God’s School
A talk by Sri Chinmoy
at the Catholic Chaplaincy, University of Glasgow, in Glasgow, Scotland
We here are all seekers, seekers of the Infinite Truth. Although we do not belong to the same class, although our standard may not be the same, we are all studying in the same school. Some are in kindergarten, some are in primary school, some in high school, some in the university. But the name of the school is God’s School, and God is our only teacher. He teaches us two important things: how to illumine our inner life and how to sacrifice our outer life on the strength of our feeling of oneness with the world at large.
In this school, as in other schools, there are quite a few steps. We get six degrees or diplomas. The first diploma is the purification of our nature, the purification of our outer being. The second is salvation, salvation from the world of miseries and tribulations. The third is liberation from the snares of ignorance. The fourth is the realisation of our transcendental Self. The fifth is our revelation of the Absolute. The last and highest degree is our manifestation of the Absolute Supreme. These are the degrees we get in God’s School.
No seekers who want them will be denied these degrees. In the course of time, in the process of our inner evolution, we are bound to get at least the first three degrees. Each seeker, if he is sincere, has to feel that at every moment his life needs discipline — physical discipline, vital discipline, mental discipline, psychic discipline. If there is no discipline, then the individual will make little or no progress. But if there is discipline or self-control, then he can run very fast towards his goal.
Life has to be taken seriously. But if it is taken too seriously, then we will be pulling the Truth or pushing the Truth. By pulling or pushing we cannot achieve the Truth the way the Supreme within us wants us to achieve it. If we take life too seriously, immediately we expect something grand, great and momentous from life; and if we do not get what we want, immediately we feel frustrated. We feel that we are in a prison of futility. Life is fruitless, work is fruitless, everything is fruitless. We have to take life seriously, but if we take it too seriously, then we demand from life something which it is unable to give us immediately. Slow and steady is the answer here. Slowly, steadily, unerringly, we have to carry life towards its destination. We carry life with our aspiration; life carries us with its patience and perseverance in the journey towards the destined goal.
Some people take life very lightly, however. They think that life has nothing to give, so they wallow in the pleasures of ignorance, either consciously and deliberately or unconsciously. We have to know that these people have made friends with absurdity. Each life has come directly from the Highest Absolute. We cannot squander life. We have to feel that each life has a serious meaning of its own. The individual life will eventually be merged in the Cosmic Life. The finite, the light of the finite, the life of the finite, will be merged in the Infinite. We came from the Infinite. Here on earth we play our roles for fifty, sixty or seventy years, and then we depart. Then after a while with a new message, with a higher light, with a stronger power, we once again enter into the world to fulfil the Universal Life which abides in the individual life on earth. If we take life too lightly, if we do not pay enough attention to life, then we are unconsciously or consciously negating our inner possibilities and destroying our inner potentialities.
There is another way of accepting life, a human way. We can feel that we are, after all, human beings and thus are allowed to do certain things. We can feel that the experiences we get from life will eventually lead us to our destination, but since we are human beings, we may remain in the sea of ignorance for as long as we like. We can constantly err and still expect forgiveness from God. This is the human way of accepting life, or taking part in the human drama. But this attitude is also a deplorable mistake. We should feel that we have to come out of ignorance as soon as possible — not by violence, but on the strength of our aspiration. With our inner strength, inner urge, inner life, we must come out of the sea of ignorance.
There is a fourth way. We can take life divinely. Each moment we can feel that there is something called Divinity that is trying to loom large in our life. Every second Divinity wants to come to the fore. But consciously or unconsciously, we are not allowing it to do so. But if we pray and meditate, Divinity gets ample chance to come forward. That is why a sincere seeker, a seeker of the Absolute Truth, meditates daily. He feels the necessity of bringing his own Divinity forward, for in Divinity he feels a real sense of satisfaction.
Each individual seeker is crying for satisfaction. A child gets satisfaction from a piece of candy. A man of desire becomes satisfied when he gets a million dollars. A seeker who has just launched into the spiritual life is satisfied when he gets an iota of Light and Peace. We are all running after satisfaction. But real satisfaction, complete satisfaction, is still a far cry. Complete satisfaction will dawn only when God-manifestation in its highest aspect has taken place on earth. Right now, God-manifestation is taking place in a veiled and unenlightened way. Many, many people have realised God. Many of them have revealed God. But very few have been able to manifest God because they are surrounded by the unenlightened and unaspiring earth-consciousness. Unless and until the full manifestation of the Supreme takes place on earth, no seeker can be completely satisfied.
Realisation is one thing and manifestation is something else. Until manifestation has taken place, perfect Perfection cannot dawn. To climb up the mango tree is realisation. To climb down again with the mangoes and distribute them to those who do not have is revelation. And after the distribution, to make them feel that this mango is Nectar and Immortality, and that it is from each human being’s Immortality that the earth-consciousness will eventually be divinised and fully immortalised — this is manifestation. To climb up the mango tree is great, but it is not enough. We have to climb down again to distribute the mangoes and to make the world aware of their significance. Until we do this, our role is not complete and God will not be satisfied and fulfilled.
Every seeker is playing a significant role. At the very beginning of his journey, he should feel that he is a chosen child of God. If he thinks he is a chosen child of God, then many undivine attributes will automatically drop from his nature. If he can say, “I am a chosen child of God,” immediately he will have the inner courage to vehemently fight and chase away doubt, fear and temptation. Doubt will not be able to tell him that God-realisation is something absurd, or that he does not have the capacity to realise the highest Truth. Fear will leave him at once, because he will feel his oneness with God. The Christ used his Realisation-power to say, “I and my Father are one.” If an aspirant starts saying, “I and my Father are one,” it will be on the strength of his imagination-power. But what today we call imagination will be transformed into reality tomorrow. A scientist imagines the result of an experiment, then he performs it and discovers the reality. Today’s dream is tomorrow’s reality.
We have to start our spiritual journey with imagination. Inside imagination we have to feel our inner cry, which is aspiration, constantly trying to climb high, higher, highest in a never-ending upward journey. We all have this aspiration, so we are bound to realise the highest Truth.
God-realisation is not the sole monopoly of an individual. Many have realised God and many more will realise God, until a day comes when all will have realised the Highest. But there is something called God’s Hour. God’s Hour is the hour chosen by God. Today God is pleased with me. Tomorrow God will be pleased with you. The day after tomorrow He will be pleased with somebody else. The moment He is totally pleased with us, He grants us the boon of boons: God-realisation, God-discovery.
There are some seekers who are weak in their aspiration. I wish to tell them that if their aspiration is weak today, they will not always be doomed to disappointment. Carry on slowly, steadily. If you feel that you are weak, then immediately pray to the Lord, to the Inner Pilot, to offer you shelter. He is bound to give it. The cry of the weak seeker is for shelter and protection, and he can expect to get these from his meditation.
There are some seekers here who are strong, who meditate regularly, devotedly and soulfully. To them I wish to say that what they can and should expect from their meditation is joy, inner joy — the joy that conquers limitations, imperfections, bondage and death. Once one has conquered limitations, imperfections and bondage, one’s inner being will be flooded with immeasurable joy.
When the seeker is cheerful, when he is flooded with inner joy, inner light and inner delight, he must offer something to the Inner Pilot in order to fulfil and manifest Him. That offering is gratitude. He knows that it is the Inner Pilot who has surcharged his inner being with this Peace, Light and Delight in boundless measure. He now wants to manifest the Inner Pilot, the Supreme, on earth, and he does it through gratitude, soulful gratitude, constant gratitude. When he offers gratitude, the power, the quantity, even the quality of his Joy, Light and Delight automatically increase. How can he offer gratitude? He can offer gratitude easily and, at the same time, effectively through constant and conscious surrender of his will to the Will of the Supreme. He has to make himself feel that he is nothing other than an unconditional instrument at the Feet of the Lord Supreme. When he becomes an unconditional instrument of the Lord Supreme, the manifestation of Divinity, the manifestation of Reality, the manifestation of Immortality can and will take place here on earth.
Today we are thinking of God, meditating on God, contemplating on God, with the idea that one day we shall see God face to face. When we finally do see God face to face, we will not be satisfied. At that time we will try to have God as our very own. When we get God as our very own, we will then feel the need of consciously and constantly trying to become God. But it is not we who try; it is God within us who aspires. Today’s man is God unrealised. Tomorrow’s man will be God fully realised.
There is no end to a seeker’s journey. Every day we are surpassing our past achievements and transcending our previous goals. If we pray, if we concentrate, if we meditate, we will feel deep within us that we are constantly transcending ourselves. It is not a barrier that we are transcending, but an achievement. Yesterday’s goal was to see something. Today’s goal is to feel something. Tomorrow’s goal will be to become something. We have seen during our meditation that Reality, Divinity and Immortality do exist. We now feel that these are a part of our lives. It is only a matter of time before we grow into these realities and embody them in our lives.
Published in My Rose Petals, part 2
Sri Chinmoy delivers a lecture, entitled ‘The Third Eye’, at The Third Eye Centre in Glasgow, Scotland.
Sri Chinmoy Answers
Seekers’ questions
at The Third Eye Centre in Glasgow, Scotland
Question: Could you please tell us your views on reincarnation?
Sri Chinmoy: There are some people who believe in reincarnation, and others who do not. I do believe in reincarnation, and I believe in it for various reasons. The most important reason is this: that in a single incarnation one cannot achieve everything. Suppose you had a strong desire at the age of four. That desire may take forty or fifty years for its fulfilment. An ordinary, earthly, human desire can take many years to be fulfilled. This is the world of desire.
But we are dealing with the world of aspiration, with Infinity, Eternity and Immortality. If one aspires to realise the infinite Consciousness, the eternal Reality, the immortal Vision within himself, naturally it will take much, much longer than just to fulfil an earthly desire. Therefore, a seeker will need quite a few incarnations in order to attain his highest aspirations.
Since God will never leave us unsatisfied, since God wants to fulfil Himself in and through us, we will keep on progressing until we reach our goal. Each incarnation is a forward march. It is like a rung of the spiritual ladder. Each incarnation, for a seeker, is a great opportunity, an added opportunity, to make progress toward realising, revealing and manifesting the Highest. It is through the process of reincarnation that we ultimately reach our destination.
Question: Do we go through the emotions to the spirit?
Sri Chinmoy: There are two types of emotion. One is earth-bound emotion, where attachment looms large, where we sing the song of possession. Earth-bound emotion wants to possess and be possessed. The other type of emotion is liberated emotion, Heaven-free emotion, divine emotion. This emotion says: “I belong to God, who is infinite, eternal and immortal, so it is beneath my dignity to wallow in the pleasures of ignorance and falsehood.” This emotion makes us feel: “If I am God’s child, I must do this. He is waiting for me. As I need Him, He also needs me. I need Him for my illumination; He needs me for His manifestation; therefore, we need each other. With oneness 1 will realise Him, my highest part. And with oneness He will try to manifest Himself in and through me, His instrument.”
With divine emotion we identify ourselves with the Eternal, with the Infinite, with the Immortal. If we are one with Infinity, Eternity and Immortality, then there are millions of things we will not do because our divine pride will make it simply impossible for us. If we have wholeheartedly taken the side of Light, we cannot change and go take the side of darkness.
Divine emotion is the emotion that liberates us and brings us the message of Vastness. This emotion gives us the feeling of oneness with each and every individual. This divine emotion, the emotion that makes us free and vast, is good. But the emotion that binds us to the outer life, to the human feelings, should not be encouraged. Divine emotion is founded on oneness, on something vast, on something illumining and fulfilling, and that emotion should be welcomed, for only that kind of emotion is necessary to reach our destination.
Question: You frequently talk in your work about listening to the inner voice and following the dictates of the inner voice. How can you be sure it is the inner voice of truth that you are listening to and not the delusions of the ego?
Sri Chinmoy: If you hear the real inner voice, you will feel a kind of satisfaction within you which will not depend on the result of your action. If you feel that you will get satisfaction only if the result of your action is successful, according to your light, whereas if the result is unsuccessful, you will not be satisfied, then the voice which is telling you to do that action is not the inner voice.
An inner voice will give you a message, and inside that message will be action and reaction, or action and the result thereof. The result of the action will come in the form of either success or failure. If you feel that you will be able to take either success or failure — whatever comes — with the same type of cheerfulness, then you can rest assured that it is the inner voice that is guiding you. If the so-called inner voice is a mental hallucination, or something from the ego or desiring vital, then you will want to accept its message only if you see that it will fulfil your vital demands. Otherwise, you will want to discard it. At that time you will be like an opportunist. If the result seems like it will be satisfactory, according to your understanding, you will accept the voice. If it seems like it will be unsatisfactory, then you will reject it.
But the message of the inner voice will give you the necessary strength to be cheerful regardless of results. Even if the result comes in the form of failure, you will be able to identify yourself with God’s Will to such an extent that you will see failure not as failure but only as an experience. And success you will see not as something to boast of or to glorify yourself with, but as an experience that God wants to give you. So if you are able to assimilate the result of your action in a divine way, and from the result proceed toward your destination without any wrong inner movements, then it is the dictates of the inner voice that you are hearing.
The inner voice is the messenger. It only brings messages directly from above, and fulfils God’s Will. Whatever message is brought down by the inner voice, the seeker will accept cheerfully and soulfully. If he can do this with no regard for the so-called success or failure, then the seeker can rest assured that the message has come down from the highest Authority. If one really loves the highest Authority, no matter what that Authority offers, one will be satisfied with it. That is the only way to become inseparably one with the Supreme.
Question: Is there a true and a false illumination?
Sri Chinmoy: Yes, there is false illumination and true illumination. If one has true illumination, one is bound to feel one’s own oneness with God’s entire universe. But if one has false illumination, then one will see oneself as the only reality, and see the rest of the world as a false reality. The person with false illumination will feel that he is the only one who has got illumination or who has seen and realised the Truth; nobody else is illumined.
True illumination is with all and for all, but false illumination is only for the satisfaction of one’s own vital. It says: “I am the only possessor. The rest of mankind are only beggars. I alone have everything.” Here one is just aggrandising one’s own ego. But when one truly sees the Self inside everyone, when one sees and feels that everybody is inside him and he is inside everyone, that is universal oneness, that is true illumination, without fail.
Published in AUM – Vol. 3, No. 7, 27 July 1976
Ignorance and Knowledge
A talk by Sri Chinmoy
at the University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland
Dear seekers, dear brothers and sisters, I wish to give a short talk on ignorance and knowledge. This subject is familiar to each and every human being. Again, each human being deals with ignorance and with knowledge according to his inner receptivity and his outer capacity.
Ignorance wants to conquer; knowledge wants to illumine. Ignorance wants to conquer the world by fighting, strangling and killing. Knowledge wants to illumine the world by loving and by becoming one with the world. Ignorance is hunger for constant separativity. Knowledge is hunger for constant unity. Ignorance teaches us how to consciously or unconsciously bring to the fore the destructive, animal qualities of the world. Knowledge teaches us how to dive deep within and bring to the fore the illumining, divine qualities of the world.
I come, I see, I conquer: this is the message of ignorance. I love, I serve, I become: this is the message of knowledge. I come into the world, I see and feel God's creation around me and I want to conquer it, dominate it, lord over it. This is the message of the ignorance-teacher within me. The knowledge-teacher within me teaches me to love and serve the world and to become God's instrument in the world. By listening to the knowledge-teacher within me, I love and serve God and I grow into my inner Being, the Highest Reality that is at one with God Himself.
When we pray to God to fulfil our desires — our teeming, countless desires — at that time it is ignorance that is playing its role in and through us. When we request God to take our side, to be on our side, then again it is ignorance that is playing its role in and through us. But when we pray to God to fulfil our aspiration and grant us the capacity to be on His side, at that time it is knowledge that is playing its role in and through us.
Aspiration is our inner cry, the cry that climbs up high, higher, highest. While climbing, it illumines the unlit human in us, purifies the impure animal in us and serves the divine in us for God’s manifestation on earth. When we are on God’s side, the finite in us consciously merges into the Infinite and the individual “I” becomes one with the Universal Reality.
In the world envisioned by God, there are two divine members of God’s family that have been playing the eternal game of Light and Delight on earth: faith and purity. Each human being is constantly attacked by ignorance-forces. These ignorance-forces are doubt and impurity. Faith is the Supreme within us, the divine representative within us, the divine child within us that is growing and glowing, illumining and fulfilling. Doubt tries to conquer the faith within us and poison it. Faith also wants to conquer doubt. But when faith conquers doubt, it does not poison doubt, it does not destroy doubt. Only it illumines doubt, for faith regards doubt as the younger member of its family. Therefore, faith feels that it is its bounden duty to illumine doubt, which is a younger, destructive member of the family.
Just as doubt tries to destroy our faith, so does impurity try to destroy the purity that is within us and around us. It tries to destroy not only our purity, but also our divinity. If impurity is successful, then it does destroy our purity, but it can never destroy our divinity. Purity is of the heart and for the heart, so it can be destroyed. But divinity is of the soul and for the soul; therefore, it can never be destroyed. In the course of time, slowly, steadily and unerringly purity and divinity conquer impurity. They do not destroy impurity, but they purify its very existence. They show impurity a part of the divine reality that is within.
Doubt is a destructive force that will destroy not only faith but also itself. Impurity also is a destructive force. When faith, purity and divinity conquer these ignorance-forces, these forces are illumined, perfected and fulfilled. Let us say ignorance is a thorn that has entered into our foot. It takes another thorn to rid ourselves of this ignorance-thorn. This second thorn is temporarily our saving-power. Then what do we do? We throw away both the thorns because we fear that the thorn that has become our saviour will eventually create problems for us.
At this point, wisdom has to enter into the picture. Wisdom is not the information that we get from the world around us. Wisdom is what we get from our soul.
Wisdom at every moment energises the physical in us, the vital in us, the mind in us and the heart in us. When the physical is energised, it opens its door to the supreme Reality. When the vital is energised, it opens its door to the supreme Power. When the mind is energised, it opens its door to the universal Peace. When the heart is energised, it reaches the height of transcendental Oneness.The finite in us is not aware of the Infinite, but when it is made aware of the Infinite, it has an inferiority complex, and it does not want to be consciously one with the Infinite. The finite is an ignorance-force. But the Infinite feels its oneness with the finite. It feels that there was a time when it was not the entire ocean. It was just a tiny drop, like the finite. And then, from that tiny drop, it widened its consciousness and expanded into the ocean itself. This occurred through the process of evolution. Again, the Highest, the absolute Truth, was originally One. God was One, and then He decided to become many. The Infinite consciously decided to become the finite. Knowledge tells us that within the Infinite, there we can find the finite; and within the finite, there we can find the Infinite. Just because God is infinite, He can enjoy Himself in the tiniest atom as well as in the infinite Vast.
Knowledge tells us something more. Divine knowledge tells us that the many and the One were, from the very beginning, identical; they were made together. The One is the Vision; the many is the Reality. God the Vision and God the Reality are all the time together. From God’s Vision-power, immediately Reality came into existence. Again, with Reality-power, Vision came into existence. God wanted to enjoy Himself. He wanted to offer Nectar, Immortality, to His whole creation. With the creation He felt the expansion of His Self-Form, His manifested Form. When He first created the world, with His inner Vision He saw the ultimate future. Now, slowly, steadily and unerringly, He is unfolding His Vision.
Published in My Rose Petals, part 6
Repeat your Spiritual Name
A short talk by Sri Chinmoy
to his disciples at a Father’s Day Celebration at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York
Those who have spiritual names, if you remember the date you received your spiritual name, kindly meditate on that date. If you have forgotten, no harm. As soulfully as possible, repeat your name in silence and try to bring to the fore the divine qualities, supreme qualities, of your name.
If you do not have a spiritual name, kindly repeat “Supreme, Supreme, Supreme” most soulfully.
Published in I Wanted to be a Seeker of the Infinite