Sri Chinmoy Answers
questions in New York
Question: Recently you said we should strengthen our friendships.
Sri Chinmoy: God is our only Friend — that is absolutely true. Again, we believe in God’s existence inside everybody. Naturally we will feel our affinity, our oneness with some people more than with the rest of the world. Inside a scorpion, there is God. But I am not asking you to make friends with a scorpion. The scorpion will bite you again and again. But I am begging the disciples to establish friendships on a human level.
Sometimes I tell you to establish your friendship with someone because you have a special connection with that person from a previous incarnation and I want you to maintain that friendship. Then no matter how much you suffer in the hands of that person, please try to keep the friendship alive.
In some cases, people do not want to show their oneness. They feel that they are infinitely superior and their friend is inferior. In other cases, both sides are eager to serve the Supreme in me. Your friendship with one girl is extraordinary. It is more than friendship. It is like twin sisters. Your connection with her is unique. I see that inside her heart, she is for you and inside your heart, you are for her. This is how friendship can develop into complete oneness — oneness of the heart, oneness of the soul, oneness of the life. When two of my disciples are friends, it helps me. It is like a tree. If I shake the tree, all the branches move together.
On the earthly level, we need friends. Sometimes you are depressed or frustrated. That is the time for your friend to lift you up. Again, your friend can be down and you can be the one to lift her up. At that time, she will count on you so much and you will count on her. When you need a friend, you are not going to find a new person to confide in. You may feel that friendship is based upon sacrifice. But I wish to say that there is no such thing as sacrifice where there is love. Again, when you do not feel love, at least through sacrifice you can establish love.
On the human level, friendship is absolutely necessary. At the same time, you have to know that inside the heart of your friend is the real Friend, the only Friend — the Supreme. The Supreme is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. But on the human level, if He tells us that He will be able to help us via somebody, or He will be able to help somebody else via us, then we have to take Him seriously.
True friendship is very rare, but it does exist. I cherish those people who are true friends. When I deal with them, it is like dealing with one person instead of two. Each of my disciples should take a few people to be their human friends. I am not asking you to have the whole world as your friend — far from it. Only two or three real friends are needed. Even if you have only one friend, it helps considerably.
Friendship is based on forgiveness. Today if your friend has done something wrong, you have to forgive her immediately by thinking that you could have made the same mistake. If she has been nasty to you today, you have to forgive her immediately. Tomorrow you may be in the same position — you could be nasty to her. So if you forgive her when she is nasty, then if a day comes when you are equally nasty, she will forgive you. Good qualities eventually come forward. Good qualities will not remain dormant forever and forever. Unfortunately, good qualities take more time to come to the fore than bad qualities. Hostile forces come forward to attack us more quickly than the divine forces. The divine forces will eventually be victorious, but in the meantime, the undivine forces make us feel that they have conquered us.
I always feel the supreme need for friendship. The Absolute Supreme is our only Friend, but He tells us on the earthly level, for earthly purposes, we need one or two individuals with whom we can share our sufferings and our joys. As soon as we share our suffering, it is gone. As soon as we share our joy, it doubles. Our sadness is a heavy load. If somebody comes to share it with us, it reduces the burden. If you are carrying twenty pounds on your shoulder and if your friend comes and takes ten pounds from you, then together you can walk along easily. But if you do not tell the person about your suffering, then you are carrying the whole twenty pounds by yourself.
Again, when you have some good news, immediately it becomes like a Russian doll. Inside one piece, you see two, three, four, five, six more. When there is happy news, it is multiplied. When there is sadness, it is shared. So in every way friendship has a very special role to play on earth.
Question: Besides your name, is there a sound or a word that we can use when invoking you that brings us quickly to you?
Sri Chinmoy: Nothing can be sweeter than the word ‘Guru’. It is not a mere word or name. It is a mantra. It has become part and parcel of the life-breath of any disciple who has accepted me sincerely and seriously, just as I have become inseparably one with my true disciples.
Again, there are many, many disciples who get more joy by invoking the Supreme directly. He is my Source. The Supreme is my Guru, your Guru, everybody’s Guru. But sometimes before God-realisation, the term ‘Supreme’ can be vague. The Supreme is both personal and impersonal. Until we see Him and talk to Him face to face, He can remain impersonal. When Naren came to Sri Ramakrishna, he asked him, “Have you seen God?” Sri Ramakrishna said, “Have I seen God? I can talk to Him more clearly, more intimately than I can talk to you. I can see Him more clearly than I can see you in front of me.” I can also say the same. Not only do I see Him, but I can talk to Him. Why would it be impossible for me to talk to my Highest? It is like a little child who wants to speak to his father. No matter what the father is doing, he will spend a few moments with his child. Look at my dog Chela. No matter how serious I am or what I am doing, does Chela care? He just comes and says whatever he has to say in his own barking language. Chela knows his oneness with me. In exactly the same way, God is our Absolute Lord Supreme, but even in my human consciousness I can approach Him.
To come back to your question, you have to use whatever word gives you utmost joy. The Supreme has become inseparably, breathlessly one with your life-breath, and your Guru also has become inseparably one with your life-breath. Unfortunately, there are some disciples who, although they have been with me for many years, have not kept me inside their life-breath. Again, there are some new disciples, especially those who live in other countries, who will never have the opportunity to say a word to me in this incarnation, and I will also not have the opportunity to talk to them. In spite of this, they have established such closeness and such oneness with my divinity’s life-breath, my Eternity’s breath. The oneness that they have established with me is so solid, so concrete.
In other cases, for months disciples do not get any joy either by using ‘Supreme’ or ‘Guru’. That is called a dry period. Even spiritual Masters of the highest order have had to pass through dry periods. Sometimes for months Vivekananda used to go through dry periods. Believe it or not, your Guru never went through a dry period. From the age of six, when I started my prayer and meditation, I have not had that experience. It makes me sad that my disciples sometimes go through dry periods for years. It has happened in some cases that for five long years, not even one single day do they have a good meditation. For up to one year it is common to have a dry period, but five years is too much.
Why do people go through dry periods? Because they lose their devotion. Devotion is like a magnet. If the devotion-magnet is not working, then the spiritual life is all dryness. But if one maintains devotion to the Supreme or to his Guru, then one will never, never go through a dry period. It is devotion that connects both love and surrender. Devotion is the golden link. If one has devotion, constant devotion, sleepless and breathless devotion, then one will never lose the sweetness in life.
Question: What does it actually mean to see the divine in someone or something?
Sri Chinmoy: There are several ways to see the divine in someone or something. To try to see God consciously is one approach. Another approach is to see Him spontaneously. Suppose you enter into a garden. You are not consciously trying to see the beauty or smell the fragrance of the flowers. Spontaneously their beauty pulls you. It is like a magnet. If your eyes are not attracted by the beauty of the flowers and if you have to consciously go very near a particular flower and put it in front of your nose, then it is not spontaneous. The beauty is there, but only when beauty acts like a spontaneous magnet will the immediate manifestation of beauty enter into your eyes and heart as it has already entered into your soul. The beauty you feel inside your mind and inside your heart is real beauty.
I will give you another example. Yesterday morning I went to Goose Pond Park. It was drizzling and I was running slowly. Five times I passed by a man sitting on a bench who was heavily drunk. Each time I came by him, he smiled at me. I could not understand what he was saying, but each time I passed by him, he said something encouraging to me. Now if I had had to consciously try to see the divine in him — if I had said, “He is also God’s creation. Although he is drinking heavily, let me see the divine in him” — I would have been wasting my time. But each time I came by, spontaneously I got such joy. If I had identified myself with his outer life, I would have been disgusted. I do not care for drinking at all. For me, it is something abominable. But while I was passing him, I was seeing the divine in him. His inner divinity immediately attracted me. His heart entered into me and my heart entered into him. Therefore I sincerely got joy.
If the joy or the sweetness that the soul is giving us comes immediately and spontaneously, then we can easily see the divinity in something or someone. But if we have to think of the soul or concentrate on the soul of a chair or some other object, then we are wasting our time. When it comes to the human level, everyone is trying to be conscious of God and we are also consciously trying to acquire some good qualities. Seekers may try to see the divine in others, but they may have no way to enter into the soul or the heart of another individual.
If you can get a spontaneous feeling, that is absolutely the most important. Then if you see that somebody is a good seeker, that he is praying and meditating or that he has other good qualities, then you can appreciate the divine in him. You will not allow your insecurity, jealousy, impurity or dividing mind to interfere. There must be no competition between you and that person.
Sometimes it happens that the heart is appreciating, but the vital is jealous or the mind is mean. The mind does not allow you to get joy. If you see a beautiful flower, the mind may say, “I am not as beautiful as this flower, so who cares for it?” Again, when you see a beautiful flower, you can say, “How I wish I could be as beautiful as this flower, as fragrant as this flower.” This wishing is not creating any jealousy, any insecurity, any separativity.
But just mere wishing is not enough. If you see that someone else is meditating or praying soulfully, you have to pray to God, “Please help me to become as soulful and as prayerful as this person.” Then God will see that you are not competing with that person. You are only seeing something beautiful — like a beautiful flower — inside him. God sees that you want to identify with the divine aspect of His that has already been manifested inside that person. Then God will say, “One of My children has achieved something and now another child of Mine has come to appreciate it, instead of becoming jealous. This child is praying to Me to have the same good qualities. I am more than ready to give them to him.”
Many times it happens that if we do not have certain good qualities, we will try to degrade them in others. We will try to see no value in them. But again, there are some good souls who want to become better and best. Today they are good. Tomorrow they want to become better and best. How do we become best — by separating ourselves or uniting ourselves? By separating ourselves, either through meanness, jealousy or insecurity, we can never, never become better. Only by using the positive way, by having peace, poise and love for the Divine that is manifested, can we become better. We will not love the flower or the seeker as such, but the divinity that made the flower beautiful, the divinity that has made the seeker soulful. You have to have love for the divinity that is being manifested in each thing.
If you get the feeling of divinity spontaneously, that is always best. Otherwise, if you see something beautiful or divine, you can consciously try to become that by praying to God. Then the development of your body, vital, mind, heart and soul will increase and spread wide, wider, widest. Your own divinity will blossom much quicker if you can appreciate the beauty or divinity of something else or somebody else. If you are sincere, God will never think that you have become jealous. No, you are not competing or fighting. You are only appreciating, admiring and adoring something which God Himself has manifested in somebody else.
There is also another way to see the divinity in others. This way is the highest way. When a mother sees that her child is very beautiful or skilful, when she sees the capacities of the child, she does not pray to God, “O God, please give me the same capacity! My son is so tall and strong! He is running so fast! He is so intelligent!” The mother immediately feels that her son’s qualities are all hers. This is not because he is her product, but because she has established her inseparable oneness with her son to such an extent that she feels that what he has is all hers and what she has is all his.
If your consciousness is very high — higher than the highest — you can establish exactly that same kind of oneness with others. When Sudhahota does something, I have such oneness with him. I do not say, “Supreme, can You give me the speed that he has?” No. I have such oneness with him that I feel I have done it. The mind will say you are fooling yourself. But if the heart gets the same joy as he is getting on the strength of its oneness, then it is absolutely real. Sometimes the person who has achieved the thing may not be as happy as somebody else. I have seen that Sudhahota’s mother gets more joy in Sudhahota’s success than Sudhahota himself.
Similarly, my brother Mantu used to get infinitely more joy from my athletics than I used to get. His whole heart used to be thrilled if I was first. On the day of my competition, his whole day was spent only worrying and worrying about me. His oneness was such that it was as if his whole world would collapse if I did not do well in 100 metres or long jump. Definitely I got joy from my sports. But if you measure the joy, his joy was more than the joy that I experienced. Oneness can be on the same level, or somebody else can get more joy than the person who has actually achieved the thing.
First try to see the divinity in others spontaneously. If it comes immediately, that is excellent. If it does not come immediately, then on the human level, try to see it consciously. If you see somebody has already achieved more divinity than you have or that God has manifested one aspect of His Divinity inside someone else more than in you, then you can try to emulate that person or you can pray to God to give you the same qualities. There is nothing wrong in imitating something good. When a child tries to imitate his father, he is not a copy cat. He sincerely appreciates, admires, adores and loves the way his father walks, the way his father talks. Whatever his father says, he imitates. When the child imitates the good qualities of his father, he does not become a carbon copy. He is seeing the good qualities, the divine qualities of his father, so he wants to have the same good qualities. Readiness, willingness and eagerness are coming to the fore at every moment to inspire him and energise him to become as great and as good as his father.
In your case, your divinity will not decrease if you pray to God to make you as sincere or as aspiring or as self-giving as somebody else. It will only increase. Already you have some good qualities, but by appreciating, admiring, adoring and loving the development of the soul in somebody else, you can increase your own good qualities. Here jealousy is not coming, competition is not coming, only appreciation is coming to the fore. Appreciation you have to such an extent that you want to establish oneness.
If I had used the mind for these three questions, I could not have spoken for more than three minutes for each question. After three minutes, my mind would have become bankrupt. But if I use my heart and soul, I can go on and on because it is spontaneous. If I had used the mind, you would not have gotten any joy. Even if the mind had had something more to say, the mind would not have given any joy. The mind does not want to share joy. The mind only wants to hold it. When the mind knows something, it keeps it a top secret. The mind feels that if it gives what it has to somebody else, it will not be the owner any more. The mind feels that if it says something, its secret will be gone. But the heart is a spontaneous flow, only blossoming and blossoming. You have asked me such nice questions, and your questions deserved nice answers. The heart is always ready to appreciate the divinity in others.
Published in Sri Chinmoy Answers, part 24