July 11

Diary Entry

by Sri Chinmoy
while in residence at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India

11 July

"Nolini-da, I have received a letter from Dilip-da."

"From Dilip? To you?"

"Yes. Recently I wrote an article about his father, D.L. Roy. I asked him to correct my article. He did so and sent it back to me with a letter. He has written much about you."

"About me?"

"You may wish to see it."

Nolini-da read the letter and said: "Mad, mad! Dilip compares me with his most illustrious father. He is really mad. I am sure you have told him that I am writing an article on his father."

I said: "No, I have not told him that. He has heard it from some other source, it seems."

"Anyway, if you answer his letter, tell him that I shall try to write something about his father. But don't say that I am writing something. You know me well. I may not get the necessary time to complete it."

Published in A Service-Flame and a Service-Sun

Capacity

A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at St Thomas’ Church Hall, Vasteras, Sweden

Dear sisters and brothers, dear seekers of the highest Truth, I wish to give a short talk on capacity. Capacity is something that everybody is familiar with; it is not something new to any human being. God grants us capacity the moment we take human birth. In fact, the soul is inundated with capacity in the soul’s world before we ever take human birth. The soul then assumes a physical body and uses this capacity to reveal and manifest God here on earth.

A child that is one day old knows how to move his hands and legs and how to cry. These are some of his capacities. As the child grows up, his capacities increase. When he becomes a fully-fledged man, either he misuses his capacities or he uses them properly. If he properly uses his capacities, he eventually realises the highest Truth on earth. If he misuses his capacities, then here on earth he lives in the world of ignorance and death.

Since we are all seekers, we all have some capacity to love God, to serve God and to surrender ourselves to God’s Will. If we love God, then we are doing the first thing first; we are watering the roots of the tree. If we serve God, we come closer to God and God comes closer to us. If we surrender ourselves to God’s Will, then we feel that we are complete.

Yesterday we cried and cried for God’s Love. Today we are smiling and smiling with God’s Love. Tomorrow with our smile we shall bring down the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. When we bring down the Kingdom of Heaven to earth, our Beloved Supreme will enjoy His rest on earth and all human beings will at last find their all-nourishing, all-protecting nest.

We must try to serve God in every human being. This service of ours has to be unconditional. If it is conditional service we will never be happy. Whenever we serve God or love mankind we have to do it unconditionally. Then only can we be continuously happy.

Two thousand years ago the Saviour Christ taught us the supreme lesson: “Let Thy Will be done.” Millions, billions and trillions of prayers have been offered to God, but there can be no better, no greater, no more fulfilling prayer than this. If we love God we become happy. If we serve God we become happier. If we surrender our individual will to God’s Will we become happiest.

There is a special way to become happy. If we know how to follow the inner guidance, then we can really be happy. This guidance comes directly from the soul. Unfortunately, quite often our vital being cleverly deceives us. It makes us feel that its own message is actually coming from the soul. How are we going to know whether a message is coming from the vital or from the soul? There is an easy, most effective way to know this. If it is the voice of the vital, then we will know immediately from the way we feel after we complete the action. After we act, the result of our action will come in the form of either success or failure. If we fail in something and then feel miserable, we can know that it was not the voice of the soul that told us to do that thing; it was the voice of the vital being. If we are successful and then become extremely happy and proud and try to dominate the world with our happiness and pride, again we can know that it was not the soul’s voice. The moment we get a message from the soul or hear its voice, we get an inner thrill. Whether we succeed or fail, we have an inner joy. This joy does not make us want to dominate the world; rather, it makes us feel our oneness with the world. With this joy we can enter into others’ hearts and help them to lead a better and higher life.

A life of peace is a life of tremendous capacity. How do we get peace? There are many ways to achieve peace but I wish to tell you of two main ways. One way is to minimise our desires. Since we are seekers, a day will come when we shall have no desires at all. But before that day dawns, our peace of mind will increase if we try to minimise our desires every day. The second way to get peace is to feel that we are not indispensable here on earth for anything or for anyone. Long before we came into the world, the world existed; long after we leave this world, the world will still exist. So how can we be indispensable? We stay here on earth for sixty, seventy or eighty years. Then we see our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren carry on where we left off in the supreme process of evolution.

In our daily life, sometimes we see good in others and sometimes we see bad. This is a form of capacity that we exercise every day. But we have to know that when we see bad in others we multiply our own bad qualities. When we see good in others we find that we can bring forward our own good qualities and see our own Source. This Source is the Unity which is trying to manifest itself through multiplicity.

Life is a constant battle between good forces and bad forces, between divine forces and undivine forces. When we lose in the battlefield of life we feel that we are doomed to disappointment. This disappointment is itself a negative force. During the fight we have already spent a considerable amount of energy. But if we pay attention to our disappointment and despair, we lose even more of our precious energy. To pay attention to anyone or anything is to expend energy. If we pay attention to the right people or the right things, then we get energy back from them in abundant measure. We offer our capacity to the human in them; then the soul or the divine in them gives us back even more capacity, out of gratitude. In the outer life, the more we offer knowledge to others, the more there comes to us a higher and deeper knowledge to illumine our mind and heart. In the spiritual life also, the more we serve others, the more capacity God grants us for service.

When we have earthly power, physical power, we feel that we shall be able to dominate the earth. When we have spiritual power, we feel that we can be of service to mankind. Spiritual power is the power of our inner cry. Spiritual power climbs high, higher, highest and brings down from above God’s Light, Peace and Delight. Then it distributes these qualities in the physical world. Spiritual power is the power of inseparable oneness. Physical, earthly power is the power of division and destruction. But when physical power is illumined and guided by spiritual power, then the physical power adds to the spiritual power in the tug-of-war against ignorance. Physical power, the younger brother, takes the side of spiritual power, the older brother, and together they battle against ignorance. When two strong persons are on one side and only one is on the other side, naturally the side that has two persons will win.

In the spiritual life there is a special way to increase our capacity every day, every hour, every minute. It can be done through gratitude. When we offer our soulful gratitude to God, our capacity for receptivity immediately increases. Our receptivity is like a vessel; this vessel can be enlarged. Naturally, the larger the vessel the more it will be able to hold of God’s Light and Delight.

The life of a seeker is the life of inner faith. Faith is something that constantly brings us the message of the Beyond. Faith is the foundation of our real life. We must have faith in God; we must have faith in ourselves. If we have faith only in God and not in ourselves, or if we have faith only in ourselves and not in God, then we cannot go very far. What is our faith? Our faith is our inner cry for God’s Light and Bliss in infinite measure. Our faith is God’s transcendental Smile, which transforms our life and carries us from the sea of ignorance to the sea of Wisdom. Our inner faith in God constantly helps us to run the fastest and constantly makes God run towards us in the fastest possible way. Because God’s speed is far greater than our speed, when we take one step towards God we see that God has taken ninety-nine steps towards us. Then we meet together.

Capacity means to give and to receive. What can we give God? We can give Him only what we have. What we have is a sea of ignorance. What He has is a sea of infinite Light and Delight. God is anxious and more than eager to give us what He has and what He is. It is we who do not want to give our ignorance to God. We feel that if we give our ignorance away to God, then there will be nothing that we will have or be able to claim as our own. But when we pray and meditate, we realise that we can claim God’s treasures as our own.

An unaspiring person feels that he can create a better universe. God not only feels that He can create a better universe but He actually has the capacity to do so. Seekers can help God in creating a better universe through selfless, dedicated service and through constant aspiration. If God wants me to be perfect, if I cry most sincerely and most devotedly, one day God will make me perfect. Then there will be one less imperfect person in this world. Tomorrow, if you also try most sincerely the way I have tried, then there will be two persons on the side of perfection. If every day one person takes the side of perfection, then this world of ours will eventually become perfect. The process goes from the one to the many, from the individual to the universal, from the earth-bound consciousness to the Heaven-free consciousness, from the finite reality to the infinite Reality which is God's Song of the ever-transcending Beyond.

We can do something for everyone: for earth, for God and for Heaven. We can bring down Heaven’s Smile for earth. We can offer our earth-cry to Heaven. We can offer our surrendered life to God. Finally, if we really want to love earth in a divine and supreme way, then we must remind ourselves of the long-forgotten promise that we are here on earth to embody God consciously, to reveal God devotedly, to manifest God unmistakably. Our embodiment of God, our revelation of God and our manifestation of God must be unconditional. If we do this, God’s infinite capacities will shower on us. At that time we become God’s ambassadors, His most perfect instruments on earth. And it is in and through us that He will then sail His Dream-Boat to the Golden Shore of the ever-transcending Beyond.

Published in My Rose Petals, part 4

Love, Service and Transformation

A talk by Sri Chinmoy
in White Plains, New York

How do we love the world? We love the world with our inner peace. How do we serve the world? We serve the world with our inner joy. How do we transform the world? We transform the world with our inner faith.

Outer peace is a mutual compromise. Two individuals or two nations find no better way to bring about some harmony; therefore, they resort to compromise. There is no inner satisfaction here, but just because two individuals have to stay together on earth, they feel that there is no other way. If they have to live on earth, then they have to resort to compromise. But inner joy, inner satisfaction, inner peace remain a far cry.

Inner peace is a mutual sacrifice. This sacrifice is founded upon conscious awareness of one’s reality. In this sacrifice the one finds fulfilment in the many and the many find fulfilment in the one. On the strength of their inner oneness, two individuals on the outer plane make a sacrifice. But when they dive deep within, they feel that there is no such thing as sacrifice. It is the supreme necessity in both of them to please, to satisfy and to fulfil each other.

Outer joy is nothing more than pleasure, pleasure-life. This pleasure-life is followed by depression and frustration-life; and what looms large in depression and frustration is destruction.

Inner joy is spontaneous satisfaction. This satisfaction we discover in the heart of universal oneness. In order to have inner joy we have to give up the desire-life and enter into the domain of aspiration-life. Only in aspiration-life can we discover the heart of universal oneness.

Outer faith is nothing more than a rope of sand; it crumbles in the twinkling of an eye. With outer faith we cannot sing the everlasting song of the Absolute Supreme. Only in the everlasting things can the Supreme, the Absolute in us, sing His transcendental, universal Song.

Inner faith is our divine conviction. Inner faith makes us realise that we are of God — that we have a source and our source is God — and also, that we are in God and we are for God. When we discover that we are of God, we feel that our life has meaning, our life has made a promise to God. Our human life, both individual and collective, must fulfil that promise. And what is that promise? That promise is to manifest God here on earth in God’s own way. We are in God. What does this mean? It means that we have accepted God’s cosmic Lila, His divine Game. We want to participate in His cosmic Game. God the eternal Player invites us and inspires us to play the Game, the eternal Game.

While playing the Game we will enjoy peace, bliss and satisfaction in boundless measure. We are for God. What does this mean? It means that we have become supremely chosen instruments of God and He is manifesting Himself in an unprecedented manner in and through us. He is manifesting His Divinity, His Eternity, His Infinity and His Reality in and through us on earth.

Each human being has three natures: the animal, the human and the divine. The animal in us is nothing short of immediate destruction. The human in us is give and take, or possess and be possessed. The divine in us is self-giving, and self-giving eventually is transformed into God-becoming. The divine in us grows, glows and flows. When it grows, it grows into the transcendental Consciousness, the transcendental Height. When it glows, it covers the length and breadth of the world. It finds its existence in the entire universe. And when the divine in us flows, it flows in Eternity. Eternity and the divine Love flow together.

Transformation, service and love. What is transformation? Transformation is the unlearning of the things that ignorance has taught us. This ignorance had a favourite student. That student was mind — the physical mind, not the higher mind or the illumined mind. The gross physical mind has taught the individual quite a few things which he now wants to unlearn. The sooner he can unlearn the teachings of ignorance, the sooner his transformation, the transformation of his entire being, will take place.

Service. Whom do we serve? The human in others or the human in us? We do not serve the human in others or the human in ourselves. We serve the divine in others, the Supreme in others. And the Supreme in others is the same Supreme who abides in us. When we serve the Supreme in others consciously, soulfully, devotedly and unconditionally, we feel a kind of expansion. In this expansion we feel that we are no longer for an individual, but for all. United we are singing, playing, dancing in God’s Garden. Human service is performed under compulsion. The human in us does not use the term ‘service’; it immediately uses the term ‘help’. But when the human in us thinks that it is offering help, the divine in us knows that this is a mistake. The divine in us serves the Supreme, the Absolute Supreme. The Absolute Supreme does not need help; He has and He is everything. He is Infinity, He is Eternity and He is Immortality. But when we serve Him, our humility grows, our spontaneous divinity grows. We feel that we are tiny drops in the ocean, insignificant, infinitesimal drops. But when we enter into the ocean, when even the tiniest possible drops lose their personality and individuality, they become the infinite ocean itself. So it is through our service, devoted service, that we consciously grow into the Vast, into Infinity’s Light and Delight.

Love. Why do we love? We love because our Source, He who created us, has taught us one supremely significant thing: love. He has infinite Love; He is infinite, eternal Love. This is what He has taught the soul in us, and the soul in us tries to bring this teaching always to the fore. The Supreme is the only teacher with only one subject, and that subject is love. Just because He is all Love, He is our dearest, He is our sweetest, He is our All. And because we want to love Him for the sake of love alone, without asking Him for any recompense, He feels that we are His chosen instruments.

Love is the greatest power, the most powerful power in us. But it is divine love that is most powerful, not human love. When a seeker enters into the spiritual life, he feels within and without him a flood of love. And when he feels this love, he consciously tries to dedicate himself to the Source. He sees and feels that he is becoming consciously and constantly the perfect embodiment of God the eternal Truth, God the eternal Light and God the eternal Delight.

Each individual seeker here and elsewhere is God’s conscious representative on earth. A seeker is he who knows that ignorance-life is not the answer. Aspiration-life, which is the life of love divine within us — love of God, love of truth, love of light — can be the only answer. A seeker may not be consciously aware of the truth that he is infinitely higher than those who are unaspiring. Even if he is aware of what he is and who he is, he may not fully manifest what he has and what he is within. For the manifestation of his inner divinity he has to aspire, constantly aspire and become the ceaseless, ever-mounting flame. The flame right now is within him, but there shall come a time when he has to grow into the flame itself. Once the seeker becomes the burning, glowing and illumining flame, the Absolute Supreme manifests Himself in and through this ever-mounting flame. And in this ever-mounting flame the seeker discovers not only his self-transcendence but also God’s Self-transcendence. He and his eternal Beloved together are transcending, constantly transcending the height of Eternity’s experience, Eternity’s realisation.

Published in AUM — Vol. 2, No. 8, 27 August 1975

Everest-Aspiration Talks

by Sri Chinmoy

You are Spiritual

8:10 a.m.
Jamaica High School Track,
Jamaica, New York

You are spiritual. That means you have only a few desires, very, very few desires. One day you will come to the point where you will have only one desire: God. God-realisation will be your only desire. Only one desire will be left you, and that desire will be fulfilled by God Himself with the deepest Love, Joy and Pride.

You are spiritual. That means you are sincere. There are two types of sincerity. One is human sincerity, the mind’s sincerity. The other is divine sincerity, the heart’s sincerity. The human sincerity that you speak of comes from the most developed member of your human family, the mind. The mind tells you that this is sincerity, this is insincerity. The mind inspires or commands you to say the right thing, the sincere thing. But there is also something called the heart’s sincerity. The heart’s sincerity is a different matter. Heart’s sincerity is oneness with the Will of the Supreme. Sometimes the mind is sincere, but only when the mind can get some profit or benefit from sincerity. Sometimes the mind is sincere because it feels an inner compulsion; it feels inwardly obliged. But in the heart’s sincerity, which is oneness with the Supreme’s Will, there is an inner, special purpose which the human mind cannot fathom. If you are spiritual, you will be ready eventually to unite your will with the Supreme’s Will. That kind of sincerity you are aiming at.

You are spiritual. That means you are humble. Here humility means the acceptance of the world’s burden according to your capacity. God is all Humility. He has accepted as His own lot the entire weight of the world. So you also accept the burden around you, according to your limited capacity. You are like a tree. The tree carries leaves, flowers, fruits and everything. You also can bear the burden of the world around you on your head and shoulders. This is your humility.

You are spiritual. That means you are secure. Security means that you feel the living Presence of God inside you, and you feel your living presence inside God. Also, you tell yourself that you are for God and that God is for you. When you tell yourself that God is for you and you are for God, and when you feel your presence inside God and God’s Presence inside you, that is your security.

You are spiritual. That means you are pure. What kind of purity are you aiming at? You are aiming at the purity that will satisfy God and capture Him inside your heart, inside your mind, inside your vital and inside your body. All your impurity will leave you when God comes to live inside your body-room, vital-room, mind-room and heart-room. If you can feel that God is living inside you, then only can you develop real purity.

You are spiritual. That means you are divine. At first your divinity will say that there is no adamantine wall between you and God. You are facing God and God is facing you. Your divinity will make you feel that two Gods are facing each other and conversing. But eventually you will merge into the God that you are now facing. You will know there is only one God and that the entire world is His projection. Then there will come a time when God will ask you to play His role. He will make you feel that you are God and He is your projection. Then He will hide Himself and play the role of the universe, while you play the role of God. He becomes the creation and you become the Creator. You are God’s creation according to His Vision, Mission and Necessity. But when He is fully satisfied with your spirituality, He says, “My son, I am changing the game. I shall become the creation and you become the Creator.” This is how you become inseparably one with the Source who conceived of you and created you.

Spirituality

10:00 p.m.
St Paul’s Chapel,
Columbia University, New York

Spirituality. Spirituality is man’s conscious longing for God. Spirituality tells us that God, who is unknowable today, will tomorrow become knowable and, the day after, will become totally known.

We must need God for God’s sake. God can fulfil us in our own way, but it is we who will not be truly fulfilled when God satisfies us in our own way. Our crying heart, our aspiring heart, our illumining heart, will never be satisfied unless and until it pleases God in God’s own Way; therefore, our God-realisation is for God’s sake. Man’s perfection lies in God-satisfaction.

A beginningless beginning tells us that spirituality is an aspiration-plant. This plant grows and grows; eternally it grows. An endless end tells us that spirituality is a surrender-tree. This tree bears divine fruits, and these fruits come to us on the strength of our constant, conscious and surrendered oneness with our Beloved Supreme.

True spirituality is our conscious acceptance of life, not the annulment, not the negation, not the annihilation of life. We must needs accept life and radically change the face of life into the very image of our Beloved Supreme.

Spirituality says to the heart, “O heart, why do you remain insecure? Do you not feel that inside you the Almighty, the Lord Supreme, abides? You must not feel insecure, for it is you who can proclaim to the world at large that inside you is the living Presence of the Beloved Supreme. Of all the parts of the being, you have been chosen to be the first and foremost instrument to guide the mind, the vital and the body to the soul. The soul eventually will bring them to me.”

Spirituality tells the mind to remain silent. It says to the mind, “O mind, do not think any more. Your thinking power is nothing short of confusion. You confuse the other members of your family — body, vital and heart — and, at the same time, you are yourself confused when you indulge in the thought-world.”

Spirituality says to the vital, “O vital, do not crave. Do not crave for name and fame. Do not crave for anything, for even if you possess the things that you crave, these possessions will not satisfy you. Even inside these possessions there will be a cry for more possessions. You will always act like a beggar if you crave for anything. No matter what you get, you will remain dissatisfied and unfulfilled. So do not walk along that path. Your craving must come to an end. Do not crave anything.”

Finally, spirituality says to the body, “O body, how long will you sleep? Don’t you know that you have been sleeping from time immemorial? It is because of your ignorance-sleep that the rest of the members of your family are not able to reach the Golden Shore, the destined Goal. O body, sleep not! The Goal is only for those who are awakened. Awake, arise! The rest of the members of your family will run faster than the fastest the moment you become active and dynamic and cast aside the shackles of ignorance-sleep.”

Spirituality tells the seeker not to live in the hoary past, not to live in the remote future, but to live in the immediacy of today, in the eternal Now. This eternal Now embodies man the aspiring seed and God the all-nourishing Fruit.

Published in Everest-Aspiration, part 1

Sri Chinmoy reads a selection of poems from Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants during a public meditation at Public School 86 in Jamaica, New York, to celebrate the first anniversary of the series that he began on 10 July 1983.

Listen to Sri Chinmoy reciting the poems...

Three simple words — The Golden Path — by Sri Chinmoy, say it all.