May 18

Sri Chinmoy Answers

a question at the United Nations

Question: Why is it so hard to find peace of mind?

Sri Chinmoy: As individuals, we do not have peace of mind because we feel that we are the most important person on earth. We feel that if we do not do this or say that, then the world will collapse or everything immediately will go wrong. We can get peace of mind only if we can consciously feel that we are not indispensable. The moment we sincerely feel that we are not indispensable, we will not have to go anywhere to get peace, for peace will immediately come to us. If we feel that it is our duty to serve the world, that is good. But if we feel that it is our duty to illumine the world and that if we do not illumine the world, then the world will remain full of darkness, then we will never have peace of mind. I am not indispensable. You are not indispensable. Only God is indispensable.

Another easy way to have peace of mind is to feel that nothing is unduly important in our lives. If we have lost something, we must not feel that our life will be ruined. We should just try to feel that the thing we lost was unimportant. Everything and everyone on earth can desert us, as long as we do not desert God and God does not desert us. God will never desert us because He is all Compassion, and even if we try our hardest, we will not be able to desert God because He is omnipresent. So we need not worry or become upset about anything on earth. Except for God and our inner cry for Truth, nothing on earth is indispensable. If we have the inner cry, then we get God. And once we consciously get God as our very own, we have everything.

Published in My Meditation-Service at the United Nations for Twenty-Five Years

When You Are With Your Master-Lord
and
When You Are Without Your Master-Lord

When you are with your Master-Lord and when you are without your Master-Lord.

When you are with your Master-Lord, even ten thousand elephants cannot budge you an inch.
When you are without your Master-Lord, even the tiniest possible ant can take away your very life-breath.

When you are with your Master-Lord, the entire aspiring world soulfully adores you, to tell the truth.
When you are without your Master-Lord, the entire aspiring world shockingly ignores you, to say the least.

When you are with your Master-Lord, your life means sweetness, your life means happiness, your life means fulness.
When you are without your Master-Lord, your life means temptation, your life means frustration, your life means destruction.

When you are with your Master-Lord, give him at every moment your physical breath, your vital breath, your mental breath, your psychic breath.

Your physical breath is your ignorance-surrender.
Your vital breath is your action-surrender.
Your mental breath is your thought-surrender.
Your psychic breath is your will-surrender.

In doing this, at every moment you will grow into an ever-transcending, ever-illumining and ever-fulfilling instrument of your Master-Lord, both in his universe of realisation and in his universe of manifestation. You will become undoubtedly his absolutely most perfect instrument throughout Eternity and you will be always with him, for you are eternally his life-breath-manifestation.

Always be with your Master-Lord.

You will be his Eternity’s choice.
You will be his Immortality’s voice.

May 18, 1978      Sri Chinmoy

Published in I Wanted to be a Seeker of the Infinite

Poems on the Wall

A story by Sri Chinmoy
told at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York

I am making a confession. Usually I do not believe in confession; I believe in forgiveness and illumination. Seven or eight, or perhaps even ten poems I have "copied." Copied from where? Copied from the wall!

It was around eleven or twelve o'clock at night in Pondicherry. My brother Chitta and I stayed in the same room. We had turned off the light. He was in his bed and I was in mine. He was fast asleep. All of a sudden I saw that the room was illuminated. There was a long wall on my right side. Right near my feet was the entrance. What did I see? A full poem, in Bengali words! The poem was written on the wall, but there was no name. It was so beautiful! Then I meditated and meditated. I knew that those words had come from another world. Some poets, I have heard, have had the same experience.

I copied several poems and I claimed them. Those poems came from the poetry-world. From this world, poems or words can come into your heart or into your ear. One of the poems I still vividly remember: Srashta amar jagater jyoti. That poem came from the poetry-world.

I am sure that many, many poets have had the same kind of experience. Many, many poems, line by line, may enter into your heart, into your mind, and then you just copy them. In my case, the poems were written on the wall at night.

Published in The Temple and the Shrine