Sri Chinmoy is interviewed on ‘The Steve Powers Show’ on WMCA-AM Radio in New York.
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Excerpts from the Interview
broadcast on the Steve Powers Show, WMCA-AM Radio in New York City
Steve Powers: I’d like to introduce you to a special guest. His name is Sri Chinmoy. I welcome you, Sri Chinmoy. My first question is: When did you feel that you wanted to devote your life to spirituality?
Sri Chinmoy: When I was quite young, I felt deep within me an inner urge to realise God and to be of service to God.
Steve Powers: Do you think that is in every person?
Sri Chinmoy: Yes, it is within every person, but one has to cultivate this reality. It is like a muscle. If you take exercise, then you develop the muscle.
Steve Powers: Why is that not more natural to us? Shouldn’t that just come naturally?
Sri Chinmoy: It comes naturally, but the difficulty is that we have been wallowing in the pleasures of ignorance for millennia. Then there comes a time when we start walking along the right path. Once we are well established in our path, it becomes normal and spontaneous.
Steve Powers: Why do we have so many problems finding that path? Especially in our society today, people are awfully confused. People do not know which way to go, what to believe in, what not to believe in, what is the truth, what is not the truth, what is good and what is evil. And there is such tremendous input into our minds of new ideas that it’s difficult for us to know what is good and what is not.
Sri Chinmoy: Unfortunately, most people are living in the mind. In the mind, the question of good and bad thoughts, divine and undivine thoughts, plays a considerable role. But if we live in the heart where we find oneness and identification, then we go beyond duality. We suffer from confusion and live in confusion because we live most of the time in the mind — the doubting mind, suspicious mind, intellectual mind, sophisticated mind. If we can live in the heart — the loving heart, the aspiring heart, the oneness-heart — then this confusion will not arise.
Steve Powers: You are not an anti-intellectual as such, are you? You do believe in the intellect?
Sri Chinmoy: I do believe in the intellect. I have tremendous faith in the intellect. But at the present time, many intellectuals criticise feelings, inner feelings. Most intellectuals adopt a snobbish attitude. It is not that I am saying that intellectuals are bad or the intellect is very bad, no. But right now the intellect does not care for the light that illumines the world. Those who live in the intellect are satisfied with what they feel they have, and what they feel they have is a superior sense of reality. At times they look down upon those who live in the heart and who feel the necessity of the heart. But if the intellectuals feel the necessity of the light that we see in abundant measure in the heart and if they want to embrace that light, then we feel that they are doing the right thing. For the divine light has to play its role inside the intellect.
Steve Powers: Many people get up in the morning, swallow a quick breakfast, run out of the house and go to their subway, get to work and get completely involved with everyday survival. And before the end of the day it’s pretty tough to sit back and take a spiritual view of what’s going on because you have to go out there and hustle. You have to earn a living. Is there a way of integrating the spiritual life into what we call the economic life?
Sri Chinmoy: Our philosophy is the philosophy of wisdom: first things first. Most human beings are wanting in peace, peace of mind. They enter into the hustle and bustle of life right in the morning, and during the whole day they do not have even an iota of peace. We feel that if we can do first things first we are being wise. Early in the morning, if we can pray to God for at least a few minutes, that means we are doing first things first.
We feel it is money-power, material wealth, that will give us satisfaction. But it is not material power; it is the inner power, spiritual power, that gives us real satisfaction. If God the Almighty Father is satisfied with us, if He is pleased with us, then He will grant us peace of mind. And once we have peace of mind, no matter where we go and what activities we enter into, still we feel a sense of satisfaction. Right now satisfaction is a far cry. But early in the morning if we pray to God and meditate on God for a few minutes, then we get peace of mind to some extent. And this peace of mind is undoubtedly true satisfaction in life.
Steve Powers: Do you believe that God provides?
Sri Chinmoy: God does provide. He is the Creator and He is the creation. How can you separate the Creator from the creation? When you write a poem or when you compose a song, you feel your identification and oneness with the creation itself. God has created us, so how can He separate us from His own reality?
Steve Power: Now, let us go to our phones. Good morning, you are live on WMCA.
Caller: When I choose a particular Guru, should I look at him as a person or should I try to see him as just a pure channel of God?
Sri Chinmoy: If you have a teacher, then it is best for you to look at the teacher as a channel, as an instrument of God. You are an instrument of God and your teacher is also an instrument of God. But the difference is that the teacher has become a conscious instrument of God whereas right now you are an unconscious instrument of God. So by listening to the teacher, you will eventually become a conscious instrument of God, as the teacher is right now.
Steve Powers: When you say, Sri Chinmoy, that someone should look at his Guru as an instrument of God, are you saying that he should accept whatever the Guru tells him without question?
Sri Chinmoy: It entirely depends on his faith. If he has implicit faith in the Master and if he feels that the Master is really sincere, then it is advisable to listen to the Master all the time. But I don’t want him to make a mistake, a blunder, by blindly following the teacher when he does not have implicit faith in him.
Caller: If you learn peace and serenity from a Guru, you may have peace and serenity in your own mind and heart, but what do you do about people in the street who are not the same way?
Sri Chinmoy: If I practise spirituality, then I get peace of mind; and if you practice spirituality, then you get peace of mind. If he practices spirituality, then he gets peace of mind. So in this way the number increases. Today you get peace of mind, tomorrow your friends, your relatives, your acquaintances get peace of mind. Again, we believe in vibrations. When we see a spiritual person, a seeker or a saint, immediately we feel a kind of inner purity inside him and we get inspiration from deep within to lead a better life ourselves. Then, we also believe in the theory that birds of a feather flock together. If we become sincere and spiritual, then we shall be mixing with other spiritual and sincere people. In this way we can increase the number of good people here on earth.
Caller: How do you know whether you are speaking to God or just speaking to yourself and saying it’s God?
Sri Chinmoy: Satisfaction is the only thing that you want, that he wants, that I want. Satisfaction is of paramount importance. Now, I have eaten a mango. If I am satisfied, then it is more than enough for me. If you ask, “How do you know that you have eaten a mango?” then my answer will be: “If you want to see, then next time I am going to eat, you can be my guest. I will invite you to be with me and see for yourself whether I am eating the mango or whether I am fooling myself or fooling you.”
Steve Powers: In other words, experience it in part yourself?
Sri Chinmoy: Yes. If you want a history professor to teach you history, then you have to come and sit in his class. Also, you have to have some basic knowledge about history. Only then will the professor be able to teach you. I am a spiritual teacher. If somebody comes and says, “How do you know that you have realised God?” then I will ask that person to come to me with the basic knowledge, the basic requisites of sincerity and purity. You come to me with sincerity and purity in a meditative mood for a few minutes, and I shall make you feel whether what I am saying is true or not.
Steve Powers: I think one of the callers was asking, in effect: If I become sensitive and mellow and spiritual, will I not get eaten up on the street by the sharks? Do you know what I mean by that?
Sri Chinmoy: I know. If I am one with you, then how can you destroy me? Just because I am not one with you, you can do some harm to me. Oneness is strength. When we identify ourselves with a higher reality, how can we be destroyed? How can we be devoured? A child identifies himself with his father. The father is strong; he is a man of knowledge. The child feels that nothing will harm him because his father is there. On the strength of his oneness with his father, the child feels he is quite safe; he can go anywhere he wants to because he has a father with wisdom, strength, capacity. So here also, if one practises spirituality, then one is consciously identifying oneself with the highest omnipotent Power. So how can we be devoured in the street? Identification solves all our problems. If we identify ourselves with a higher Source, a higher Reality, we have to know that this higher Reality definitely has enormous power, boundless power.
Steve Powers: One of the problems I think people have is that even if they pray and meditate or if they just try to be good, when they go out into the world they find there are people there just waiting to rip them off. They see no justice.
Sri Chinmoy: There is justice, but we do not know what God’s Justice is, or how it operates. Again, God’s Justice and His Compassion are inseparable. Good people and spiritual people can pray and meditate for divine protection, and also to illumine mankind. If we are assailed by undivine people when we go out, we can easily pray in the morning not only for our own protection, but also for the illumination of unlit people. If we can sincerely pray for the transformation of the undivine people in the world, then this world of darkness and chaos cannot remain as it is.
Steve Powers: You are telling me we can transform humanity as the direct result of prayer?
Sri Chinmoy: Prayer and meditation can solve all our problems. But we cannot expect immediate or overnight results. Everything takes time.
Steve Powers: But don’t you think people are living in very difficult circumstances who do pray, and then watch their children fall prey to drugs and crime and all sorts of abuses in our society?
Sri Chinmoy: Unfortunately, many people feel that this is their only life. Some people feel that this incarnation is the first and last. But we believe in reincarnation. There is a Sanskrit word, karma, the law of action and reaction. Who knows what we or our children did in our previous incarnations? Now we are totally oblivious of these former lives. Sometimes we do something wrong and only after a few years do we pay the penalty. But we do not realise that we may also have to pay the penalty for things we did wrong in previous lives. That is how God’s Justice works.
Caller: I was brought up in my daily life to ask God to help me with the things that I wanted out of life. But I find that I don’t have any of the things I wanted, and now God is asking me to do things for Him rather than to expect things from Him.
Sri Chinmoy: God will never demand from us more than we can offer Him. We are His beloved children. The mother will not place a heavy load on the shoulders of a small child. Even an ordinary earthly mother knows how much a child can carry. If the mother sees that the load is too much for the child, then she will not ask him to carry it. God is our eternal Father and Mother. He is everything to us. He will not demand of us something we cannot do. God is not imposing on you. God does not impose. Either you are making yourself feel that God expects something from you, or you are making yourself feel that you do not have the capacity to fulfil His expectations.
Caller: I have tried for several years to become a more spiritual person in my own way, with very little knowledge of it. I had one or two experiences which have frightened me. I don’t understand them and yet I believe in them. I would like to ask Sri Chinmoy how I could continue to further my knowledge and develop myself so that I could begin to experience more.
Sri Chinmoy: It is a matter of sincerity — how sincerely, how earnestly and how desperately you need to go beyond the experiences that you have already had. If you continue practising spirituality, which you have been doing for a number of years, then I assure you that you will make progress. It is a matter of regular practice. You have to practise regularly, soulfully and devotedly what you have been doing it is your regular practice that eventually will give you higher and deeper satisfaction.
Steve Powers: Sri Chinmoy, I know people who are most kind and gentle and yet have no belief in God. They seem to be fine human beings even though they have no interest in spirituality. From your point of view, do they need realisation of what you are talking about?
Sri Chinmoy: From my point of view, they do need realisation. They are kind, they are good, they are sympathetic, they are sincere, they are pure, they have magnanimous hearts. These are the divine qualities they have got from the highest Source. But this is not enough. These things do not and cannot complete our human illumination. For our total illumination, we need conscious and constant oneness with the highest Source.
Caller: I was trying to give some healing to my father who was not too well, and I felt some energy moving in my hands. Am I right to feel that this and other kinds of experiences that I’ve had may be coming from God?
Steve Powers: You are asking about healing? I guess first we have to establish whether you believe that there is a force of healing.
Sri Chinmoy: I do believe in the force of healing.
Steve Powers: And the source of the force?
Sri Chinmoy: The source of the force is God, the all-Good. God is omnipotent; again, He is all Love. So it is from His Love that the healing power comes into existence.
Steve Powers: If there is a healing power, why do we need specific methods in order to heal? In other words, let’s assume that God is the Source and He is capable of healing whomever He wishes. Why do certain people feel that they have to go through a number of incantations, wave the hand over the disturbed area four times to the right, three times to the left and so on? Why these systems?
Sri Chinmoy: It is a matter of faith. Some people feel that if they do particular things, then someone will be cured, while others feel it is not necessary. You are dealing with individual faith. Some people use incantations in order to reach a higher state of consciousness, while others feel it is all within them, so it is necessary only to pray and meditate. You pray to God to give you the capacity to please Him in His own Way, and God will do the rest.
If I pray to God for His own fulfilment in and through my life, naturally He will do what is best for me. Some people pray to God, “God, grant me this. If I have this, then only will I be able to become a good instrument of Yours. I am now suffering from a headache and stomach upset. If You cure me, I will be able to have a good meditation.” But others say, “No, I wish to please You in Your own Way. If it is Your Will that today I do not meditate, if You have something else for me to do, if You want to give me an experience of suffering, then this is best for me. I do not know what is best for me. What is best for me only You know.”
Caller: I have intellectual pursuits, but I do believe in a very, very deep spiritual life and I have become much more of what I would call a human being. But the more you become that, the more you are eaten, as you said before, by the sharks, by the life around you. What is to be done?
Steve Powers: That’s a very important question in our society. This woman feels that the more she allows herself to become sensitive, the more pain she feels and the more vulnerable she is to the sharks who seem to be constantly circling her.
Sri Chinmoy: I sympathise with her, I sympathise with you. But I wish to say that sometimes we see a dark tunnel before we see sunlight. Before dawn, the hour is the darkest. Right now we are experiencing the world as a harsh reality. The world is torturing us. We are trying to be good, kind, sympathetic, spiritual in every possible way, but in return we are being tortured by humanity. But we have to continue in our faith that God is all Power and that He is going to have a perfect creation. If we have faith in our own gradual perfection, then we will have the same kind of feeling about others. Right now if I look at myself and see what I am, as compared to what I was ten years ago, I would definitely notice an improvement. Ten years ago I was not, let us say, as divine as I am now. Ten years ago I was also, let us say, undivine. But I cried and I tried and my Lord was pleased with me, so He has granted me some light, some peace, some divine qualities. That’s why today I have become a better human being. So if I can make progress, I feel that others can also make the same progress. Today they are undivine, but tomorrow, like me, they can become divine. Not what one is right now, but what one will eventually become is what is most important. So these people who are now a threat to us need not and cannot remain a threat all the time because it is God’s Will that we make progress.
Caller: If God is all-loving, why does He permit suffering?
Sri Chinmoy: ‘Suffering’ is a term we see in the dictionary. When we suffer, we feel tremendous pain inside us; there is no joy inside us. But I wish to say that suffering is a state of consciousness. When we practise spirituality and yoga, we feel that this suffering is nothing but an experience. And when we dive deep within, we feel it is not we who are having this experience of suffering; it is God Himself. He is the Creator; He is the creation. He is the Doer; He is the action itself. So the more we identify ourselves with the Source, the more we feel that what we call suffering is not suffering at all. It is an experience that God Himself is having in and through us for the fulfilment of His infinite Vision. I call it suffering, you call it suffering, but God does not call it suffering. He calls it an experience. It is a state of His own infinite Consciousness.
Steve Powers: Nonetheless, the person who is suffering, in the common sense of the word, is in pain.
Sri Chinmoy: He is in pain because he has identified with the earth-reality. But if he identifies with God, then the suffering itself will be turned into delight.
Steve Powers: If I drop a hammer on your foot, will you feel suffering or will you feel delight?
Sri Chinmoy: If I remain in an ordinary consciousness, then I will feel it as suffering. But if I am in a divine consciousness, then either I will take it as delight or I will take it as an experience of God in and through me. At the age of eight or nine I had a serious operation. I told the doctor I would like to watch the operation. The doctor said it was a serious operation, but I said, “No!” Right before the operation I put a very concentrated force on it, and during the operation itself I was smiling at the doctor. The doctor was horrified. On the strength of our concentrative power, we can transform suffering into delight itself if it is God’s Will. And again, if we want to experience the suffering and take it as an experience, we can do this. But if we do not transform suffering into delight, and if we do not take it as an experience of God in and through us, then it will hurt us deeply.
Caller: I recently made a decision to change my lifestyle and let my family and friends know I was living a spiritual life. Instantly I was besieged with a barrage of complaints and criticisms.
Steve Powers: What you are talking about is the reaction of the people around you to your spirituality. I think that when people try to live a more spiritual life, there is a negative reaction from the people around them, who say such things as, “What, are you out of your mind?”
Sri Chinmoy: It is a matter of choice. If I really want God and if I really feel that my goal is situated to the north, then I shall walk to the north, no matter what others say. Others have not given me satisfaction, but now I feel that there is something or someone else that will be able to give me satisfaction. Those who are criticising you in no way have given you satisfaction. Now you are looking for satisfaction deep within by praying and meditating. If they criticise you, if they ridicule you, you must not pay any attention to them. In this world there will always be people to criticise us, and again, there will be people to sympathise with us and inspire us. So the best thing is to know what you want. If you want satisfaction, then you walk along the road of prayer and meditation.
Caller: I had a deeper study of religion for about seven years, which gave me a closer relationship to God. I tried to see the good in everyone around me, always to see them as God, as spiritual beings, as good children. At this time I lost a son in an accident. How am I supposed to accept this in my life? Is it God’s plan, or is this my reward for being good?
Sri Chinmoy: If we really sincerely pray to God, then we develop a specific quality within us of oneness with God. Eventually, we develop the capacity to say soulfully and sincerely, “Let Thy Will be done.” We ultimately feel that it is for a necessary experience that we have had a catastrophe in the family. After all, God loves the child whom we have lost infinitely more than we do. When we love God, we realise that His capacity for Love is infinitely greater than ours. You are God’s child, and the son whom you have lost is also God’s child. The Supreme Father always knows what is best for each individual.
Steve Powers: But don’t you still suffer the loss on a human level?
Sri Chinmoy: We do not suffer very much if our identification and oneness with God is complete. On the strength of our oneness we shall feel that for a few years God gave us another person to stay with us, and now he is needed somewhere else. We will suffer very little if our oneness is complete. But if we have established only a little oneness with God, then we shall suffer miserably on the human level.
Published in Truth’s Fountain-Melody