July 14

SRI CHINMOY CENTRE IS A YEAR OLD

On July 1, the Sri Chinmoy Centre of Wilton held a special service commemorating its first year. The service consisted of silent meditation and songs composed by the members using the words of Sri Chinmoy’s poetry.

The only meditation center in Connecticut, the Sri Chinmoy Centre of Wilton is one of a number of Sri Chinmoy Centres. The others are in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Canada, and elsewhere in the United States. The Director of all the Centres is Sri Chinmoy, an Indian Spiritual Master who came to the West six years ago to spread the message he received during his life of meditation and spiritual discipline. Since his arrival in the West, thousands of spiritual seekers have come to him, attracted by his Love, Peace, and Light.

Sri Chinmoy has been invited to lecture at over 40 American universities, including all the Ivy League schools and the major universities in the mid-West and West coast. He has delivered a special lecture series on the Bhagavad Gita at New York University, and has been asked to give a similar series on the Vedas at Columbia.

Sri Chinmoy personally conducts meditations at the Sri Chinmoy Centre in Wilton every Monday night.

Published in The Norwalk Hour, VOL. 99 No. 163, TUESDAY, JULY 14, 1970

Interview about Mother Teresa

Sri Chinmoy answers questions from Mr. John Cairns and Ms. Nix Picasso, two researchers who had collaborated with Mother Teresa on her book, ‘A Simple Path’, after Sri Chinmoy’s lunchtime meditation meeting at the United Nations

Sri Chinmoy: I am very, very, very fortunate that I was able to meet with Mother Teresa last year. From my personal feeling I can say that she is both the Mother of compassion and the Sister of affection. When I look at her heart, I see that it is all compassion. When I look at her eyes, I see that they are all affection. She herself is the embodiment of both affection and compassion; these divine qualities inundate her inner being. I have the highest admiration and deepest, deepest love for her. If we had more Mother Teresas on earth, this world of ours would definitely be a world of compassion and a world of oneness.

It is because of her compassion that she accepts donations from people. For her, the one who has money is a brother, and the one who needs money is also a brother. Between the two brothers she is trying to establish the message of oneness. She sees that someone is in need and that someone else has more than he needs. So she begs and pleads with the person who has more than he needs: “Please give to me, so that I can give to our common brother, who desperately needs something.” She is begging both sides. She is begging the person who has to give and also she is begging the person who does not have to take. Some people are ready to die in the street rather than take help from others. They have lost their wisdom or ordinary intelligence. So she has to beg them, “Please allow me to treat you. Please allow me to serve you.” To me, Mother Teresa is a living saint.

Question: You and Mother Teresa live lives of service. You are seen as exceptional people and sometimes put on a pedestal. What would you say to people who feel that they are inadequate in trying to follow in your footsteps?

Sri Chinmoy: First of all, I beg to be excused. I do not dare to be placed on the same footing as Mother Teresa. Her life of service is far, far beyond my imagination’s flight. But if I may answer your question in a general way, then I wish to say that there is no such thing as adequacy or inadequacy. In a family there are two sisters; one is younger and one is older. The older sister has learned a few more things from her parents than the younger one because she was born first. The little sister is studying the ABCs, let us say, whereas the older sister is studying for her Master’s degree. The little sister will speak in her own way and her English may be faulty, but the older sister does not mind. All her affection she will shower upon the little one because she feels her oneness with her. And because the little sister feels her oneness with the older sister, she identifies with her older sister’s wisdom and claims it as her very own.

Similarly, if someone such as Mother Teresa knows a little more about spirituality, self-giving and the inner realities, then it is her bounden duty to share her knowledge with others. She has to feel like the older sister sharing her wisdom with her younger sister. At that time, why should the younger one feel inadequate? Each individual in this sense is unique. Someone can brag that his own good qualities are more important than somebody else’s. But if we want to be spiritual and establish our oneness with others, we will just offer our own good qualities to them and claim their good qualities as our own. The little sister is offering the older sister her sweet smile, and the older sister is offering her wisdom. In giving each other what they have, they are establishing their oneness with one another. It is like a flower and its fragrance; they are inseparable. Because of their oneness, the little sister’s good qualities and the older sister’s good qualities will always go together, for they are part and parcel of the same human family.

Published in Mother Teresa: Humanity’s Flower-Heart, Divinity’s Fragrance-Soul, part 3

Question: When problems seem so huge and individuals seem so small, when problems seem to be able to be solved only on a very large scale, by large-scale intervention by governments, what can individuals do to contribute to world peace?

Sri Chinmoy: Problems can be found everywhere — in each individual, in each government and in each organisation. When it comes to solving world problems, ordinary individuals like ourselves are helpless. But we are not hopeless. We can hope; in fact, we have every right to hope for the betterment of the world. Although ordinary individuals cannot change the world, there are some great individuals who belong to a different category. The Holy Father and Mother Teresa, for example, are a real source of inspiration to millions and millions of people. Mahatma Gandhi was in politics; then he went beyond politics and became the father of India. How significantly he advised and illumined Nehru, Patel and others! President Gorbachev also has shown us how one individual can change the face and fate of mankind. He is living proof that an individual can be stronger than a government. So we see what great individuals are able to do.

Again, although ordinary individuals are helpless, we have to know that we have access to a higher power that is infinitely stronger than any organisation or government. This power, which is within us, is the absolute highest Power. We call Him the Inner Pilot, the Absolute Lord Supreme. The power that operates through governments or large organisations can easily be conquered by this highest absolute Power, which is all-illumining and all-fulfilling.

There is God the Creator and God the creation. We are God the creation. But if we pray to God the Creator to change or illumine the minds of those who are running countries or large organisations, then easily He can do it. Right now the mind is ruling the world — the mind that wants to dominate others and lord it over others. But if we pray to God to bring forward the heart of mankind, we will see that heart-power is infinitely stronger than mind-power. Why? Because the heart immediately identifies with others and claims their strength as its own. If ten people are on one side, what can one strong individual do? Eventually he has to surrender, no matter how strong he is. This is true whether it is an individual, a government or an organisation because oneness-power will always eventually win in the battlefield of life.

Question: Charity is sometimes criticised for being impersonal and patronising and assuaging our guilt. How does the concept of service differ from charity?

Sri Chinmoy: Charity and service are spelled differently and their meanings also are totally different. Whenever we use the term ‘charity’, there is a feeling of superiority and inferiority. Let us say that I have millions and billions of dollars and you have nothing. I feel that you are an object of pity, so I give you ten dollars. At that time, I feel that you are a beggar and do not deserve even ten dollars. So this is charity, and it is the wrong approach for dealing with others.

If I say that I am helping you, I am also making a deplorable mistake. Who am I to help anyone? If I say that I help the world, then I am the worst possible fool. Only God can help. I can only serve, and I must serve out of a feeling of oneness. If a mother hears her child crying because he is hungry, immediately she comes to feed him. When the mother gives food to the child, she does not think that her child is inferior. No, she has already established her oneness with the child, and she feels the child’s hunger as her own.

When we establish our oneness with the rest of the world, we feel the entire world as our very own. When I offer something to you because you are in need, I feel that I am only giving to my larger self. In serving you, I feel that I am serving myself. This is the spiritual approach — not charity, with its feeling of superiority and inferiority, but service, which is based on oneness.

Question: Why do people in the West find the idea of simplicity so complicated?

Sri Chinmoy: Simplicity seems complicated because it is something new to us or something that we do not want to use. Everything is complex for us because we always use the mind. We do not want to walk along a straight line. Unless we zigzag and go in a serpentine way, we get no joy. Just because we value complexity, we do not take the sunlit path — the simple, straight path. If a path is simple and straight, we feel that it has no value. Right from the beginning of our lives, we become accustomed to doing things in a very complicated way, so simplicity is most difficult for us.

When a child takes birth, the mother spends all her money-power to buy the child most beautiful and expensive clothes. She wants to show that she is richer than her neighbours. The child would be equally happy with simple clothes, but right from the beginning the child is taught that simple things are not good. So naturally, when the child grows up, he does not care for simplicity.

A simple man will have only what he needs, and he will know the difference between what he needs and what he wants. But in the West, we feel that whatever we want, we desperately need. Like hungry wolves, we are trying to possess the world. But before we possess the world, to our wide surprise we see that the world has already possessed us. We want to possess the world in all its multiplicity. We want multiplicity without unity; we want the flowers, fruits and leaves of the tree without the trunk. But if we do not start with the trunk, with simplicity, then we can never go to multiplicity. Unity is the source, and multiplicity grows out of unity.

Question: When differences in religious creeds can create such intolerance in the world, what is the proper attitude towards other people's faiths?

Sri Chinmoy: No religion teaches us to hate mankind. It is we human beings who choose to hate one another. But the spiritual Masters of the highest order, who are the founding fathers of the various religions, teach us only to love. I am a Hindu. My ancestors, the Vedic seers, taught us to love everybody. The Saviour Christ also offered the message of love. If we go deep inside each religion, we will find there the message of love. That is why I feel all religions should be appreciated and admired.

Religion is like a house. What purpose does it serve for me to tell you that my house is more beautiful than your house? If you are happy with your house and I am happy with my house, then why should we quarrel? I quarrel with you only because I am not satisfied with what I have. If I am really satisfied, if there is happiness, peace and bliss inside me, will I go and knock at your door in the middle of the night to tell you to come out and be illumined? Let me be illumined first. Once I become the sun, then only will I offer my light and illumination to you and to others. At that time I will not quarrel with you; just by being near you, I will spread illumination and light, and your heart will spontaneously receive it. It is only when I have limited light, or when I am in darkness, that I am disturbed by the darkness in others. Once my inner being is flooded with light, I will not fight with anybody.

Question: As we approach the millennium, there is possibly a feeling of despair. Do you think this is a special time for the fate of humanity? Is there another way of looking at this?

Sri Chinmoy: This is a very serious question. I am not a prophet; I would only like to say that things cannot get darker. The future cannot be worse than the present or the past. We have touched rock bottom, the abysmal abyss; now things have to go up.

Again, we have to know that by seeing the dark side of an individual or the present-day world, we do not bring light to the fore. The world is full of despair, but God did not create this world for suffering. When we create something, we do not do it with the idea, “I am creating this to torture myself.” God created this world to give Himself joy. The suffering in the world is caused by us.

It is a vast game; we call it the Cosmic Game or Cosmic Lila. In a game, sometimes we do not know which side is going to win. It is so complicated. In this Game there is a fight going on between light and darkness. When darkness conquers light, it shows its supremacy. But when light conquers darkness, it shows its intimacy. When the dark part of our nature conquers something, it acts like Julius Caesar when he said, “I came, I saw, I conquered.” But when the good side of us conquers something, it says, “I came, I saw you, I loved you and I became one with you.”

What the world has been passing through for the last fifty or one hundred years is only a temporary reign of darkness. For a time, darkness has been showing its supremacy. But now light is coming to embrace and illumine this darkness. This will happen not today or tomorrow, but in the near future. People have been using the mind-power for a long time, and it has brought only misery and suffering. If I have two ways of approaching reality, and one is bringing me only unhappiness, will I not one day begin to use the other approach? The other approach is the way of the heart, and the day is fast approaching when heart-power will replace mind-power.

Question: Isn't this a time when people like you and Mother Teresa and some others are awakening this in a lot of people?

Sri Chinmoy: Not just us, but everybody who practises prayer and meditation! Heart-power means prayer and meditation; heart-power comes from spirituality. When I pray, I feel that Somebody is listening to me. When I meditate, I feel that Somebody is advising me or telling me to do the right thing and be the right person. Prayer and meditation must go together. When I pray, I am asking Someone: “Give me light, give me joy, give me peace and bliss.” When I meditate, Somebody is saying: “This is the way you can have peace. If you do this, you can have peace. If you do that, you can have light and bliss.” So prayer and meditation have to go together.

Published in Sri Chinmoy Answers, part 20