind
Are surprisingly imperfect.

From your self-knowledge
You have come to learn
That you and your soul
Are astonishingly, plus constantly, perfect.

2896. God's Promise to you

You do not appreciate it
When someone compels you
To break your promise.
Then why do you compel God
To break His Promise?
His Promise to you and your soul
Is that He will give you what He is
Only when you give Him what you have.
What He is,
Is Satisfaction.
What you have
Is aspiration.
Delay not in giving Him
Your possession,
Since He has been waiting
At your heart’s door
For such a long time
With His Possession.

2897. If he is your true friend

If he is your true friend,
Then his mind will not help you
Fulfil your false needs
And his heart will not help you
Feed your ego-hunger.

2898. A satisfaction-light

A satisfaction-light can never wage war
Against another satisfaction-light.
It is a dissatisfaction-night
That is always apt to wage war
Against another dissatisfaction-night.

2899. Once you start believing your soul

Once you start believing your soul
When it tells you what you look like
In the inner world,
Then you will immediately come to know
What God thinks of you
In the outer world:
Exactly the same.

2900. God will do the needful

If you cannot change your life
The way God wants you to,
Then can you not be wise
And plead with God to change your life?
God’s Eyes are large,
His Ears are larger
And His Heart is larger than the largest.
He will definitely and unconditionally
Do the needful.

Editor's introduction to the first edition

This is the twenty-ninth volume in a series of ten thousand “flaming flower-poems” which Sri Chinmoy is placing devotedly, unreservedly and unconditionally at the Compassion-Feet of God, our Beloved Supreme. They stand as a supreme offering from the unfolding beauty of his flower-heart and the flaming heights of his realisation-sun. Indeed, a treasure-tower which will at once be claimed by humanity’s self-ascending cry and Divinity’s God-descending Smile.

Editor's note to cover photo

During a spiritual holiday with his students in Mexico, Sri Chinmoy met with Mexican President Lopez Portillo at the presidential residence, Los Pinos, on 22 December 1981. The Sri Chinmoy singers performed a song about Mexico which Sri Chinmoy had composed in Lopez Portillo’s honour. The President said he was “very thrilled to see the name of my country converted into melody and rhythm.” Later he told Sri Chinmoy, “I hope the example that you offer expands through the world.”