Freedom
A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
Conference Room 9, United Nations, New York
Freedom. Freedom is the creative force within us. Freedom is the sustaining life within us. Human freedom is an experience of the body, in the vital and for the mind. Divine freedom is an experience of the soul, in the heart and for the mind, the vital and the body. There is practically no difference between animal freedom and human slavery. In the domain of the destructive vital, our animal freedom roars. In the abyss of our sleeping inconscient body, our human slavery snores.
God’s Freedom lies in His constant Service to mankind, in His unconditional Self-giving. Man’s freedom lies in his God-achievement, life-perfection and life-fulfilment.
The freedom of the doubting mind is undoubtedly a reality. But this reality is fleeting, flimsy. The freedom of the loving and aspiring heart is an everlasting reality and an ultimate sublimity.
Freedom of earthly thought is good, but quite often it opens itself to false freedom. Freedom that comes from following the heavenly Will invokes God’s Presence in us. It invokes His divine Promise in and through us and His supreme Self-assertion and Self-manifestation in and through us.
What is false freedom? False freedom is our constant and deliberate acceptance of ignorance and our conscious existence in ignorance. What is real freedom? Real freedom is our conscious awareness of our inner divinity, and our constant inseparable oneness with the Inner Pilot.
What can false freedom do? False freedom can do much. It can totally destroy us. It can destroy our inner possibilities and potentialities. It can destroy our inner wealth. What can real freedom do? Real freedom also can do much. Real freedom can make us grow into the very image of our Supreme Pilot.
We have two types of freedom: outer freedom and inner freedom. Outer freedom constantly wants to prove its capacity. It wants to prove its sovereignty. Inner freedom wants to prove that it belongs to God and God alone.
Outer freedom has a new goal every day. It wants to discover this goal only in pleasure. But inner freedom has only one eternal Goal, and that Goal is to achieve the conscious awareness of God and the conscious manifestation of God in and through itself.
Outer freedom is satisfied only when it is in a position to say, “I have no superiors. I am my only master.” Inner freedom is satisfied only when it can soulfully say, “I don’t want to be superior to anyone, but I want God to be my superior, my only superior.”
Forgetfulness takes away our freedom, but God’s Forgiveness brings it back. Teeming desires take away our freedom, but God’s Compassion brings it back. Self-importance and self-assertion take away our freedom, but God’s Light brings it back.
It is our self-awareness that retains our freedom and God’s divine Pride in us that perfects our freedom. In the perfection of our earthly freedom we grow, and we sow the Heaven-seed within us. And in the fulfilment of our inner freedom we see Heaven and earth as complementary souls. For earth offers its wealth and capacity, which is receptivity, and Heaven offers its wealth and capacity, which is Divinity and Immortality.
Published in The Tears of Nation-Hearts
The Golden Boat
by Sri Chinmoy
Sri Chinmoy completes 200 poems in 22 hours — from 12:01 a.m. to 10:01 p.m. — (published in parts 2, 3, 4 and 5) and then in the next few minutes spontaneously dictates a further 8 poems (published in part 6) as part of his series The Golden Boat, in Jamaica, New York. The 200 poems are printed in four volumes by noon the following day. (Part 1, also containing 50 poems, was written a few days earlier on 29 January.)
1. Don’t Think, Don’t Sleep
When he was a child,
One day
His father said to him:
“Don’t think, my child.
God never thinks.”
Since then, he never cared
To learn the art of thinking.When he was a child,
One day
His mother said to him:
“Don’t sleep, my child.
God never sleeps.”
Since then, he never cared
To learn the art of sleeping.
200. Perfect Strangers
Lord, Lord,
Save me, save me.
I am in terrible danger.
I am fighting against time
To prove to my spiritual children
That I am a poet of high magnitude.
Father, do save me, save me.“Son, don’t insult Me.
You and I are perfect strangers
To the birth and life of defeat.”
208. Trophies and Smiles
I love the trophies
Of a world-conqueror.
They show me
What God the Beggar
Needs and gets.I love the smiles
Of a world-lover.
They show me
What God the Emperor
Gives and is.
Published in The Golden Boat, parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
The Message of Peace
A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island
Peace is my mind’s newness. Peace is my heart’s soulfulness. Peace is my life’s fulness.
My newness-mind will not have an iota of doubt. It will have implicit faith — faith in itself and faith in God. My soulfulness-heart will have no insecurity. It will have only confidence-light. My fulness-life will have no sense of separativity. It will have only unity and oneness — a oneness-home.
Peace is not an attainment. Peace is an enlightenment. Peace will not come from possession of this world. Peace will come from perfection of this world through perfection of oneself.
Peace is the beauty of the outer discipline. Peace is the purity of the inner obedience. The outer discipline perfects the human in us. The inner obedience fulfils the divine in us.
Life is a self-transcendence-flight. Peace is a God-discovery-crown. Life is Eternity’s hunger-cry. Peace is Infinity’s satisfaction-smile.
In the ordinary world, ignorance-night reigns supreme and the ignorant mind cherishes war. War wants to show the world what it can do: in the twinkling of an eye it can destroy everything.
In soundless silence, peace tells the world who its owner is. Its only real Owner is God the transcendental Delight and God the universal Light. A true seeker of peace, a genuine lover and server of Truth, who is a true God-lover in the inmost recesses of his heart, receives this soundless, undeniable message of peace.
The message of peace is that God the Creator and God the Creation, God the Possessor and God the possession, are inseparably one. This is why no mind-power can ever destroy the world, and this is why heart-power will one day unify the length and breadth of the world and establish a oneness-home in the seeker’s heart-garden — his heart-garden of peace.
Published in The Oneness of the Eastern Heart and the Western Mind, part 3
Great Indian poets
by Sri Chinmoy
at Nexus Resort Karambunai, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
Rabindranath Tagore, Kaji Najrul and Ramprasad all received some touch from the soul or from the psychic being, from their inner existence. That is why their poems and songs are so soulful, so melodious.
Najrul wrote songs about Indian Gods and Goddesses, about Mother Kali or Lord Krishna. He also wrote He Partha Sarathi and a few other songs of the highest order. He was not God-realised, but he wrote such wonderful songs. In Ramprasad’s case, he got a glimpse of God.
Published in Only Gratitude-Tears