The Court of Divine Justice
A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
in the Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium, United Nations, New York
The court of human justice tells me that as I sow, so I reap. The Court of Divine Justice assures me that when I devotedly think of God, He smilingly and blessingfully appears before my heart’s eye.
The human justice wishes to offer me protection. The Divine Justice offers me protection, illumination and perfection. The human justice is fairness. The human justice is a threatening force. The human justice is a binding law. The Divine Justice is Love. The Divine Justice is self-giving. The Divine Justice is fulfilling.
The human judge is the problem-shooter. The human plaintiff is the problem-bringer. The defendant is the problem-maker and creator. The pleader is either the problem-lover or problem-nourisher; he cannot be otherwise, for that is how he remains on earth.
The Divine Judge is the Liberator. In the divine sense the plaintiff is the hungry seeker. The defendant is the devouring doubter in us, and the pleader is conscience. This pleader is the common friend, mutual friend of the plaintiff and the defendant. Under the threat of wild ignorance the pleader yields to the whims of doubt but inwardly in silence, it loves, cherishes and adores the heart of the seeker. In the physical and vital worlds conscience is helpless. In our inner world, conscience is constantly supported by the adamantine Will of the Lord Supreme. The Supreme Liberator liberates both the hungry seeker and the doubter.
Justice is impartiality. Impartiality is wisdom. Wisdom is the Divine Grace. The Divine Grace is the illumining Vision and fulfilling Manifestation of God.
A transformed and perfected human being is the duty of Divine Justice. A fulfilled and manifested God in man is the duty of Divine Justice. Duty performed on any level of consciousness is beauty blossomed forthwith. God’s Consciousness abides in the duty of His Divine Justice.
Here on earth we see that liberty and justice are two different things. They are like North Pole and South Pole. If one enjoys the joy of liberty, we feel that person has violated all the laws of justice. He is acting like a wild elephant. He is enjoying liberty, especially on the vital plane, and therefore he does not care for justice at all. But if one cares only for justice, then we feel that his life has no pleasure; there is no warmth, there is no feeling of enthusiasm in his life. This is all on the human level.
In the inner world, liberty and justice always go together. They are like the obverse and the reverse of the same coin. Only he who has inner liberty can hear the message of Divine Justice. Only he who has known what the Divine Justice is can be free and independent. There is no other way. Liberty and justice in the inner world are inseparable.
The Divine Justice is not a mere human idea. It is the divine ideal in each human being. When a nation is not awakened, when a nation is unaspiring, unillumined, it feels that might is right. This is human justice. But when a nation is illumined, all-loving and all-embracing, it feels that right is might. It feels that justice lies only in the divine right.
Now, what is this divine right? Divine right is the conscious feeling of universal oneness. God’s Justice can be seen and felt only when we have the feeling of universal oneness. If not, God will disappoint us and fail us at every moment. Our human mind will never be able to fathom God’s Justice. It will always be baffled by God’s Justice because of its limited knowledge and limited concern for humanity.
The Divine Justice is ready at every moment to be of help to us; to inspire us, guide us, mould us and shape us. But we are equally afraid of the Divine Justice and the human justice. When we do something wrong, we feel that we will be exposed. This is true in the case of human justice. But the Divine Justice will never, never expose us. The first time we do something wrong the Divine Justice will forgive us with its compassion. The second time we do something wrong it will offer us more compassion. The third time we do something wrong it will offer us infinite compassion. And then, when God sees that even His infinite Compassion is not solving the human problem, He will use His loving Divine Authority, Divine Power.
This Power is not the destructive power. This Power is not the threatening power. This Power is the Power that awakens the dormant lion in each human being. This Power does not dominate. It only arouses the spiritually hungry lion in each human being. The lion can roar, but the lion is fast asleep. This lion embodies our inner cry to see the ultimate Truth, to grow into the Absolute Reality.
Each individual seeker can claim, can feel God’s Justice if the seeker feels the necessity of loving humanity more than he expects humanity to love him. If he does not expect humanity to love him at all, yet he goes on loving humanity, then he is bound to feel God’s Justice in him, through him. Why? While he is offering his love to mankind, God will not remain silent. God will not remain asleep. God will immediately give him His boundless Peace, Joy, Light and Delight. God will empty His Infinite Consciousness into him.
What we have, we can give to mankind if we want to. But in God’s case, He gives to us not only what He has, but what He is. He feels that He is just only when He can give us what He has and what He is. We can also act like God and offer to mankind not only what we have, but what we are.
When we make an inner search, we come to learn that what we have is a dedicated heart; and if we ask what we are, we come to learn that we are the chosen instruments of God. We are the leaves and He is the Tree. Look at a tree from a distance or from any place. If you look at a leaf, a branch or the trunk, you can immediately recognise it is a tree. When we look at an individual leaf, we can immediately enter into its source, the tree, and feel that this individual leaf is the tree itself. When we look at the tree, we see that its manifestations are the leaves. The manifestation itself can be as important as the Creator Himself.
The Divine Justice is the breath of Reality. In the human court we see all kinds of crime; but in the Court of Divine Justice we notice only one crime every day, and that is human ungratefulness. Here the punishment is forgiveness. Constantly the game is being played between God’s Forgiveness and man’s ungratefulness. In the human way, human beings are justifying their cause by saying, “We are unconscious. Hence we commit crimes. We are not yet illumined. Hence we are ungrateful.” In the divine way, God is justifying His cause: He is Love. Hence He is all-Loving. He is Compassion. Hence He is all-Forgiving.
Published in The Garland of Nation-Souls
The Inner Message of the United Nations
Dag Hammarskjold Lecture Series
by Sri Chinmoy
at the Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium, United Nations, New York
The outer message of the United Nations is Peace. The inner message of the United Nations is Love. The inmost message of the United Nations is Oneness. Peace we feel. Love we become. Oneness we manifest.
The United Nations has a mind, a heart and a soul. Its mind tries to offer flowing Peace. Its heart tries to offer glowing Love. Its soul tries to offer fulfilling Oneness. In the near future, a day will dawn when the message of the United Nations will be absorbing to the child, elevating to the common man, thought provoking to the highly educated and inspiring to the seeker.
Each delegate is a force. Each representative is a force. Each nation is a force. The source of this force is a particular will. This will can be either the Divine Will or the human will. The human will wants to be with the world and in the world only on one condition: that it will be able to gain supremacy over others and maintain this supremacy. The Divine Will wants to be in the world, with the world and for the world without expecting anything from the world. The human will, at most, tolerates the world. The Divine Will constantly wants to liberate and fulfil the world. The human will wants to control and lead the world. The Divine Will wants to transform, glorify and immortalise the world. The human will in us needs the soul’s expanding and illumining purity. The Divine Will in us wants the Goal’s blossoming divinity.
The League of Nations was a dream-seed. The United Nations is a reality-plant. The aspiring and serving life of man’s universal oneness will be the eternity-tree.
In his address to the United Nations in October 1965, Pope Paul VI said:
"No more war: war never again! Peace. It is peace which must guide the destinies of people and of all mankind."
The goal of the United Nations lies not only in thinking together, but in thinking alike. Each individual has every right to love his nation; but he must also dedicate himself in order to immortalise his nation’s relationships, inner and outer, with the rest of mankind, so that all can run together for the universal good of humanity.
In the words of Pope John XXIII:
"It is our earnest wish that the United Nations organisation may become ever more equal to the magnitude and nobility of its tasks, and that the day may come when every human being will find therein an effective safeguard for the rights which derive directly from his dignity as a person, and which are therefore universal, inviolable and inalienable rights."
All nations together can build a temple. All nations together can make a shrine. All nations together can worship a Deity. At the entrance of the temple, the Divine Protection shall smile. Upon the shrine in the temple, the Supreme illumination shall smile. Within the heart of the Deity, the Absolute Perfection shall smile.
Here at the United Nations, what I feel is an inner voyage. In its inner voyage, the United Nations has to brave many temptations and setbacks. As we all know, defeats and failures are mere steppingstones in our onward march to perfection. At the end of its voyage, there is every possibility that the United Nations will be the last word in human perfection. And then the United Nations can easily bloom in excellence and stand at the pinnacle of Divine Enlightenment.
Published in The Tears of Nation-Hearts
Christmas Trip Talks
by Sri Chinmoy
at the Inter-Continental Hotel, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Seven Thousand Poems
Before I left New York, I had a strong determination to write seven thousand poems for my Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees. There came a time, two weeks ago, when I was not at all inspired to dictate poems for about a week or so. I said, “It is a hopeless case.” When I say “hopeless case,” God laughs and laughs!
Now on a regular basis I am doing over one hundred fifty poems a day. On some days I compose two hundred, and on some days it is three hundred. In that way I have completed over 4,500 poems. Some people will soon go home to New York, so it is my wish to give them 5,000 poems to be typed by Kakali in New York. From Hawaii, 1,250 poems have already gone back to New York. Now I will be completing 5,000.
All those who serve me in my poetry-world deserve my very special gratitude and gratitude.
She calls me “Father”
After I lifted her in our “Lifting Up the World with a Oneness-Heart” programme, the lady who cleans my hotel room gave such a soulful response. She stood in front of me and then knelt down very devotedly. Yesterday when I went upstairs to my room at about two-thirty, she was bringing flowers that somebody had offered me. She reached the door before me and said, “Father, let me open it.” She calls me “Father.”
She has received one of the pictures of me lifting her, but I thought that I would give her more pictures, so I kept them right next to the door of my room, on the table. They remained there for more than a week.
Finally I said to her, “Are these not the pictures of you?”
She said, “Yes.”
“Then why did you not take them?”
She said, “Oh, Father, how can I take them?”
I was so moved. When I offered her the pictures, she knelt down in front of me with folded hands and said, “Father.”
Then I requested her not to put so many pillows on my bed. Again she fell down on her knees and said, “Father, I will not do it.”
In the early days I never blessed people on their heads, specially ladies. After some years I started blessing people in this way. On this occasion I said to myself, “Now I have to bless her.” I did bless her. Then I said, “Kindly wait here.” I went into the next room and brought a twenty-dollar bill to give to her. When she saw that it was twenty dollars, her eyes became wide. I blessed her very nicely.
Whenever she gets the opportunity, she likes to kneel down and call me “Father.” In India everybody is “Uncle.” If you enter into a taxi, they call you “Uncle, Uncle.” They do not say “Father.” But this lady calls me “Father.”
We have been to many, many places, but I have never seen anybody on our Christmas Trips who is so devoted to me. This lady is really something. Look at her honesty! I left the pictures for her, but she did not take them. She waited for me to give them to her.
Begging me to bless this monk
I never, never intended to bless Trishatur’s monk-friend.* He is a Buddhist monk, and he has taken the vow of renunciation. But inwardly somebody said to me, “Please bless my son.”
I said, “It will not be proper. How can I bless him?”
I clearly saw that the Lord Buddha was begging me to bless this monk, because the Lord Buddha knows who I am. The monk is so nice, and I am so fond of him, but when I asked him, “May I bless you?” he said, “No.”
I said to the Lord Buddha, “You see, I was right.”
But again, I was so proud of the monk, because he was doing the right thing in his own way. The Lord Buddha, knowing who I am, wanted me to bless him. But I was right — the monk did not allow me to bless him. I looked at him when we were standing face to face. With such compassion I was blessing him inwardly. I said, “Lord Buddha, the higher world and this world do not go together.”
He has followed his tradition, and in that way he has done absolutely the right thing. But sometimes we have to go beyond the domain of tradition so that we can make the fastest progress.
In all sincerity, it was at the Lord Buddha’s request that I wanted to bless him. I knew that his brother had not yet accepted the monk-life, so I blessed his brother. But in the case of this monk, it was far beyond my imagination. I did not have the intention to bless him, not at all, because I knew that, according to the monk’s understanding, it would not be the right thing.
I can see the Lord Buddha very clearly at any time, any second, and he wanted me to bless his son. Alas, higher wisdom does not always work with human knowledge, so what can we do? Again, I was so happy that he followed his tradition. With utmost love and compassion I blessed him inwardly. I was looking at him and pouring, pouring all my compassion and affection into him. I touched his heart. When I blessed him while looking at him, at that time I touched his heart. Absolutely unreservedly I blessed him.
I am very fond of him, very fond of him. The other day, how he grabbed me when I came out of the car, at the gate! He grabbed me from behind like a child. He was so happy and thrilled to see me!
For him and his monk-friends it was a very new experience, and for us as well. Trishatur is the synthesis, the bridge between the monk’s austerity and our modernism.
* As a United Nations staff member, Trishatur served with the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia for 18 months, from 1992-1993.
Published in Only One Power
Lord Buddha’s middle path
This is a story about Lord Buddha. Lord Buddha was in deep meditation, very deep meditation, when two musicians passed by. The elder of the two was giving advice to the younger one, saying, “If you want to become a great musician, do not play on the higher strings. They will snap. And if you use only the lower strings, then there will be no music. Play in the middle.”
Lord Buddha said, “This all applies to me! I have taken up such an austere life. No, I must not continue!” Then Lord Buddha started eating in a normal way. He said, “This musician has saved my life. He has shown me the right path.”
It is said that Lord Buddha’s middle path came from these two musicians. The older one was advising the younger one to use the middle notes and then Lord Buddha started following the middle path.
Published in I Wanted to be a Seeker of the Infinite
More Christmas Trip Talks
by Sri Chinmoy
at Awana Kijal Golf and Beach Resort, Malaysia
France challenged our fate!
France gave us some excellent experiences. France challenged our fate! There the former UN Secretary-General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, said that I am the heart of the United Nations. At the pyramid of the Louvre, the world-famous museum, we had our art exhibit, and this year also we shall have an art exhibit.
I received the Nehru Award from UNESCO in Paris. We had a concert in the Eiffel Tower — that we cannot forget. It was noise versus Sri Chinmoy! And we had a concert for 13,000 people, a concert at the Sorbonne and a concert at a circus!
I spoke at the Alliance Francaise. It is very famous.
Once when I was visiting France, it was ten o’clock at night and I wanted to go and eat with some disciples. A lady taxi driver appeared — I could not believe it! I was hesitating. How could it be? At that time I had not seen a lady driving a taxi, so I did not think it was a real taxi. A disciple said, “No, no, it is all right.” It was my first experience with a lady taxi driver!
I am not going to study
Gabriel Monod-Herzen was in charge of all the high schools in Pondicherry. His mother was at the Ashram. Alas, alas, when I wanted to get permission to study in Pondicherry, outside the Ashram, I went to the wrong person, my French teacher. The Mother wanted me to go to another person, a Frenchman named Saint-Hilaire (Pavitra) who was the Mother’s foreign secretary. He and Gabriel were very close friends. She said, “If Pavitra takes you and tells Gabriel, who is an inspector for all the high schools, they will definitely accept you.”
By that time I had changed my mind. I said, “I am not going to study at a school in Pondicherry any more.”
Sometimes you want to go in a certain direction. You are absolutely sure that is the right way. But before long, you come to realise that it is absolutely the wrong way.
Published in Only One Power