Boston TV Interview
with Sri Chinmoy
at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York
Question: Many people feel today that there is a growth in spiritual influence in the world, and I wonder how you feel about this. Do you see this as a time of spiritual expansion for humanity?
Sri Chinmoy: Since the beginning of creation, there has been spirituality. God and God’s creation cannot be separated. God the Creator and God the creation are one. People have been praying from time immemorial. There are various ways to pray and meditate, and there are various ways to reach one’s destination. Spirituality is not the sole monopoly of any individual or of any country. Spirituality is universal. I take each individual as an instrument of God, and those who consciously pray and meditate are chosen instruments of God. There shall come a time when everybody will be awakened. Very often, we say that now spirituality has come to the fore and many people are practising spiritual life. But my inner feeling is that there has not been any time when there was no spirituality on earth.
Question: Do you feel that the degree to which humanity is aspiring changes from age to age or is it constant in your view?
Sri Chinmoy: It changes. Sometimes the weather is good, sometimes the weather is bad. So, for a few years, let us say for twenty, thirty or forty years, spirituality may not be as strong as it is at other times. Now a very significant aspect of spirituality is peace. If there is no peace, then spirituality in its purest sense has no value. Previously, peace was only a dictionary word. It was not a living reality. Although we use the word ‘peace’, people must have a conscious hunger for peace. But now, for the last thirty years, people have been paying more attention to peace.
Question: There are some people who believe there are different kinds of spiritual Masters. Some work openly in the world and their purpose is to work directly with humanity, physically. Others, some of whom have physical bodies and some of whom do not, work behind the scenes. Do you feel that this is true in your experience?
Sri Chinmoy: Yes, it is absolutely true. It depends on the spiritual Master. Some have accepted life as such, while others do not want to accept it. Some want to pray and meditate inside the Himalayan caves, while others want to pray and meditate in the hustle and bustle of life. It is a matter of individual choice. We do not know and we cannot say which one is the better of the two. Some spiritual Masters of the hoary past entered into the Himalayan caves and did realise God, the Highest. Again, there are others who did not believe in austerity or renunciation. They believed in the acceptance of life as such. We have to accept life and then we have to transform it to make it a perfect instrument of God.
Question: As I understand it, some traditions hold that some of the Masters who are in seclusion or who may have contact with humans only mildly are nonetheless very involved in service. They simply don't focus on physical contact as the primary method, even if they have bodies. Is this possibly an avoidance of embracing life?
Sri Chinmoy: Excuse me, I can only speak about myself. I can only tell you what I have in my room. About other spiritual Masters, I am not entitled to say anything. I happen to be a spiritual Master. I am their spiritual brother. There is only one Guru and that Guru is God. For my students, I happen to be the elder brother in terms of spirituality. I tell all of my students all over the world always to remember one thing: that I am not the Guru. The real Guru is God Himself. The real Master is God Himself. My purpose is to take my students, who are my younger brothers and sisters, to the Father, our common Father, God. I know a little more than they do, but I will never claim that I am God or I am their Guru.
Question: How do you view the process of enlightenment? Do you feel that there is an ultimate goal that one can reach or is there an ongoing process of deeper and deeper God-realisation?
Sri Chinmoy: God-realisation is not a fixed goal. You cannot say that you will run one hundred metres and then you will reach the goal. We are walking along Eternity’s Road. The road is always ahead; there is no end. Some seekers may think that if you can come and sit at the foot of the God-realisation-tree, that is enough. They will walk, march, run, sprint and finally arrive at the foot of the God-realisation-tree.
Question: I am familiar a little bit with Sri Aurobindo's notion that there is a descent of a new consciousness in the world, a new level of awareness. Would this be similar to intuition?
Sri Chinmoy: There are levels of the mind: higher mind, upper mind, divine mind and so on. Then comes the Supermind. After the Supermind there is another level which is called sat-chit-ananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss). But the Supermind itself is far beyond the ordinary mind. It is not in the mind proper.
Question: Can you tell us something about your experience and understanding of the nature of angelic consciousness?
Sri Chinmoy: From the spiritual point of view, angelic consciousness cannot transform human nature. Angels are like flowers or beautiful children. A flower as such is not going to make me beautiful or fragrant. But it can give me the inspiration to pray to God to make my heart as beautiful and as fragrant as the flower. So angels can be a source of inspiration, but they cannot actually transform our consciousness.
Question: I have read in one of your books that you said one of your disciples was from the angelic world. Did I understand that correctly?
Sri Chinmoy: Yes.
Question: Why would an angel take incarnation in the human world?
Sri Chinmoy: Usually angels do not come to earth in a physical body. But they like to have different experiences. I am a foreigner; I come from India. I could have remained in India because India is a vast subcontinent. But I got the inspiration to come to America. It is exactly the same in the case of the angels. Angels usually do not want to come to earth because they are so subtle, beautiful and delicate. This world of ours is full of suffering and our human bodies are composed of gross matter, whereas theirs is angelic. Angels are so subtle, so beautiful, so ethereal, that they do not want to take on the solid mass of a human body. But again, some angels say, “No, we want to have the experience of earthly life.” So on principle they do not come, but every rule admits of exception.
Question: Something in them draws them to human life?
Sri Chinmoy: They want something new. They want to go somewhere. Similarly, I could have been satisfied in India, but I wanted to have something new from America.
Question: What would taking human incarnation add to an angel that they don't already have?
Sri Chinmoy: If they enter into human consciousness, then they become more reliable, dependable and efficient instruments of God. Let us say you have a small ferry. If you want to keep that ferry, you can carry me and a few other people across the river. But if you have an ocean liner, you can take hundreds of people. Why do spiritual Masters come into this world? They could have remained in the soul’s world. They come into this world to carry millions of people in their big ocean liners. So it depends on the individual. Either you want to help one or two individuals to become good, or you want to inspire countless people to become good, illumining and fulfilling. From where they were in Heaven, the angels can deal with only one or two individuals. But if they take human incarnation and inspire countless people, then they are doing greater service, infinitely greater service to God.
Question: What do you mean when you talk about a mental path versus the path of the heart?
Sri Chinmoy: The difference is quite noticeable. When we live in the heart, with the heart and for the heart, we always feel we can accept the world and become part and parcel of the suffering world. But when we are in the mind, we start criticising others and thinking that we are perfect. If I remain in the mind, I will see you as imperfect and myself as perfect. But if I live in the heart, then I will feel that what you have and what you are I have to claim as my own, very own. If we remain in the heart, we become one. Your imperfections I must accept as my own imperfections. And if you also live in the heart, you will take my imperfections as your own imperfections. Then if you are happy because you have done something great, I will feel that it is I who have done it and vice-versa.
Question: Thank you. That's a useful distinction to make. Some traditions or some teachers have used the notion of the path of the mind to mean something like jnana yoga.
Sri Chinmoy: The mind needs illumination. There are two rooms. One is the heart-room; one is the mind-room. The heart-room already has light in it. So we have to enter into the heart-room and then take the light from there to the mind-room. But if we enter into the mind-room first and find that the mind-room is unlit, how are we going to bring light into it? We have to be wise. If we enter into the mind and stay there, we will never come to the heart-room. But if we enter into the heart-room, we will get illumination in abundant measure and then finally in measureless measure. Then only shall we enter into the mind-room. We are not going to neglect the mind-room. Only we have to be wise. For the time being, we have to remain inside the heart-room in order to collect light and bliss. Then there shall come a time when we shall enter into the mind-room. Nothing on earth will remain imperfect. But we have to be very wise. Only the things that are inspiring, aspiring and illumining we have to accept in the beginning.
Published in Sri Chinmoy Answers, part 18
