July 29

Stories by Sri Chinmoy

The Master’s poetry: quantity or quality?

There was a great spiritual Master who was very well known both for his spiritual height and for his literary capacity. The Master had published innumerable books of essays, short stories, plays and poems, which were read and appreciated by his disciples and followers, as well as by spiritual seekers throughout the world. One day a poet-disciple of the Master came to him after reading the Master's latest volume of poetry.

"Master, you know that I have always been a great admirer of the poet in you. You have written thousands of poems, and still it seems that your creativity will never end. But I know, Master, that it is your spiritual height that is the source of your poetic achievements. For a long time I have wanted to learn about poetry and poetic style from the spiritual point of view. Also, although you write primarily for the seeker in us, I would like to know how the critic in us should read your poetry."

"Son, first let us define what we mean by style. If it is a matter of metre or poetic rhythm, then I wish to say I knew and still know English metre extremely well. In my earlier poems written in India, I was extremely faithful and devoted to English metre. But each poet has a way of expressing his inner experience, his inner vision; so each one has a style of his own. Right now, living in America, the freedom-loving country, I have begun to take advantage of this ideal of freedom. I now write in a modern style, having discarded the so-called English metrical style that I once used. My present style, though, will not fit into any set pattern, such as the one in which the modern world writes, or what you may call ultra-modern style. I am not able to write in this kind of style.

"About the quantity, my son, I wish to tell you that I will go on writing and writing because the Supreme has promised me that He will be responsible for the quality of my poetry. Since He has told me this, and I believe Him, I shall continue to write. It is my responsibility to create and to offer my creation, and it is His responsibility to inspire excellence in my creation, since He is creating in and through me. If inspiration to write in quantity comes, in one day I may write 360 poems. If it does not come, it may take three or four weeks for me to write the same number. On my last lecture tour, I wrote 1,000 poems in three weeks, apart from giving one and sometimes two talks a day, meeting with disciples, and flying from one country to another. Even during the hours and hours we spent driving in the car, we maintained silence, and I went on writing and writing."

"Master, what is most amazing is that, with you, quantity and quality seem to go together."

"As I said before, my son, since it is the Will of the Supreme, I will not refrain from writing and, while I am writing, the Supreme will pay attention to my quality. I have a certain standard of my own. When I write poems, only on very, very rare occasions do they fall below that standard. Otherwise, the poet in me and the critic in me constantly go together; my vision and my justice go together.

"Now, when we come to the question of criticism, we have to be very careful. It is true that there must be some kind of standard, literary or otherwise, but very often critics say things just for the sake of criticising, to make themselves feel important or great. How many great poets, not to speak of others who have gained world-renown, have been mercilessly destroyed by world criticism that was absolutely undeserved. These men may have contributed significantly to Mother Earth, but by its merciless criticism the world has destroyed their lives. The world's jealousy, doubt, suspicion, self-importance and other undivine qualities have been thrown at many great poets, artists, writers and others, and because of this kind of negative pressure, some of them developed serious diseases and died.

"India's greatest poet, Tagore, also fell victim to merciless criticism, especially before he won the Nobel Prize for his poetry. The critics could see no value, no meaning, in much of his work. They said it was all absurdity. But when Tagore won the Nobel Prize, the same critics who had previously seen nothing in his poems suddenly found that they were full of significance and contained unparalleled height and depth.

"God knows how many thousands more of poems I shall write if I stay on earth for a number of years. My children will have to bear with me. Some of them may be sick of my poems, I know, but I shall make them even more sick. Some of my disciples never fall sick, though, because they have not tasted this undivine fruit. They are really clever and wise. But some who are neither clever nor wise read my poems and find it difficult to digest them all, so they suffer."

"Master, you joke about your literary capacity, but you know well how much your disciples read and cherish your poems. We find them a great help to us in our spiritual lives. I am not sick and I will never become sick of your poetry."

"My child, I am proud of you. True, there are disciples who read my poems and who never become sick of them because, no matter what I write, they try to mould their lives according to my words. They sincerely want to mould their lives according to my will. They feel that no matter what I am — divine or undivine — they want to be my very own. The disciples who have come to this realisation are truly pleasing me in my own way."

The capacities of a great man

There was a spiritual Master who in his youth reached unparalleled inner heights. After a few years the Supreme asked this young Master to begin revealing and manifesting his realisation in his outer life. The Master started accepting disciples, giving lectures and holding public meditations; and as he became better known, the number of his disciples and followers grew. Yet even with his increasingly busy schedule, the Master found time to compose music, write plays and try his hand at painting and drawing. One evening the Master was talking about creativity and manifestation with a few of his close disciples.

"You know that I have recently begun painting and drawing again, as I did in my youth," said the Master. "Although you may not see a thing in my drawings, I give them such bombastic titles that I make you feel I have brought down realisation and many other divine things into the drawings. I simply force my disciples to appreciate my drawings."

"Master," said one disciple smiling affectionately, "you are in a joking mood. You know that I have entered some of your earlier as well as your more recent pictures in an exhibition and a competition. Of course you are only joking, but even so, how can you say that we don't appreciate the artist in you? We certainly do!"

"Yes, but only because you have fortunately or unfortunately accepted me as your spiritual leader," replied the Master. Then, becoming more serious, he continued, "Although right now I am not well known as a Yogi, if or when I become very well known, not only my own disciples, but also sincere seekers who do not have Masters will hesitate to criticise me. They will say, 'After all, he is a God-realised soul. What do we understand?' And there is some inner truth in this attitude. Of course, disciples of other Masters will naturally criticise me because they have their own loyalties.

"Sri Krishna once said that if one really has something to offer in one field, although he may not be as great in other fields, others will not be the losers if they can appreciate what he does in those areas as well. Although from the technical point of view he may not deserve such high appreciation, his consciousness embodies something unique which others do not have. Just to be beside him, to be in his presence, is a blessing.

"It is not only what is done, but who does it that matters. Two or three times it happened that one of India's greatest poets needed to raise millions of dollars in order to continue running his university. But how could he get the money? Although he was a famous writer, a singer, an artist — a great man in many fields — these achievements brought him practically no money. Since he desperately needed to make money, he decided to do something extraordinary. At that time he was 76 or 77 years old, but he announced that he would dance for the public. Thousands of people would immediately have gathered to watch him dance, and he could have made as much money as he needed.

"A great politician, however, happened to be his dearest admirer. These two were most intimate friends. The politician used to call the poet 'Gurudev', as he was known by many, many people, not for his spiritual height, but for his literary height and inner depth. The politician said, 'Gurudev, as long as I am on earth, I won't allow you to dance in public. Please tell me how much money you actually need.' The poet quoted a very large amount, thinking that since his friend was a son of Mahalakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, this would be almost nothing for him to give. The politician told him that in a week he would bring him this sum. Then what did he do? He gave his poet-friend double the amount that he wanted, just to save him. Otherwise the poet would have danced, and in this way he would have raised the money. Why would people have come to see a dancer whose skill was not only unknown, but also very dubious? Just because he was a famous man in his own field.

"Although this man was not a dancer, as a poet, as a visionary, as a man of inner depth, he was really something extraordinary. Just to be in his presence, even if his dancing had been totally unskilled, would have been inspiration. His inner capacity, his inspiration and his aspiration would have elevated the consciousness of his audience. There are many really good, excellent dancers, but in the matter of inner depth or inner height they come nowhere near the standard of this poet. Of course, I am not criticising other dancers for their lack of inner depth. As artists in their own fields, they may be excellent. But because of what this beloved seer-poet had contributed in the field of poetry, because of what he was as a man, his very presence could elevate the consciousness of his admirers, although he might have been nowhere in the field of dancing. When one is really great in some field, others are not the losers if they spend a few hours with him in another field, although it may be totally foreign to his original area."

"Master," asked one of the disciples, "you say that when you become well known as a Yogi, people will appreciate you in other fields as well. Of course, we are your disciples, so whatever you do, we love it; we are caught by our devotion for you. But don't people who are not in the spiritual life recognise something in you already? Don't they see something outstanding in you?"

The Master replied, "Let me tell you about something that happened in the ashram where I stayed in my youth. A friend of mine asked me to help him with a paper he was preparing for a particular teacher. He had not been doing well in his studies. Since this was an important paper, he had worked very hard on it, and wanted me to look it over. I agreed, and I made some very minor changes; I did practically nothing. Unfortunately, he received a very low mark on the assignment, and he felt miserable that in spite of the fact that I had helped him, he had still done poorly. He blamed himself, saying that with my help he had had the opportunity to do very well, but because of his own incapacity he had failed.

"I consoled him, and said, 'Let me take the paper and try something.' I retyped the paper and kept it for a few months. Then, since I had once had this same teacher and I was still on very good terms with him, I asked the teacher to look over this paper of mine. He accepted the paper gladly.

"The next morning his wife invited me to their house for refreshments, and the three of us sat in their kitchen together. They lavished much affection on me, and then the teacher brought out my paper. I was surprised that he had already read it. Then he carefully went over it with me, praising it highly, saying it was one of the best papers he had ever seen. And in every one of the places where I had made a minor change for my friend, he had written 'absurd' and 'all wrong'. He had circled every one of those phrases that I myself had added to the paper, calling them absurd, but he enthusiastically praised the paper as a whole.

"Now, originally I had not planned to tell my former teacher what I had done, but as I was leaving to show the paper to my friend, I changed my mind and narrated the whole story to the teacher. He did not show the least sign of surprise. He just said, 'Look, you have to know that there is a little difference between you and your friend. There is a little difference between such an advanced soul as yourself and that particular boy.' To him, the same article, the same ideas, meant something very different coming from me. So, my son, this teacher did see something in me, and many others have also done so."

"Master," said the disciple, "one day the whole world will recognise and appreciate what you are in spirituality and what you are doing in these other fields as well. In the meantime, please remember that your spiritual children love you, and we love the artist in you. I really mean it."

The Master smiled. "Thank you, my son."

Published in The Ambition-Deer

Tribute to Dag Hammarskjöld

by Sri Chinmoy
in the Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium on the anniversary of Dag Hammarskjöld’s birth, 29 July 1905

We wish to offer our soulful homage to this great soul and also we invoke this great soul to bless us in our life of inner aspiration and our life of outer dedication.

[A short meditation follows.]

Dag Hammarskjöld was a great man, a good heart, a soulful life, a possessor of perfect vision-light. Something more, he became a fulfilling bridge between humanity’s excruciating pangs and divinity’s illumining Compassion.

They say that the mind’s brilliance and the heart’s oneness do not and cannot go together, because the mind tends to enjoy a sense of separativity. But Dag Hammarskjöld’s life amply proved that the mind’s brilliance and the heart’s oneness can and do go together.

They say that the selfless purity of the body and the bold dynamism of the vital usually do not run abreast. Indeed, Dag Hammarskjöld was a rare exception.

They say that there is a yawning gulf between earth’s practical reality-body and Heaven’s theoretical vision-soul. If what they say is true, then it is also unmistakably true that Dag Hammarskjöld bridged that yawning gulf in his own life’s short span

The practical man in Dag Hammarskjöld teaches us, “Do not look back, and do not dream about the future, either. Your duty, your reward, your destiny, are here and now.”

The theoretical soul in Dag Hammarskjöld teaches us

“The moon was caught in the branches.
  Bound by its vow,
  My heart was heavy.
  Naked against the night
  The tree slept.
  Nevertheless,
  Not as I will....
  The burden remained mine:
  They could not hear my call
  And all was silence.”

Religion-blood Dag Hammarskjöld inherited from his sweet mother. Manifestation-flood he inherited from his dear father. Something more he inherited from his father: loneliness. Both father and son were assailed by loneliness.

The divine seeker in the Secretary-General left a special message for those who are married to inescapable loneliness: “Didst Thou give me this inescapable loneliness so that it would be easier for me to give Thee all?”

A great man is, indeed, a great power. Human power cleverly avoids justification. Divine power does not avoid justification for there is no need on its part to do so. It knows that justification is only another name for its selfsame reality. The Secretary-General’s wisdom-light reveals to us, “Only he deserves power who everyday justifies it.”

We desire many things. Sometimes we do not know what we desire and why we desire. Unlike us, God has only one desire: independence. And that independence, too, is only for us. The seeker in Dag Hammarskjöld not only tells us about God’s desire for us, but also tells us when we can attain it: “God desires our independence, which we attain when, ceasing to strive for it ourselves, we ‘fall’ back into God.”

Dag Hammarskjöld was a man of unparalleled duty. Duty demands capacity. He perfectly mastered the art of duty. Out of his heart’s magnanimity, he shares with us its quintessence: “Somebody placed the shuttle in your hand. Somebody who had already arranged the threads.”

The seeker’s life need not always be a bed of roses. Sometimes it can ruthlessly be a bed of thorns. When the seeker Dag Hammarskjöld’s inner crisis loomed large, his frustration-life voiced forth: “What I ask for is unreasonable — that life shall have a meaning. What I strive for is impossible — that my life shall acquire a meaning.”

Again, when the same seeker’s life-tree blossomed into a glorious satisfaction, he immediately and unreservedly voiced forth.

“That chapter is closed.
  Nothing binds me.
  Beauty, goodness,
  In the wonders here and now
  Become suddenly real.”

Every time I go to the Secretary-General’s birth-place, Uppsala, Sweden, I make it a special point to offer my soulful homage to his Long Home. His life’s sterling simplicity illumines my life of aspiration and his soul’s ever-glowing luminosity fulfils my life of dedication.

A flying earth-plane killed his body, only to help his soul fly to reach the highest height. But his Heaven-bound flying soul got the immediate opportunity to see the Face of the Beloved Supreme.

Published in Reality-Dream