Joy Unlimited
A talk by Sri Chinmoy
at the Lions Club of the Bronx
in the Westchester-Bronx, NY, Branch of the YMCA
My imagination tells me that the unlimited joy can be seen. My inspiration tells me that the unlimited joy can be felt. My realisation tells me that the unlimited joy can be seen, felt, possessed and realised. Something more it says, “I can grow into the unlimited joy.”
When I think of God, my mind gets Joy. When I pray to God, my heart feels Joy. When I meditate on God, my soul becomes all Joy.
God has given me the body, mind, heart and soul. It is I who have to use them with a view to achieving an everlasting Joy. God has given me the body. I shall have to use it to serve Him in the world of manifestation. God has given me the mind. I shall have to use it to think of Him in the world of determination, Will. God has given me the heart. I shall have to use it to love Him in the world of self-sacrifice. God has given me the soul. I shall have to use it to feel my identity with Him in the world of self-revelation.
I shall have to have Joy of my own. Unless and until I have it, I can never totally become one with others’ Joy. There is considerable truth in what Shakespeare, “O how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!”
Yesterday I was compelled to accept the belief that human life is strewn with difficulties and sufferings. But today I am given the opportunity, the golden opportunity to release that old thought of mine. I can accept this belief instead, that I inherit my life from God's Life of Bliss and my existence on earth is the ever-renewing and ever-unfolding expression of God the Blissful.
If I have just one aim and if that aim is to be myself, then I am bound to discover Joy, true Joy, eternal Joy in my inner march towards my Goal.
I think not old thoughts. I live not in old consciousness. I grow with new thoughts and flow with a new consciousness to reveal my life of imagination, inspiration, aspiration and realisation.
What to do? Stop thinking.
Why to do? To see the Supreme.
How to do? By running, flying and diving.
When to do? The moment you desire to grow into the Supreme’s Dream.
Needless to say that you must realise the value of time if you want to have the unlimited Joy in you, with you and around you.
To kill time is to see the face of failure more and more.
To use time is to open heart’s wide door even more.
To value time is to live in God's own Core.
To quarrel with time is to forget the Golden Shore.
To go beyond time is to become God's Transcendental Lore.
You are happy because you know that the world loves you. Someone else is happy because he feels that he loves the world. I am happy because I have discovered the truth that the world is love and my God is the only Lover.
Published in AUM – Vol. 3, No. 7, 8, Feb. – Mar. 27, 1968
The Vision-Dawn
A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut
O Vision-Dawn, you are beautiful, amazingly beautiful. You are pure, astonishingly pure. You are self-giving, sleeplessly self-giving. You are perfect, absolutely perfect.
Mine are the eyes that appreciate your beauty. Mine is the mind that admires your purity. Mine is the heart that adores your self-giving. Mine is the life that loves your perfection.
Because of you and your eternal kindness, ignorance-night cannot weaken my vision. Because of you and your infinite compassion, ignorance-night cannot threaten my mission. Because of you and your immortal love, ignorance-night does not dare to challenge my realisation.
Because I sincerely love you, nobody can lord it over my mind. Because I devotedly love you, nobody can enslave my heart. Because I unreservedly love you, nobody can imprison my life.
Each individual has countless problems. I am no exception. But to my extreme joy, O Vision-Dawn, when I encounter serious problems, you come to rescue me and whisper immediate solutions.
When doubt-clouds cover my mind, your rainbow-smile flies down to save me. When insecurity assails my entire being, you whisper, “I shall always be with you and for you — to save you, to illumine you, to perfect you and to fulfil you. I shall enter into you with a most powerful sunrise. Yours will be a security-heart. Yours will be a confidence-life.”
O Vision-Dawn, is there any seeker on earth who does not need you? But alas, there are very few seekers who soulfully aspire to receive you. Most of us want success-glory without the effort-pangs.
I wish to offer an amusing anecdote. Here at this august university Professor William Lyon Phelps once was correcting pre-Christmas examination papers. One unfortunate student had written: “God alone can answer this question. Merry Christmas!” The professor returned the paper with this fruitful message: “To God I give an A and to you I give an F. Happy New Year!”
The same truth applies to most of us. We want our life to be flooded with success-glory, but we do not want to pay the price. Personal effort is of paramount importance right from our journey’s start to our journey’s close. And since there is no end to our self-transcendence, personal effort is always needed. It is an eternal journey, and we are the pilgrims walking, marching and running along Eternity’s Road.
Again, there comes a time when we dive deep within and realise the supreme truth that inside our personal effort what looms large is God’s blessingful Grace. However, His Grace works invisibly. So in the beginning of our spiritual life, we find it almost impossible to see God’s unconditional Grace operating in and through our personal effort. But eventually we do see and feel this.
Again, there comes a time when we realise that success is not the goal; progress is our only goal. No powerful Grace, no fruitful progress. No fruitful progress, no abiding satisfaction. Grace, effort and progress together create a oneness-perfection and fulness-satisfaction.
Each individual soul is a choice instrument of God. Each individual soul has to accomplish something unique here on earth before it passes behind the curtain of Eternity. Each individual soul has a message, a special gift, to offer to Mother Earth. Each soul tries to leave here something divinely inspiring and supremely fulfilling. Before he breathed his last, Beethoven, the supreme composer, offered this immortal message: “I close my eyes with the blessed consciousness that I have left one shining track upon the earth.”
O Vision-Dawn, here we are all seekers, seekers of infinite Light and Truth. As Beethoven most generously enriched the world of music with his music of the Beyond, even so we seekers of the Infinite, with your boundless bounty, shall illumine the world of aspiration and quench humanity’s eternal God-thirst.
Published in Sound and Silence, part 1
Obedience
A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
Obedience, obedience, obedience!
Obedience is acceptance — acceptance of God's Light. Obedience is rejection — rejection of ignorance night. Obedience is perfection — perfection of the human nature.
Obedience, from the spiritual point of view, is never a helpless submission. Obedience is the seeker's discovery of the inner Light, the Pilot Supreme. Obedience is not the annihilation of individuality — no, no! Obedience is the seeker's cheerful and free entrance into universality.
Obedience is the beauty of faith. Obedience is the purity of faith. Obedience is the prosperity of faith. Faith awakens the human in us. Faith leads the human in us. Faith liberates the human in us. Faith takes us to God's Compassion-Eye. Faith brings God's Satisfaction-Heart to us.
My obedience is my selfless, unconditional dedication-life to my Lord Supreme. My Lord Supreme is not far away — no, no! He is near, nearer than the nearest. He is here to grant me my full realisation. He is here to help me manifest His own Transcendental Divinity here on earth. My obedience-heart, God's Compassion-Eye and God's outstretched Arms live together, sing together and play together to manifest God's Will here on earth.
If I do not obey my Inner Pilot in this lifetime, then in my next incarnation I may commit the same blunders that I committed in this incarnation, but even sooner — perhaps at the very dawn of my earthly sojourn. If I do not obey my Inner Pilot in this incarnation, my human life will sadly miss the touch of divinity and the divine in me will starve and starve most deplorably.
Obedience reached its supreme, ultimate, absolute height when the Saviour Son's obedience-heart voiced forth: "Father, let Thy Will be done." By virtue of this obedience-prayer, man's eternal thirst, without fail, will be quenched by God's infinite Nectar-Delight.
Published in My Heart’s Peace-Offering