Oneness-Education
A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at West Road Concert Hall, University of Cambridge, England
Peace is not
In my mind's world-rejection.
Peace is
In my heart's world-acceptance.
You are a Truth-seeker. I am a Truth-seeker. You are a God-lover and I am a God-lover.
You and I have the same God, yet we quarrel and fight. God asks you to trust me; you fail to obey God. God asks me the same thing, He asks me to trust you; but I certainly fail.
You and I have the same God. God asks you to see Him in me, and He asks me to see Him inside you. Both of us fail our Lord Beloved Supreme. You see in me countless imperfections when you look at me. I do the same when I look at you. You do not see in me the Presence of God. I do not see in you the Presence of God. You do not see anything divine, inspiring, aspiring, illumining and fulfilling in me. Alas, I also fail to see in you anything divine, inspiring, illumining and fulfilling. Both of us fail our Lord Beloved Supreme.
You and I have the same God. You think and you know and you feel that your God is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. I, too, see and feel the same. But when you look at me, you think I am imperfection incarnate, you feel I am past correction. You forget that your God is omnipotent. If so is His Will, He can perfect my life in the twinkling of an eye. Similarly, when I see your countless imperfections, I fail to see the Presence—the loving and benevolent Presence—of my Lord Beloved Supreme. I, too, forget the fact that my God, whom I claim to be my God, is omnipotent. If your God is omnipotent and if my God is omnipotent, how is it that we cannot have faith in God's Power supreme? You can pray to God for my perfection; I can pray to God for your perfection. This is one way for us to make God happy, although it may take a long time for you to see my perfection and, vice versa, for me also to see perfection in you. But the very fact that you and I are praying mutually for our mutual perfection will make our Lord Beloved Supreme happy far beyond our imagination.
You and I have the same God, yet we disagree most of the time and we quarrel and fight. You and I pray to God for happiness. We pray to God and we speak to God. You say to God, "O God, please make me happy first and then I shall make You happy. You please fulfil all my teeming desires. Once I am happy, then I shall make You happy, O Lord Supreme." This is your prayer. I, too, have the exact same prayer. I say to my Lord Supreme, "My Lord, please fulfil my desires first, all my desires please fulfil, then I shall definitely make you happy. First make me happy, then I shall unfailingly and undoubtedly make You happy."
Here, in this case, you and I are sailing in the same boat. We want our happiness first, and then God's Happiness. But God says to us, "Since you are begging Me for happiness, pleading with Me, it is you who have to make Me happy first, not the other way around." And, again, God says to us, "My children, if I make you happy first, it will be the fulfilment of your desire-life. No matter how many times I fulfil your desires in order to make you happy, I will not be able to make you happy, never! But if you make Me happy first, on the strength of your aspiration-life, then you will feel that in My Happiness alone your happiness can be discovered, for I am the Source of all happiness. So please, My children, be wise. Make Me happy first. Then you are bound to be happy, and this happiness will last forever."
You and I have the same God. You want to see perfection in me. I want to see perfection in you. By speaking to God day in and day out against me, do you not think you are displeasing God and irritating God? For He is all Compassion for both of us. Again, I do the same. I speak ill of you to God at every moment. I think that by speaking ill of you, I am making my point clear to God, I am making God feel I am far better than you. "Oh no, that is not the way," my Lord Supreme tells me. We have to see all the divine qualities in each other to make our Lord Supreme happy. Our imperfect nature can only be transformed by His Compassion-Eye and Forgiveness-Heart.
You and I have the same God. You are God-thirsty and God-hungry; this is absolutely true. I, too, am God-thirsty and God-hungry. But if our hunger is genuine and if, at every moment, we want to be fed and nourished by God's Nectar-Delight, by His infinite Compassion, infinite Love and Light and Delight, then can we have even a fraction of a moment to think of each other? When I think of you, I think of your imperfections, your weaknesses. You do the same. Such being the case, who is actually our Lord? We pray to God for five minutes a day, but we think of each other for ten or twelve hours a day.
When we accept the spiritual life, we make a fervent promise to our soul, to our heart, to our inner life, to our Inner Pilot, that we shall always think of God, our Lord Beloved Supreme. And yet, instead of thinking of our Lord Beloved Supreme at every moment, you think of me daily for hours and I also do the same with regard to you. You think of God for just ten minutes a day. I do exactly the same, not a minute more than you. So we have made each other our God, and poor God, the real God, is buried in oblivion in our ignorance-mind and ignorance-life.
No, my friend, since we wish to sail in the same boat, the boat of aspiration, the boat that will lead us to our Destined Goal, the Golden Shore, let us believe in our oneness-education; let us start today with our oneness-education. This oneness-education is founded upon our mutual aspiration and reciprocal dedication. Together we must aspire, in spite of our weaknesses, difficulties and imperfections. Together we must raise our consciousness to high, higher, highest heights. Together let us sail in the same boat, the boat that will take us to our Destination, the Golden Shore. Our Beloved Supreme is eagerly waiting for our arrival. Let us make Him happy in His own Way, and His own Way means our oneness-education, oneness-perfection, oneness-satisfaction.
Published in The Oneness of the Eastern Heart and the Western Mind, part 1
