The Soul-Love of the United Nations
A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
in the Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium at the United Nations in New York
The soul-love of the United Nations is life-examination, life-improvement and life-perfection.
Life-examination makes our life on earth meaningful.
Life-improvement makes our rest in Heaven blissful.
Life-perfection makes our rest in Heaven and on earth fruitful.
The soul-love of the United Nations has the fragrance of Divinity’s rose on the physical plane and the benediction of Immortality’s bird on the spiritual plane.
Mind-love, heart-love and soul-love. Mind-love is just an opinion. Heart-love is a firm conviction. Soul-love is an everlasting illumination. Opinions at times confuse us. Convictions at times disappoint us. But illumination always makes us see the Feet of God and the height of Truth. It also makes us see that it has silenced the roaring lion of darkness in the outer world and that it has fed the soaring flame-bird in the inner world.
The soul-love of the United Nations teaches us three most important things: patience, expansion and oneness. Patience is not peace. But patience eventually shows us the way to peace, world peace. Expansion is not an act of self-aggrandisement. But expansion can easily be a life-offering and love-building reality. Oneness does not indicate a lack of opportunity for revealing and manifesting individual uniqueness. Oneness is like the essence and fragrance of a lotus. It does not prevent each petal of the lotus from revealing and manifesting its own uniqueness.
The soul-love of the United Nations has a philosophy of its own. It says that each nation has its own significant truth. One nation will not and cannot overthrow the realisation and revelation of another nation. On the contrary, the realisation and revelation of one nation can easily complement the realisation and revelation of another nation, The soul-love of the United Nations has a religion of its own. This religion is a silently unified wisdom. In this silently unified wisdom looms large a supremely unifying life.
Voltaire said something quite interesting and illumining: “Four thousand volumes of metaphysics cannot teach us what the soul is.” It is the soul alone that can teach us what the soul is. But before the soul teaches us about itself, we have to unlearn the teachings of the obscure, uncertain and doubting mind and, at the same time, we have to learn the teachings of the loving, uniting and illumining heart.
I wish to quote a most significant thought of Emerson: “We can’t describe the natural history of the soul, but it is divine.” No matter how sincerely, how soulfully, how devotedly and how unconditionally we try to describe the natural history of the soul, we are bound to underestimate its capacity. For the soul is the child of both Infinity’s Dream and Eternity’s Reality.
In order to know the soul-love of the United Nations, we have to choose to be free, and we have to be free to choose. When we are within the confines of history, we have to choose to be free. When we are in the sky of evolving spirituality, we have to be free to choose. Soul-love is free will. Soul-love is free choice. When a nation’s free will chooses self-giving, its free choice expedites God-becoming. In self-giving and God-becoming is the confluence of the outer lustre of the United Nations and the inner effulgence of the United Nations. This confluence will, without fail, be a glorious vision for both mortals and immortals.
From the spiritual point of view, the soul-love of the United Nations will always remain resourceful in all problematical situations, untiring in the discharge of its national and international duties, sagacious in its pursuit of inner knowledge and inner wealth, and spontaneous in its willingness to add to the peace, love and joy of searching and ascending humanity.
Published in The Tears of Nation-Hearts
The Voice of Silence
A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
in the Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium at the United Nations in New York
Today I am going to talk on the Voice of Silence. Dear seekers, with all sincerity I wish to tell you that no matter how long I speak about the Voice of Silence, I shall not be able to make you hear the Voice of Silence. But I wish to assure you that if you meditate with me for a few minutes before I speak, if you can dive deep within as I shall dive deep within for a few minutes, then either you will hear the Voice of Silence or your prayer and meditation will expedite your journey towards receiving the message of Silence.
It is true that it takes years for a seeker to hear the message of the Voice of Silence. But, with all my soul’s love for each seeker present here today, I wish to say that on the strength of our inner aspiration and outer dedication to the life divine, we can and must hear the Voice of Silence which sempiternally is guiding our life. Our outer life — the life of hustle and bustle — either does not hear this voice or, when it does hear it, pays no attention to it. The life of temptation is what our outer life wants, and not the life of true fulfilment and satisfaction.
The Voice of Silence is the answer when we want divine satisfaction from our day-to-day existence.
The Voice of Silence is the dream of God’s ever-climbing Aspiration-dawn.
The Voice of Silence is the reality of God’s ever-illumining Revelation-light.
The Voice of Silence is the Immortality of God’s ever-fulfilling Perfection-height.
What is voice?
Voice is our inner and outer choice.
Hunger for life-destruction is our animal choice.
Hunger for supremacy-satisfaction is our human choice.
Hunger for perfection-manifestation is our divine choice.
We wish to hear the Voice of Silence, but how can we hear it? There are two principal ways. One way is to silence the human mind totally. From the gross physical mind we enter into the intellectual mind. From the intellectual mind we enter into the intuitive mind. From the intuitive mind we enter into the illumined mind. And from the illumined mind we enter into the overmind. It is only from this highest mind that we can expect to hear the message of the Voice of Silence.
The other way is to feel that the heart-vessel has to be filled with divine Peace, Light, Bliss and Power. When we want to hear the Voice of Silence through the mind, we empty the mind. But when we want to hear the Voice of Silence through the heart, we fill up the heart. When we empty the mind, we have to know that we do so precisely because we want to receive God the Guest or God the infinite Peace. And when we fill up the heart, we feel that God the immortal Light and infinite Delight is entering into our earthly home. The light of the soul precedes the Voice of Silence. The Voice of Silence can never come to the fore unless and until the light of the soul brings it forward consciously, compassionately and lovingly.
What else must we do to hear the Voice of Silence? When we pray, when we meditate, we have to do something quite specific. When we breathe in, we have to imagine consciously that inside that breath, within us, is a peaceful nest and a bird. After a few minutes we have to feel that the nest is our outer existence and the bird is our inner existence. Now this bird has to come out of its nest. How do we bring the bird out of the nest? There are two ways. One way is to make our concentration, meditation and contemplation as dynamic as possible. Here, dynamism means the constant feeling within you of a speeding train that does not stop. It is an express train, and it does not stop at any station or at any junction. It is a tireless train, an endless train, continuously going on. When we have that inner feeling, from the very starting point we get the Blessing-power of the Supreme. And in dynamism, in the flow of dynamism, we see the bird of our inner being leaving its nest, and the Supreme gives us the experience of the Voice of Silence.
Another way to hear the Voice of Silence is to feel, the moment you enter into your meditation or the moment you start praying, that you are an infinite expanse of ocean. A few minutes later, please feel that you are deep inside the ocean, and from there try to spread the wings of the bird that you were when you followed the dynamic way of hearing the message of Silence.
A seeker may hear the Voice of Silence as something very faint and feeble — a tiny voice like a ripple of calm water. But this feeble voice, this faint voice, can be compared to an atom. When we split the atom we release unbelievable power. Similarly, when we know how to hear the Voice of Silence properly, our inner being immediately is inundated with the Power of thousands of inner suns. The creation and the Creator immediately come to satisfy us. Once we hear the Voice of Silence consciously in our spiritual life, we feel that, like God, we too are responsible for the entire creation. Like God, it is we who are the Creator and we who are the creation itself.
Now, how can we know whether we are hearing the Voice of Silence or something totally different which we are mistakenly calling the Voice of Silence? I wish to tell you that we can easily know if it is the Voice of Silence or not. When we hear a voice from the very depths, from the inmost recesses of our heart, and if that voice gives us a message which our outer mind or physical consciousness is ready to accept with utmost joy and love, then we will know that that is the Voice of Silence. If the physical mind or the outer consciousness does not get immediate joy, then it is not the Voice of Silence. Right now our outer mind gets joy both in the acceptance of reality and in the rejection of reality. But when the Inner Voice enters into the outer mind, then the outer mind has no choice. It immediately accepts the reality as reality. When the Voice of Silence is heard, the outer mind will accept it so wholeheartedly that it will feel that the lofty truth it has discovered is its own achievement.
God expresses Himself through silence and sound. Silence is His Reality’s height; silence is His Reality’s depth. Sound is His Reality’s length; sound is His Reality’s breadth. In silence, God is all assurance. In sound God is all confidence. In self-assurance God builds the Kingdom of Light. In self-confidence, God invites His unlit, obscure, unaspiring creation to enter into His Kingdom of Light. A seeker who is a child in the spiritual life finds it quite easy to appreciate, admire and adore God’s length and breadth. But a seeker who is advanced in the spiritual life inwardly feels that God’s height and God’s depth must be appreciated first, and only then can His length and breadth be truly and properly appreciated, admired and adored.
The Voice of Silence is God’s conscious preparation in man. The Voice of Silence is God’s conscious Dream of Perfection in man. The Voice of Silence finally becomes God’s own ever-transcending dream-bound Reality and Reality-freed Dream.
O Voice of Silence
Where are you?
I need your golden wings
O Voice of God,
Where are You?
Hide not from me.
Published in The Tears of Nation-Hearts
Food and God
A talk by Sri Chinmoy
at the United Nations in New York
Food has God. God is food.
Food has life. God is life.
Food has reality. God is reality.
Food has sound-success.
God is sound-success.
Food has silence-progress.
God is silence-progress.I eat. I eat to survive. From my very birth I have been seeking nourishment. Food saves my life from starvation. Food saves my life from extinction.
Mine is the hunger that does not permit me to think soulfully.
Mine is the hunger that does not permit me to act selflessly.
Mine is the hunger that does not permit me to pray to God constantly.
Mine is the hunger that does not permit me to meditate spontaneously.
Mine is the hunger that does not permit me to love God unconditionally.I know my food-hunger is reasonable and inevitable. But my power-hunger is unreasonable and unpardonable. Finally, my God-hunger is incomparable and insurmountable.
To my great sorrow, poverty attacks plenty. To my widest astonishment, plenty invades poverty. One of the lofty principles of the United Nations is: "Poverty anywhere in the world is a threat to prosperity everywhere." Indeed, this is a heart-unifying and life-fulfilling message. The United Nations was founded upon the vision-hunger for world peace. I am sure there shall come a time when that vision will be transformed into reality in spite of today's teeming, threatening and frightening clouds over the firmament of the United Nations.
O body, I tell you a supreme secret:
"Shortage is poverty."
O vital, I tell you a supreme secret:
"Rivalry is poverty."
O mind, I tell you a supreme secret:
"Doubt is poverty."
O heart, I tell you a supreme secret:
"Insecurity is poverty."
O life, I tell you a supreme secret:
"Impurity is poverty."
O truth-seeker, I tell you a supreme secret:
"Disobedience is poverty."
O God-lover, I tell you a supreme secret:
"Ingratitude is poverty."I eat to live.
Indeed, this is my wisdom-light.
I live to eat.
Indeed, this is my ignorance-night.God says to my desire-life:
"Love to live."
God says to my aspiration-life:
"Live to love."
God says to my realisation-life:
"Love to become a oneness-heart.
Live to be a perfection-life."
Published in The Inner Role of the United Nations
Talks from Brunei
by Sri Chinmoy
at the Orchid Garden Hotel, Brunei Darussalam
A story about fainting
I shall tell a story about fainting.
My sister Lily was in what we called a dispensary in the Ashram; you call it a clinic. She was all ready to undergo an operation. My cousin Pushpita was also there. Now she is the oldest in our family. She is dearer than the dearest. Recently I went to see her. She is eighty-six years old. In our family nobody lived to eighty-six. She was only one year older than Lily. As usual, she was scolding me and asking why I had come for only two days!
On this occasion Pushpita went with Lily to help her, to give her strength and moral encouragement. The operation was about to take place. My cousin was in one room, and in the adjacent room Lily was going to be operated on. But my cousin Pushpita fainted and fell down! She got frightened about what was going to happen in the other room. When she fainted, she could not get up. Then my sister Lily started crying. The operation was over before it started — there was no operation that day.
Pushpita is still alive. This cousin was the one who had the living experience of my occult power in my most famous story. She raised her leg to pretend to kick me, and I would not allow her leg to come down. It was hanging in mid-air! I was at that time seventeen or eighteen years old.
The kind Prime Minister
In Cambodia, the Prime Minister was so kind to us. How much honour he bestowed upon me! An election took place there. Out of seventy-six votes, his party got seventy votes. His foreign adviser is very close to me. He came to see me four or five times. He is the one who gave me the message about the election.
At their Independence Day function they gave me the first seat among the dignitaries. The President, the Prime Minister and I released three peace doves together. Only for me they wrote, “Honourable Sri Chinmoy.” Our Indian Ambassador to Cambodia came again and again to chat with me, just because I got this honour. His seat was not near me, but four or five times he came to chat, and he begged me to come to his place.
God is so kind to us! There are good people, and they are nice to us. Out of seventy-six votes, the Prime Minister’s party got seventy votes. How happy the Prime Minister’s party was! Perhaps people feel that we bring them good luck.
Golf equipment
At our next hotel in Sabah, some buildings are four hundred or five hundred metres apart. Savyasachi of course will drive me for long distances, but to go from one place to another at the hotel, Saraswati has got a golf cart for me. Again, when I go out three times a day for an hour to meditate, Savyasachi will take me.
Many years ago, Narada gave me golf equipment. I will not be able to play golf in this lifetime, but at least I can be satisfied with a golf cart! I enjoy the golfers when I watch them on television. How they go on and on! Many, many years ago in Puerto Rico, I saw a golf course. The carts are very cute. I think President Bush gave a ride to President Gorbachev many years ago on a golf cart.
Aleksandr Razvin
Aleksandr Razvin proved to be a true brother of my heart and soul.
Since his earth-departure, I have kept a very close connection with his wife Valentina. I call her “Sister.” How much love she and her husband had for me!
Once we had a long-distance race. She came there, crying. I said, “Sister, what is the matter? Do you think I can be of any help?”
She said, “On our wedding day we took an oath that we would never divulge any of our secrets to anyone else without taking permission from each other. If I have to tell a secret, I have to take Aleksandr’s permission, and he has to take my permission if he has to tell a secret. We have kept this promise for so many years. Always we took mutual permission to divulge any secrets. But now I have to tell you a secret without his permission.”
I said, “Oh, without his permission!”
She said, “I must tell you, I must tell you.”
I said, “Please tell me.”
Then she said that he did not want her to tell anybody that he had developed cancer, and it was almost a terminal case. She wanted to tell me, and she did not take his permission. I spoke to her for some time. She felt that, because of my oneness with both of them, her husband would not mind.
When she went home, she said to her husband, “I have told Sri Chinmoy.”
He said, “Oh! What was our promise?” Then he started laughing. He said, “Only Sri Chinmoy! You must not tell anybody else.”
She said, “I knew you would not mind. That is why I told him — and nobody else.”
I went to the hospital to see Razvin. On the way I was composing songs in Bengali, one after another. When I went upstairs to his room, we were so thrilled to see each other. He was highly appreciating the doctors. His main doctor was an Indian woman. I said to him, “Now you will be all right.”
The Indian doctor said, “Swami-ji, Swami-ji, you are here!” Then she said to Razvin, “Only Swami-ji can cure you, not doctors.”
I said, “No, doctors will cure you.”
Then she said to me, “Please, will you be here for another five minutes?”
I said, “I will be here for a longer time.”
She left the room. Downstairs her husband was waiting for her. She brought her husband to the room. She could not believe, and her husband could not believe, that I had come to see a patient. Her husband had been a great admirer of mine. He fell at my feet in the hospital room. He said, “I never thought that I would be able to meet with you.”
This is my story. Some doctors have such love.
The medical world
Here is another doctor experience. Ashrita took me to a doctor for an X-ray of my knee. He was also an Indian doctor. He charged eighty dollars, and I paid. Ashrita had a small pamphlet about me, and he gave it to the doctor.
Two or three days later I had to go back to the same doctor. The doctor said to me, “When I showed my wife the little booklet, she scolded me for such a long time!”
I asked him, “What happened?”
“She said, ‘How could you charge him eighty dollars?’ She scolded me badly.”
He wanted to return the money.
I said, “No, no, no. I cannot take it.”
We invited them to Annam Brahma, and they came. They were so nice. That is again the good side of doctors.
But I have already told the story of when Hiyamallar took me for an MRI. What an unfortunate experience! They were also Indian. Five hundred or six hundred dollars they took from me. Then they said that I had not given them the money! A young girl came to my rescue. She said she was brought up on our street. She found the money that I had given, so I did not have to pay for the second time.
Once Garima came to Manhattan with me when I went for an MRI. They bound my whole upper body — as they would do with children, so that they will not move. I kept my eyes wide open and I was meditating for half an hour. Then they said that I moved! They were angry about something, and they started arguing with Garima.
Each time I have an MRI, I have problems. New York doctors will have one opinion, and California doctors will have a totally different opinion. One will say that there is water in the joint, and one will say it is arthritis. Another one will say something else. Always there are three or four opinions. This is how some doctors examine people. The medical world is so advanced, but the doctors are often not of the same opinion.
No operation
Yesterday I got a message about the health of a German disciple’s mother. The mother is also a disciple. I told the girl, “I do not want your mother to be operated on.”
This morning I spoke to Minati. Minati got the message from the doctors that they want to operate. They say that only then will they know if the tumour is malignant or not. I said, “I do not want her to have an operation.”
The mother was happy that categorically I had said, “No, I do not want her to be operated on.”
Again the doctors said, “There is no other way. If we do not operate, we will not be able to know whether it is malignant.”
I said to the disciple, “Is science not developed enough for them to know if the tumour is malignant or not without operating?”
This disciple is very devoted. There will be no operation, no operation.
Lotika’s mother had cancer. The doctors gave her two or three weeks to live. One of our strongest supporters holds a very high post in a hospital. It is very difficult for ordinary people to be admitted to that hospital, but Lotika’s mother was able to go there. This doctor was so kind. Her husband passed away a few months ago, and she herself had been cured of a most serious cancer. She had such faith, such faith in me.
Again, the doctors gave Lotika’s mother a very limited time. But Lotika has such faith in me, and her mother also has tremendous faith. Instead of dying in three weeks, Lotika’s mother is now almost cured.
I came to learn that Lotika’s mother would soon be going back home from the hospital. Lotika had a mobile phone, and I had to speak to her about another matter. She told me that she was at that time in the hospital. I said, “I would like to speak to your mother.”
Lotika’s mother’s sister was in the hospital room with her mother. Lotika’s mother speaks practically no English. She took the phone, and I was speaking to her in English. She only said, “Spasibo!” — “Thank you!” She went on with that one word. She had one word, and I had so many words!
Then, after our conversation was over, I got the message from Lotika that her mother was crying and crying. Her aunt thought that she was being cured and she was on the fair road to recovery. Why was she crying? She was crying out of sheer joy and gratitude, and she was screaming, “I spoke to God, I spoke to God, I spoke to God!”
Sometimes, when I am absolutely sure, I deliberately take responsibility for something very serious. Again, sometimes I say, “Listen to the doctor. God is inside the doctor.”
Definitely God is inside the doctors, but the difficulty is that the doctors have not yet cured my knee. Nowadays one of my disciple-doctors gives me homeopathic medicine, but it does not cure me. When it comes to my knee, nothing is of help. But I send quite a few people to doctors when it is not within my capacity to be of service, or I am not able to take responsibility. Again, we work together. Whatever help I can give, I will give; and the rest, the doctors will do.
My love and her faith
About ten or twelve years ago, Shikha’s father was supposed to undergo an operation. Shikha asked me what to do. I said, “No operation! I am the doctor.”
Shikha’s father was at that time not even my disciple, but look at my love for Shikha and her faith in me! She told her father an operation was not necessary. Shikha’s father was cured.
Shikha’s mother was always afraid of flying in planes. Such fear she had! But now her mother keeps my locket and my picture with her, and her fear has disappeared. She goes here and there.
Recently Shikha phoned her parents’ place. She talked to her father, and then she said, “Now I would like to speak to my mother. Where is she?”
Her father said, “She does not want to come to the phone right now.”
Shikha asked, “Why?”
He said, “Because she is looking at Guru’s picture. She is looking at Guru’s picture, so she will talk to you later.”
Shikha was so happy! Her mother would talk to her later because she was at that time looking at my picture and meditating. From where to where her life went!
We should print another volume of juicy stories, our miracle-stories. I think they have translated some of our juicy stories into Russian. We can have one book all about medical science and spirituality: how medical science can work together with spirituality, and also, when the time comes, how spirituality transcends medical science.
No hospital for her
Savyasachi called me about Madhuri’s health. I said, “Madhuri? No, no hospital for her!”
I talked to Madhuri for a long time this morning, cutting so many jokes. At one point I asked, “Are you thinking of me, Madhuri?”
She said, “What else am I thinking of?”
I asked her, “What else are you thinking of?”
Then she said, “I am thinking of you all the time, but again, I am also thinking of my stomach.”
I said, “That is enough! As long as you think of me and your stomach, it is all right. Do not think of anything else.”
For people like Madhuri, I have to overrule the doctors’ decision.
No hope!
Many, many years ago somebody’s brother had a big tumour. The doctor said, “He has two or three weeks. If we operate, there is no hope; and if we do not operate, there is no hope.” Either way, he said there was no hope!
I said to the sister, “No operation!” That gentleman is still alive. On very rare occasions I agree to an operation.
Disciple: The doctor who wanted to operate actually wanted to do it for his professional advancement. He wanted to experiment on the patient.
Sri Chinmoy: I said, “I will not allow it.” I did not allow them to experiment.
Disciple: Finally a Centre doctor intervened and said that he was going to take care of the patient. The other doctors were upset because they had lost their chance to experiment.
Sri Chinmoy: I said, “Medical experimentation I do not want.”
Published in The Feet of the Supreme’s Compassion
English mantras
Many prayers in English are very nice. If you learn some of these prayers by heart and repeat them, they will be like our Indian mantras. Indian sages and seers produced mantras. They did it in Sanskrit. Now we can do it in English.
Here I have written so many prayers — hundreds and hundreds. Can you not learn a few by heart?
Published in Only Gratitude-Tears