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Conscious Oneness with God

A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at Columbia University, New York

Hail, Columbia! Columbia, the country, Columbia, the University, Hail! The word Columbia immediately inspires my heart, awakens my mind and pulls my life straight into my soul’s core.

We are taught, the world is told by The Star-Spangled Banner, what you truly and soulfully are: “the Land of the free and the Home of the brave.”

On October 17, 1949, Columbia University conferred the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws on Prime Minister Nehru of India. Our Prime Minister, at the beginning of his memorable speech said something most significant:

“I have come to you not so much in my capacity as Prime Minister of a great country or a politician, but rather as a humble seeker after truth and as one who has continuously struggled to find the way, not always with success, to fit action to the objectives and ideals that I have held.”

Nehru is a veritable pride, not only of India, but of the entire world. Indeed, he was a peerless son of Mother-Earth.

Now I wish to tell you, in all humility, that I too have come to you as a most humble seeker after the infinite Truth. I have come here to serve you all, to serve this august University in its inner urge to reach the highest Truth.

God and man. God and man are one. They are eternally one. God knows it. Man also will know it. He will.

Fear separates man from God. Doubt separates man from God. Self-indulgence separates man from God.

When we fear something, we have to know that suffering has already started torturing us from what we fear. We have two children within us. One child is afraid of teeming darkness in the world. The other child is afraid of the world-transforming infinite Light. He is the ignorance-child who is afraid of darkness. He is the child unaspiring who is afraid of Light.

Doubt is obstinate. Doubt is cruel. Poor man, with his doubt he doubts the existence of God who is all-existence. Alas, what is worse is that he is ever in doubt about his own doubts. He is lost. He is ruined. Sangsayatma Vinashyate (a doubting soul is doomed to be ruined). This is what we have learned from the Bhagavad Gita, India’s Bible.

Self-indulgence. Today what we call self-indulgence, tomorrow that very thing we call self-annihilation. Indulgence comes to man with a gift, pleasure. Man touches and feels the gift. Lo and behold, pleasure transforms itself into bitter frustration.

No conscious embodiment of God where there is fear.
No conscious realisation of God where there is doubt.
No conscious oneness with God where there is self-indulgence.

It is in man’s self-knowledge that man realises his conscious oneness with God. Alas, we think that we are what other people say we are. We also think of ourselves what we seem to be with the help of our limited capacity of understanding. According to others, we are useless. According to us, we are meaningless. But according to God, we are at once most useful and most meaningful. He uses to fulfil Himself. We use Him to realise our true Self. The meaning of man’s existence is God’s Delight. The meaning of God’s existence is man’s realisation of the Absolute.

We need love to establish our conscious oneness with God. If we want to have the accent on love in our life of aspiration, then we must put the stress on sacrifice at every moment.

We need sacrifice to establish our conscious oneness with God. If we want to have the accent on sacrifice in our life of aspiration, then we must put the stress on surrender. We must offer our total surrender to God’s Will and we must stay with our unconditional surrender at God’s Feet.

Today’s belief is tomorrow’s achievement. In order to see your sincere belief transformed into true achievement you have to plead with your conscience to be your constant guide. When conscience is your guide, you grow into God’s colossal pride.

Very often you think of what you have to do. But you always do what you want to do. Now you want to have conscious oneness with God. Look around and you see that somebody easily does what somebody else emphatically said could never be done. One was right yesterday and the other is right today. Here is a radiant proof that the message of the past can easily be challenged. Of course, it will be better if we say that the knowledge of the past can be surmounted and it is meant to be surmounted. Sisters and brothers, I offer to you my soul’s assurance that you are bound to get what you want. You want to have conscious oneness with God. This oneness is certain. This oneness is destined. And to achieve this conscious oneness with God what you have to do is to meditate and concentrate. Nothing more and nothing less. Meditate on the Highest in your soul and concentrate on the lowest in your nature. This is what you have to do. When you play your part, God will play His part in you and for you. During your meditation God will present you with His infinite Joy, Peace: and Bliss. During your concentration God will transform your ignorance-sea into the sea of eternal Light. And now unmistakably what you have is conscious oneness with God. Now what you are is God’s Dream fulfilled in Reality manifested.

Published in AUM – Vol. 5, No. 4, 5, Nov. – Dec. 27, 1969

The New Millennium and World Peace

A talk by Sri Chinmoy
in Marillac Auditorium at St. John’s University, Jamaica, New York

O New Millennium, every thousand years you come to bless us, the entire humanity, with new dreams, new hopes and new promises. And now, once again, you are fast approaching. Today we wish to invoke you most soulfully and prayerfully.

O New Millennium, you are not a mere number. Your arrival heralds the divinely significant descent of a new consciousness on earth.

The Old Millennium says to the New Millennium, “My Brother, do not make the same mistakes that I made!”

We ask our Lord Beloved Supreme, “Please tell us frankly what kind of mistakes we have made in the Old Millennium and how we can rectify them in the New Millennium.”

Our Lord Supreme compassionately replies, “In the 20th Century, power and helplessness are in action. In the 21st Century, Love and Light will be in action.”

We say to our Lord, “Please tell us if we have understood You correctly: in the 20th Century, we have left God to be with ourselves. In the 21st Century, we shall leave ourselves for God and we shall live only for God, only for God.”

Our Beloved Lord whispers deep within our hearts, “True, My children, true. Spirituality you have rejected, God you have neglected. But do not give up! The 21st Century will help you find your way back to my Heart-Home. I have already erased My dissatisfaction-memories of the past. Can you not do the same? May all uncomely memories of the 20th Century fade away from your mind as quickly as possible! Exhale the dust of the past. Inhale the fragrance of the future.

“World peace is the sole theme of the present-day world. Right from a child to a 99-year-old, all incessantly talk about world peace. I dearly love the world-peace-dreamers, world-peace-lovers, world-peace-servers and even the world-war-mongers who on very, very, very rare occasions genuinely feel the supreme necessity of world peace in the very depths of their heart.

“Needless to say, the supremacy of the mind wants to bless the world with peace. Indeed, it is the height of stupidity! Indeed, it is the height of absurdity! It is the intimacy of the heart that can and shall inundate the world, either in the near or distant future, with peace.

“Might is right. This ignorance-founded theory has to be immediately and permanently shunned. Right is might, and right is founded upon Light. This infallible reality has to be accepted here and now, and must needs be practised throughout Eternity.

“The dividing and divided mind will never be able to enjoy even an iota of peace. It is the uniting and united heart that can and shall enjoy peace in immeasurable measure.

“Where is peace, if not a prayer-height away? Where is peace, if not a meditation-depth away? Let us have only the prayer that teaches us, ‘Not my will’. Let us have only the meditation that teaches us, ‘But Thine be done’.

“The Source of everything is God the Compassionate. Therefore, the Source of science is also none other than God Himself. God expected science to be always an unparalleled boon in the process of humanity’s evolution towards Infinity’s Light and Delight. But, alas, science in many aspects of human life has been a veritable curse, instead of being an unimaginable blessing. Instead of having the vision of an ever-blossoming creation, science indulges in an ever-increasing destruction.

“The spiritual seekers are eagerly and breathlessly waiting for the Golden Day when the heart of spirituality will be able to successfully embrace the mind of science and visa versa. Each will teach the other a new song. Science will teach spirituality the song of Infinity’s Peace-Beauty. Spirituality will teach science the song of Immortality’s Peace-Fragrance.

“I hope I have answered your question, my sweet children.”

O God, our Lord of Compassion, long two thousand years ago the Saviour Christ took birth to liberate mankind from the throes of ignorance-night. Alas, in two thousand years we have not been able to transform this world into the Kingdom of Heaven. Please tell us if the children of the next century will succeed in fulfilling his vision.

“My children, do not succumb to despair. In the New Millennium, My Compassion-Rain shall again descend in measureless measure. And this time it will be greeted by humanity’s wide open receptivity-heart-door. So smile, My children, smile. The New Millennium will be the abode of mankind’s dream.”

O Lord Beloved Supreme, we are ready, our hearts are ready, our entire being is ready to sing of the supremely, gloriously rising dawn of the New Millennium.

“My children, something more I wish to add. Millennia have passed by, but humanity has not yet seen the face of peace. To My great Joy and Relief, in the 21st Century, the Mother Goddess of Peace will visit each and every earth-family to whisper and inspire the supreme necessity of a oneness-world-family. Her persuasion of her children will be founded upon her all-disarming Smiles. Her God-receptivity-beauty and God-gratitude-fragrance will cover the entire length and breadth of the world. Tomorrow’s humanity and tomorrow’s Divinity will not only have infinitely more faith in each other, but also will work together for humanity to arrive at the Heart-Door of the Absolute Supreme and for Divinity to ring its Victory-Bell in the readiness, willingness and eagerness-home of humanity.”

Sri Chinmoy is presented with a special proclamation from the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at St. John’s University welcoming him as a ‘Messenger of the Millennium’. The presentation is made by Dr. Raymond Bulman, senior member of the Department and author of the book, The Lure of the Millennium. Sri Chinmoy is also made an honorary member of Theta Alpha Kappa, the National Honour Society for Theology.

Published in The Oneness of the Eastern Heart and the Western Mind, part 3

Within Us is Our Goal

Sri Chinmoy’s second talk on Yoga
at 350 East 54th Street, New York City

We are God’s all-fulfilling Dream. Our within is God’s boundless Plenitude. Our goal is Infinity’s Heart and Immortality’s Breath. Our goal is within our very body.

In the physical world the mother tells her child who his father is. In the spiritual life our aspiration tells us who our God is. Who is God? God is an infinite Consciousness. He is also the self-illumining Light. There is no human being who does not own within him this infinite Consciousness and this self-illumining Light.

If we want to see anything in the outer world, in addition to keeping our eyes wide open, we need light. It may be sunlight or electric light or some other kind of light. But in the inner world, we need no light whatsoever. Even with our eyes closed we can see God, the self-illumining Light.

God is not something to be obtained from outside. God is that very thing which can be unfolded from within.

Each human being has millions and millions of questions to ask. In his spiritual life, a day dawns when he feels that there is only one question worth asking: “Who am I?” The answer of answers is, “I am not the body, but I am the inner Pilot.” How is it that a man does not know himself, a thing which ought to be the easiest of all his endeavours? He does not know himself precisely because he identifies himself with the ego and not with his real “I.” What compels him to identify himself with this pseudo “I?” It is Ignorance. And what tells him that the real “I” is not and can never be the ego? It is his self-search. What he sees in the inmost recesses of his heart is his real “I,” his God. Finally, this seeing must transform itself into becoming.

The other day a friend of mine, or perhaps I should call him a student, said to me: “I can’t think of God. My mind becomes restless.”

“What do you do then?” I asked.

“Why, I just think of the world.”

“Now tell me, when you think of the world, in all its activities, can you even for a second think of God?”

“No, never.”

“So, my young friend, is it not absurd to know that, when you think of God, restlessness takes your mind away from God, but when you drink deep the pleasures of the world, your restlessness does not take your mind away and place it at the Feet of the Lord? No, this should never be. If you have genuine hunger for spiritual food, the same restlessness, or what you may call ‘uneasiness’, will take your mind speedily and dynamically and place it in your heart to drink the Nectar.

“To be sure, your mind cannot do two things at a time. If you are thinking of God with an implicit faith, if the flame of aspiration is burning within your heart, your outer restlessness-monkey, however mischievous it may be, will not dare to touch you, much less pinch or bite you. Further, if you see the situation from a different angle, you will feel yourself extremely fortunate that you cannot do two things at a time. You cannot look at your own two shoulders with full attention at the same time. Similarly when you see your God within, you cannot see the ignorance-tiger of the outer world.”

What we shall have to do first is to see the ego, touch and catch the ego, and finally transform the ego. Believe it or not, in Indian villages even now when a Brahmin’s son gets angry with his friends, he boldly says: “Look, I am a Brahmin. All the sastras, the scriptures, were at the command of my forefathers. We are the possessors of the inner knowledge. Our curses act like volcanoes. Be careful!” His friends are struck with fear and keep silent. In the spiritual life when the ego enters into us, and bothers us, we shall have to think of ourselves as the Brahman, the One without a second, and we shall have to feel ourselves as the all-pervading Consciousness. The ego disappears into nothingness.

Even if we think of ourselves as the ego-centric body, we can use the senses to fulfil ourselves fully and divinely here on earth, and prevent the senses from using us according to their sweet fancy.

We all know that the mind plays an important role in our material life as well as in our spiritual life. So we must not discard the mind. What we should do is to be always conscious of the mind. The mind becomes restless; that does not mean that we shall have to punish the mind all the time. If the master of the house comes to learn that his old servant has now formed the habit of stealing, he does not immediately dismiss the servant. The servant's past sincerity and dedication are still fresh in his mind. He waits and observes unnoticed and unconcerned, feeling that his servant will turn over a new leaf. In the meantime, the servant becomes aware that his master has come to know of his late conduct. He stops stealing. He goes one step further; to please his master, he works even more sincerely and more devotedly than he did before. Similarly, when we become aware of the mind's restless activities and its tricks, we shall have to be silent for some time and observe the mind quite unconcerned. Before long, we shall see that our mind, the thief, will feel ashamed of its conduct. We must not forget that during that time we have to think of ourselves as the soul and not as the body, for the soul can alone be the master of the mind. The soul alone is our true identity. At the appointed hour, the mind will start to listen to the dictates of the soul.

Action, action! We shall always act. Action and inaction. According to the Gita, we shall have to see action in inaction, and inaction in action. What does this mean? It means that, while acting, we shall have to feel within ourselves a sea of silence. While we are without activity, we shall have to feel within us a dynamo of creative energy. Let us not think of actions as ours. If we can do this, our actions will be more real and more effective. When a servant does something, say, cooking for his master, he does it to the best of his capacity. Why? To get his master's appreciation and favour. But when he cooks for himself, he does it as negligently as possible. In the same way, if we act to please our soul, the inner Pilot, we shall be able to act most devotedly and most successfully.

Our Goal is within us. And to reach that Goal we shall have to take to the spiritual life. In the spiritual life, the thing that is most needed is the awareness of consciousness. Without it, everything is a barren desert.

When we enter into a dark place, we take a flashlight or some other light in order to see. Now, if we want to know the existence of our unlit life, we shall have to take the help of our consciousness. Let us go deeper into the matter. We know that the sun illumines the world. But how are we aware of it? We are aware of it through our consciousness, which is self-revealing. The functioning of the sun is not self-revealing. It is our consciousness in the sun that makes us feel that the sun illumines the world. It is our consciousness that is self-revealing in everything. And this consciousness is an infinite sea of delight. When we drink a drop of water from the sea, it tastes salty. In the same way, during our meditation, if we can drink a tiny drop from the sea of delight, we shall realise that the sea is full of delight. This delight is nectar. Nectar is Immortality.

Within us is our Goal. Let us go deep within and hear the Vedic Seer singing:

Vedaham Etam Purusham Mahantam
Aditya Varnam Tamasah Parastat.

“I have known this great Being,
Radiant as the Sun beyond darkness.”

Published in AUM – Vol. 1, No.11, June 27, 1966

Sri Chinmoy Celebrates the Fifth Anniversary at the United Nations

Sri Chinmoy and a group of aspirants who consisted of UN personnel, delegates and NGO Representatives, celebrate the fifth anniversary of Sri Chinmoy’s service to the UN, in the Peace Room of the Church Centre for the United Nations. The gathering begins with a silent and conscious meditation for the peace of mankind. Then Sri Chinmoy addresses the group.

Sri Chinmoy: Today we are celebrating the fifth anniversary of the United Nations Meditation Group. I wish to start by offering a few songs to the body and soul of the United Nations. This is my dedicated offering. I do hope that the Meditation Group singers will learn these songs.

[Sri Chinmoy reads the translations and sings four songs. The Bengali titles and the English translations follow.]

Je besechhe bhalo

He who has loved this world
Has only received excruciating pangs.
The world has thrown on him
all ugliness, filth, dirt, impurity.
Yet the hero marches along,
Carrying the burden of the entire world.
At the end of his teeming struggles
He will go and stand at the
Feet of the Lord Supreme.

Sundara hate

You are beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful,
Beauty unparalleled in the garden of Paradise.
Day and night may Thy Image abide in the very depth of my heart.
Without You my eyes have no vision;
Everything is an illusion, everything is barren.
All around me, within and without,
The melody of tenebrous pangs I hear.
My world is filled with excruciating pangs.
O Lord, O my beautiful Lord,
O my Lord of Beauty,
In this lifetime, even for a fleeting second.
May I be blessed with the boon to see Thy Face.

Nayane nayane

In secrecy supreme I see You.
You live in my eyes, in my sleep,
in my dreams, in my sweet wakefulness.
In the stupendous mirth of life,
In the abysmal lap of death,
You I behold.
Your love-play is my world.

Nayan nehare bishwa bhuban

The eye sees the entire world
But it sees not its own life;
Therefore, keeping the two eyes closed
The Yogi meditates on You,
O Lord Supreme.
The ear hears only
The messages and the clamour of the outer world.
It hears not the messages
Of the highest Heaven;
Therefore, the true seeker of wisdom
Always tries to keep his ears
Under his perfect control.

Published in AUM – Vol. 2, No. 4, 27 April 1975