Part IV — Sri Chinmoy's Path

Sri Chinmoy's Path

Dear seekers, I came to the West in 1964, obeying an express command from my Inner Pilot. He wanted me, He wants me and I am sure that, out of His Infinite Bounty, He will always want me to be of service to Him in aspiring mankind.

I wish to tell you that I call my teachings a path, not a religion. I have seekers from all religions, faiths and denominations. At times I say my path is like a school. Students come here to learn and when they acquire wisdom, then they will teach others.

This path is the path of the heart. It is very simple and at the same time very fruitful. When I say it is the path of the heart, I am in no way trying to minimize or belittle the mind. I only wish to say that we are following the path of the heart because we have come to feel that this path is undoubtedly a short cut.

The mind doubts, the mind suspects others, and finally, to its wide surprise, the same mind doubts and suspects itself. Therefore it takes a very long time to walk along the path of the mind and reach the destination. But the path of the heart is the path of oneness, inseparable oneness. We see the reality, we accept the reality as such and then if the reality has to be changed and transformed, we try to transform it into divine perfection. The path of the heart is the path of acceptance. Here we do not negate or reject or renounce anything. We accept the world and want to be in the world in order to love God and serve God, to please and fulfil God in His own Way.

On our path we have a ladder called aspiration. It has three rungs: love, devotion and surrender. But this love is divine love and not human love. Human love binds and blinds, whereas divine love expands and illumines. Divine love is the love of the heart in the heart for the entire being. This love sings the song of expansion.

The second rung is devotion. In the ordinary human life what we know is nothing short of attachment. We are attached to someone and therefore we feel compelled to do things. It is our conscious or unconscious attachment that compels us to be of service to others. If our attachment goes away, we shall not spend even a fleeting second to please, serve or fulfil others. But devotion is something totally different. We are devoted to a supreme cause. We are devoted to our own highest Reality.

Now the last rung is surrender. This surrender is totally different from the surrender of a slave to his master. The slave is under compulsion to please his master and if he does not please him, his services will be dispensed with. He has to be always at the beck and call of his master. This is forced surrender, not surrender that spontaneously comes to the fore. But in the spiritual life the surrender that we offer is a constant source of energy and satisfaction. It comes from within. Nobody compels us or forces us to do anything.

We feel that we have two existences. One is illumined, the other is now unillumined. The finite in us surrenders its existence to the Infinite, the totally illumined in us. The finite in us is like a tiny drop that enters into the mighty ocean and loses its individuality and personality. It becomes the ocean itself. Here surrender makes us vast and infinite; conscious, constant and soulful. Devoted, unconditional surrender reveals one’s own highest reality. At the beginning of our journey’s start we try to discover our own highest Height. Then we offer our low, lower, lowest existence to that highest Height, and once our lowest existence enters into the highest Existence, it is transformed, illumined and perfected. The lowest becomes totally ready for the Highest to operate in and through it.

Again I wish to say that I am on earth only to be of service to the Supreme, my Inner Pilot, my Supreme Beloved. Out of His Infinite Bounty, He has given me the capacity to write, or I should say, He has written through me thousands of pages of poems, stories, articles, essays and plays. He has utilised me to give talks and hold public meetings to serve Him in another way. And out of His infinite Compassion, He is using me to serve the seekers of the absolute Truth through music and art. He has done thousands of paintings and written hundreds of songs in and through me. According to my inner receptivity, He has been able to manifest Himself. I do not dare to take any credit for I don’t deserve it. I know perfectly well that it is He who has done all these things in and through me out of His boundless flood of Compassion. I am a mere instrument. I am eternally grateful to Him at every second, for He has granted me the golden opportunity to be of service to Him.

I have quite a few students. My students and I have the same goal: to pray and meditate and to serve God and please God in His own Way. There are a few disciples’ parents here. It has happened in a few cases that when the children left their parents, the parents were deeply annoyed and they had many things to say against me. Once upon a time the parents criticised their children’s teacher mercilessly. But the same children now are in the good books of their parents. Now the parents have a few good words to say about me. Quite a few of my students had taken to drugs and had embraced the hippie life style. But now they have accepted life in a proper, divine, soulful way and they are the true pride of society.

I always tell my students to visit their parents and be of service to them. Out of millions and billions of souls, how is it that the children chose a particular family? It was out of special necessity. There was a special reason why they chose this particular family. I wish to say to the parents that I have not taken anybody’s children away. On the contrary, I am trying to make their children realise their proper roles in God’s creation. They will go deep within to please their parents, relatives and dear ones.

God is inside everyone, including the parents. The parents deserve most soulful gratitude from their children. For quite a few years they have brought up their children and tried to satisfy them. Unfortunately, the children were not completely satisfied, although the parents tried their best to offer them satisfaction. Then the children went to spiritual teachers who offered them more satisfaction.

So now just because the parents want pure satisfaction from their children, most of the parents have come out of the snare of ego. They feel that someone has really given happiness to their children. True parents are happy only when they can see that their children are happy. I have met with parents of disciples from several Centres. Last year I met with one disciple’s parents who once upon a time wanted to dig my grave. Now they come with flowers to thank me. I would like to say to the parents that I have not come to take any of your children away. I am only trying to do what your own soul wants. Your soul wants your children to be good, kind and devoted to truth, light, peace and bliss. This is your soul’s wish which I am carrying out according to my limited capacity.

I am extremely grateful to my students for they have given me ample opportunity to serve the Supreme, who is everybody’s real Guru. I am not the Guru, I will never claim to be the Guru. The real Guru is inside you. Guru is a Sanskrit word which means “he who illumines.” Who can illumine us save and except God? But there can be someone who can take his younger brothers and sisters to God so that God can give them illumination. The physical Guru is not going to illumine others; he cannot do anything without God. He is not the Saviour; the Saviour is inside us. The Saviour is within me and within you. It is in the inmost recesses of our hearts that the Saviour abides. Our Beloved Supreme is everybody’s Guru, everybody’s Master. I have told my disciples repeatedly that I am only an elder brother in the family and the Lord Supreme is their Father, my Father, everybody’s Father. Just because I know a little bit about inner light, spiritual light, the Supreme considers me to be an elder brother to humanity. The role of the elder brother is to take the younger brothers and sisters to the Father, their common Father. Then his role is over.

I am extremely grateful to all the seekers of truth, light, peace and bliss who have come here to be with us. This is only an experience that I wish to share with you. Conscious and continuous self-giving is the precursor of God-becoming. The message of a perfect earth can be told only when we all become one, inseparably one, and sing the song of our unconditional service to the Eternal Pilot in us. It is our soulful service that can make us feel and discover what we eternally are. Now we are unrealised, consciously unrealised, but God will fulfil us on the strength of our prayers and vision, and we will not only become consciously realised, but we will grow into His very Name.