Has your Soul a Special Mission?
Sri Chinmoy gives the seventh of his Spring series of classes on Yoga at the home of Mrs. Ruth Moseley in Manhattan.
Your soul has a special mission. Your soul is supremely conscious of it.
Maya, illusion or forgetfulness, makes you feel that you are finite, weak and helpless. This is not true. You are not the body. You are not the senses. You are not the mind. These are all limited. You are the soul, which is unlimited. Your soul is infinitely powerful. Your soul defies all time and space.
Can you ever realise your soul? Can you be fully conscious of your soul and be one with it? Certainly you can. For, in fact, you are nothing other than the soul. It is your soul that represents the natural state of consciousness. But doubt makes it difficult to realise the soul. Doubt is man's fruitless struggle in the outer world. Aspiration is the seeker's fruitful confidence in the inner world. Doubt struggles and struggles. Finally it defeats its own purpose. Aspiration flies upward to the highest. At its journey's end it reaches the Goal. Doubt is based on outer observation. Aspiration is founded on inner experience. Doubt ends in failure because it lives in the finite physical mind. Aspiration ends in success because it lives in the ever climbing soul. A life of aspiration is a life of Peace. A life of aspiration is a life of Bliss. A life of aspiration is a life of divine Fulfilment.
To know what your special mission is, you have to go deep within. Hope and courage must accompany you on your tireless journey. Hope will awaken your inner divinity. Courage will make your inner divinity flower. Hope will inspire you to dream into the Transcendental. Courage will inspire you to manifest the Transcendental here on earth.
To feel what your special mission is, you have always to create. This creation of yours is something which you ultimately become. Finally you come to realise that your creation is nothing other than your self-revelation.
True, there are as many missions as there are souls. But all missions fulfil themselves only after the souls have achieved some degree of perfection. The world is a divine play. Each participant plays a part in its success. The role of the servant is as important as that of the master. In the perfection of each individual part is the collective fulfilment. And at the same time, the individual fulfilment becomes perfect only when the individual has established his inseparable connection and realised his oneness with all human beings of the world.
You are one from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. Yet at one place you are called ears, at another place you are called eyes. Each place in your body has a name of its own. Strangely enough, although they all are part of the same body, one cannot perform the action of another. Eyes see, but they cannot hear. Ears hear, but they cannot see. So the body, being one, also is many. Similarly, although God is one, He manifests Himself through many forms.
God tells us our mission. But we do not understand God's language, so He has to be His own interpreter. When others tell us about God, they can never tell us fully what God is. They misrepresent, and we misunderstand. God speaks in silence. Also, He interprets His message in silence. So also let us hear and understand God in silence.
Has your soul a special mission? Yes. Your mission is in the inmost recesses of your heart, and you have to find and fulfil it there. There can be no external way for you to fulfil your mission. The deer grows musk in his own body. He smells it and becomes enchanted, and tries to locate its source. He runs and runs, but he cannot find the source. In his endless search, he loses all his energy and finally he dies. But the source he was so desperately searching for was within himself. How could he find it elsewhere?
Such is the case with you. Your special mission — which is the fulfilment of your divinity — is not outside you, but within you. Search within. Meditate within. You will discover your mission.
Published in Yoga and the Spiritual Life. The Journey of India's Soul
On a Birthday
by Sri Chinmoy
On our birthday the Absolute Supreme reminds our soul about the promise that it has made to Him. On our birthday the soul reminds the body, the physical consciousness, about the promise that the physical has made to it.
The soul’s promise to the Absolute Supreme is God-manifestation through conscious and constant cooperation with the body-consciousness. The body’s promise to the soul is cooperation and unreserved and unconditional manifestation of the Supreme. When these two promises are fulfilled, the human being becomes a perfect instrument and perfect representative both of Heaven and of earth.
Published in United Nations Meditation-Flowers and To-morrow's Noon
A Question at the United Nations
answered by Sri Chinmoy
Question: Do you foresee the possibility of a fully committed spiritual person becoming Secretary-General of the United Nations in this century?
Sri Chinmoy: I wish to tell you that the twentieth century has already been blessed with two spiritual giants: Dag Hammarskjöld and U Thant. Outwardly they may not have been recognised as spiritual figures. But, being a spiritual man, I have established my own oneness with their inner achievement, with their tremendous sacrifice and with their inner cry. I wish to say that they were undoubtedly spiritual persons committed to high spiritual realities that are difficult for the doubting, sophisticated mind and analytical intellect to comprehend.
Sometimes the word ‘spiritual’ is misunderstood badly. Spirituality does not mean self-abnegation. True spirituality means the acceptance of life as such — the acceptance of matter as well as spirit. The really spiritual person wants to make the inner reality operate in and through the material proper. In the case of Dag Hammarskjöld, his mind was inundated by his inner light. Then, from the illumined mind, he executed the inner promptings of the heart, utilising the illumining realities of the vital and the sacrificing realities of the physical. In the case of U Thant, who was a staunch and devout Buddhist, we saw how he brought to the fore the compassion aspect of life, which is the purest jewel-reality of human existence, and offered it to mankind unreservedly, almost unconditionally.
Sometimes non-believers or disbelievers in God look down upon those who are spiritual. A spiritual person is often an object of ridicule to cynical human beings. But those who inwardly see the inseparable oneness of God the Creator and God the creation will continue offering their realisation to the world at large. In spite of being misunderstood, in spite of being assailed by physical ailments, as in the case of U Thant, in silence they continue to act. And they leave the result of their actions at the Feet of God, the Author of all Good.
Published in My Meditation-Service at the United Nations for Twenty-Five Years