1.

Altruism is good, but to know what God’s Will is and act accordingly is infinitely better.

2.

If you feel ambivalence towards humanity, I assure you, God will forgive you, humanity’s soul will forgive you, but your own inner oneness-heart, which wants constant divine fulfilment on earth, will not forgive you.

3.

It seems that we are in an absurd situation: on the one hand, we desperately try to ameliorate our life of aspiration; on the other hand, we cherish our teeming doubts and our darkening frustrations.

4.

If you are amenable to the reasoning mind, then your life will be a fruitless, continuous start; but if you are amenable to the aspiring heart, then yours will be the life of immediate start, immediate progress, immediate finish and immediate satisfaction.

5.

Although you are amoral, you have a fair chance for your nature’s transformation, for you strongly believe in God’s all-forgiving, all-illumining Compassion.

6.

To have aplomb is to compel success to come and touch your feet instead of your running after success.

7.

O ascetic soul, I did love you once upon a time, but now I love to live with and die for life’s acceptance-soul.

8.

As God’s unconditional Compassion permeates humanity’s entire being, even so, humanity’s gratitude-heart can permeate God’s entire Creation.

9.

The study of etymology will undoubtedly make you a learned and great man. But if you know how to climb up the aspiration-tree in the inner world, then you become a wise man, which is infinitely more important than to become a learned man or a great man.

10.

A prevaricator is he who not only exploits God’s Transcendental Truth, but also squanders God’s Universal Bliss.

11.

A nefarious person is he who has destroyed his heart’s beauty long before he has made his nefarious attempt to destroy God’s Reality-Beauty in others.

12.

If you are spontaneously gregarious, that means you have already taken a long stride to see the heart of oneness on the face of multiplicity.

13.

A simple and sincere seeker finds it extremely difficult to mix with either the intelligentsia or stark fools.

14.

When there is a fight between impurity and purity, humility’s role as the intercessor is of tremendous importance.

15.

An intransigent person can never have peace of mind.

16.

In the inner world, there is but one intrepid hero, and that hero is our sterling faith.

17.

Only a true and genuine seeker will not and cannot foment trouble for any human being on earth.

18.

If you get a thing in a fortuitous manner, your happiness will not or cannot last for good.

19.

With aplomb, you entered into the world. With aplomb, you can easily return to the Source.

20.

Do not speak ill of humanity. Humanity will ostracise you. But if you speak ill of divinity, divinity will not only forgive you but also illumine you and fulfil the Supreme in you at His choice Hour.

21.

The human way is bound to remain stereotyped, unless the divine way liberates the human way. The human way is to catch the Reality and smile at the Reality. The divine way is to feel the Reality as one’s very own and to dance with the Reality in eternal oneness.

22.

A stilted life casts a slur on humanity’s inner progress and divinity’s pride inside human beings.

23.

Since God’s Will is inscrutable, the best thing for us is to pray to become one with God’s Will and derive joy from it, rather than try to understand God’s inscrutable Ways.

24.

To say that God is only for others and not for you is the height of your insidious and unbecoming attitude towards God, the all-loving and all-nourishing Source.

25.

A life of insouciance indicates an abrupt end of oneness-beauty inside the universal heart.

26.

The maudlin sentiments of humanity are the cause of the world’s downfall in Reality’s oneness-height.

27.

You will realise God only when your aspiration carries all its appurtenances — belief, simplicity, generosity, sincerity, humility and purity — to the highest Height.

28.

The outer laughter creates pandemonium when the inner cry is totally dead.

29.

If you deliver a panegyric and do not mean it, then your insincerity-dog will always follow you.

30.

Needless to say, each human life is fraught with teeming dangers, but the brave will always win in the battlefield of life.

31.

To do the wrong thing and to try to escape nemesis is nothing short of futility.

32.

If you want to claim the whole world, then become a perfect stranger to nepotism and offer yourself only to those who deserve you.

33.

God-realisation will always remain a far cry if you are niggardly at every moment in your self-offering to God.

34.

An insincere and impure person carries with him a noisome odour.

35.

The nominal president of our life is the mind. The actual president of our life is the will-power.

36.

The Cosmic Gods were nonplussed when they saw our faith-warrior losing to the doubt-warrior in the battlefield of life.

37.

His life is nothing but a hackneyed expression of his self-styled pious and complacent ideas.

38.

The inner life of aspiration is more than willing to constantly give and make the outer life a breathtaking panoramic view.

39.

If you follow verbatim the Master’s instructions, then your Goal can never remain a far cry.

40.

The real fool is he who thinks that the act of surrender is an exorbitant price to pay for God-realisation.

41.

Do not yield to frustration, for God-Compassion is running very fast towards you in order to save you, please you and fulfil you.

42.

Neither your aridity nor your austerity can bring God closer to you, for that task is meant only for your surrender-heart.

43.

A sophisticated life is not only a divine failure but also a human failure.

44.

Our doubting mind is usually distraught by the absence of its brood: frustration and destruction.

45.

Nothing is so hard as to dissuade the mind from doubting the Reality’s Existence-Bliss.

46.

A seeker of all-illumining and all-fulfilling harmony must have a discerning ear for any dissonance either in the vital world or in the mental world.

47.

Love and serve humanity sincerely. Your name will be disseminated constantly over God’s special Radio.

48.

If you have a solicitous heart, then rest assured God has a blessingful Eye.

49.

Sobriety in all things may not always be attainable, but it is always desirable.

50.

A sincere seeker must never be afraid of the doubting mind. On the contrary, he should take the doubting mind as a skittish animal.

51.

A sceptical person remains always a stranger to the bliss of oneness-reality.

52.

It is the height of stupidity to attempt to dissemble fear, doubt, anxiety and frustration in the spiritual life. Fear, doubt, anxiety and frustration must be brought to the fore before they can be transformed.

53.

Insincerity and impurity are undoubtedly sinister forces in the life of a seeker.

54.

It is a deplorable mistake to think that faith’s position as the chief leader is a sinecure in the spiritual life, for it is faith that functions, performs, illumines us and fulfils us more than anything else.

Editor's note

From December 1976 to June 1977 Sri Chinmoy offered a series of aphorisms at his weekly prayer and meditation sessions at the United Nations. This series was entitled “To-morrow’s Noon.” These aphorisms highlight Sri Chinmoy’s love of the English language. They were originally published serially in Meditation at the United Nations (the Monthly Bulletin of the Meditation Group).