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Diary Entry

by Sri Chinmoy
while in residence at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India

11 March

Two American ladies were having an interview with Nolini-da in his room. I had finished my typing and was about to enter his room to return the typewriter. But when I noticed that he was giving an interview, I hesitated and moved away. He called to me: "Why are you not coming in? I have no idea how long our interview will last. Can you take this letter and give it to Amrita?"

While I was putting the typewriter in its proper place and covering it, I overheard part of their conversation. One of the ladies asked Nolini-da: "Sir, please tell me the difference between the Divine Mother and an ordinary human being."

Nolini-da said: "The difference is very simple. We ordinary human beings talk and the Divine Mother acts. We talk and talk. We are empty vessels sounding continuously, while the Mother Divine plays Her role, Her supreme role, in Eternity's Silence."

---

Published in A Service-Fame and a Service-Sun

 

Happiness

A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at the Robert Blackwood Memorial Hall
Monash University, Melbourne Australia

 

Dear friends, dear sisters and brothers, dear seekers, I wish to give a short talk on happiness. You want happiness. He wants happiness. I want happiness. Everybody wants happiness in life, from life. Each creation of God wants happiness. God wants happiness for Himself in and through His creation.

We want happiness and we need happiness. In this life of ours there are many things that we want but actually do not need. But when it is a matter of happiness, we not only want it but we also need it. There is no happiness in mere seeing. There is no happiness in mere feeling. There is no happiness in mere achieving. Happiness can be found only in our conscious surrender to God's Will.

Right now, here on earth we enjoy false happiness, perverted happiness in the body, vital, mind and heart. The body enjoys happiness in the world of pleasure and lethargy. The vital enjoys happiness in the world of aggression. The mind enjoys happiness when it doubts and suspects. The heart enjoys happiness when it treasures insecurity. This is the way we enjoy happiness in the beginning. But there comes a time when real happiness, divine happiness, dawns. At that time the body is fully awake and consciously offering its service-light, the vital is dynamic, the mind is calm and quiet and the heart feels its oneness, its inseparable oneness with the rest of the world.

We have two main instruments: the mind and the heart. The mind finds it difficult to be happy, precisely because the mind consciously enjoys the sense of separativity. It is always judging and doubting the reality in others. This is the human mind, the ordinary physical mind, the earth-bound mind. But we also have the aspiring heart, the loving heart. This loving heart is free from insecurity, for it has already established its oneness with the rest of the world. This heart carries the message of self-offering, and self-offering is God-discovery.

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Published in My Heart's Salutation to Australia, part 2

 

My Prayer-Life My Meditation-Heart

Sri Chinmoy writes
33 poems in New York

 

18.

My meditation
Is my soul's
Soundless sound-conversation
With my Inner Pilot.

19.

My meditation
Is my soul's
Most beautiful and most powerful
God-manifestation-dream
On earth.

20.

My meditation
Is my heart's
God-remembrance-silence-joy.

21.

My meditation
Is my heart's
God-Perfection-Satisfaction-song.

22.

My meditation
Is my mind's
Immediate doubt-departure.

23.

My meditation
Is my mind's
Instant ignorance-illumination
And
Bondage-liberation.

24.

My meditation
Is the Everest-summit-
Ascent-expedition
Of my vital.

25.

My meditation
Is the very first
And never, never the last
God-Protection-Shelter
Of my vital.

26.

My meditation
Is the sunrise-smile
Of my body.

27.

My meditation
Is the power-flooded fort
Of my body.

28.

My meditation
Is my life's
Intensity-profundity-
Experience-delight.

29.

My meditation
Is my life's sleepless
Willingness-surrender-gratitude
To my Beloved Supreme. 

30.

I meditate and meditate
And meditate
So that I can swim fast,
Very fast,
Against my mind's
Desire-current.

31.

I meditate to fulfil
My blue-gold soul-bird's
God-manifestation-dream
Here on earth.

32.

I meditate to soulfully offer
My purity-heart's
Devotion-tears
And my spontaneity-life's
Dedication-smiles
To my Pilot Supreme.

33.

I meditate so that
I can directly learn
Hundreds of soulful
Heart-offering-songs
From God the Supreme Singer.

34.

I meditate to be
In the loving company
Of my heart's mounting
Aspiration-flames
And my life's spreading
Dedication-fragrance.

35.

During my meditation,
I watch the dangerous fight
Between my mind's
Teeming doubts
And my heart's
Blossoming faith.
To my extreme joy,
My heart always wins.

36.

During my deep meditation,
My soul cuts off
The worthless insecurity-branches
Of my aspiration-life-tree.

37.

My Lord Supreme
Has repeatedly told me
That He will not be able
To treasure my meditation
As long as I have
A complexity-mind,
An insecurity-heart,
A hostility-vital
And
An impurity-body.

38.

My Lord Supreme
Has time and again warned me
That my meditations will be
Complete failures
If I am vehemently strict
With others' imperfections
And extremely indulgent
With my own imperfections.

39.

My soul is telling me
That only during
My soulful meditation
Can it forcefully stop
My wild vital from travelling
On dangerous desire-highways.

40.

My meditation reaches
Its acme of perfection
Only when it sees
God's Compassion-Eye,
God's Forgiveness-Heart
And
God's Protection-Feet.

41.

In the small hours of the morning,
With my heart-purity's
Soulfulness-steps,
I embark on my meditation-journey.

42.

When I unconditionally meditate,
God proudly drives me
In His Concern, Affection, Love
And Fondness-Limousine.

43.

When I unconditionally meditate,
God makes me
His ever-transcending
Dream-Reality's perfection-partner.

44.

When I unconditionally meditate,
God asks me to stand beside Him
While He is watching
His universal creation
From His transcendental
Vision-Balcony.

45.

When I extol myself to the skies,
Because of my stupendous
Success-life,
My meditation-friend-commander
Commands my volcano-pride
To fall dead
At my sweet Lord's
Forgiveness-Feet.

46.

My high meditation says
To my heart,
"Who tells you, my dear friend,
That you are always
Pitifully encaged?
Not true, not true."

47.

My good meditation says
To my mind,
"Who tells you, my dear friend,
That you are always at the mercy
Of venomous doubts?
Not true, not true."

48.

My deep meditation says
To my vital,
"Who tells you, my dear friend,
That you are always wildly enraged?
Not true, not true."

49.

My silent meditation says
To my body,
"Who tells you, my dear friend,
That you are always a victim
To worthless and useless lethargy?
Not true, not true."

50.

When I have
A most illumining meditation,
My Lord Supreme smilingly,
Compassionately and blessingfully
Tells me,
"My child, take anything you want
Free of charge
From My Infinity's Treasure-Shop."

---

Published in My Prayer-Life My Meditation-Heart

 

To Become like Hanuman

a talk by Sri Chinmoy
at Progress-Promise in Jamaica, New York

 

We think of Hanuman* and meditate on Hanuman. Next to him, all the dear, dearer, dearest disciples of all the spiritual Masters and Avatars will badly and sadly fail. Now let us meditate on our own faith — our faith in our Master, our faith in the Lord Supreme and His faith in us.

When the disciple loses faith in the Master, what happens? It is the spiritual death of the disciple. In exactly the same way, when the Master loses faith in the disciple, it is the Master’s death. Outwardly I will not be able to explain it to you, but when you dive deep within, you will see that what I am saying is absolutely true.

The race is for the brave. The race is for the swift. If you are brave, you will be swift in the inner world; and if you are swift in the inner world, you will be brave in the outer world. I do hope — I hope against hope — that in this incarnation some Hanuman-like disciples will come into my life or, among the ones that I already have, some can grow into my best disciples. And I do hope that all the messages that I have offered over the years, here, there and everywhere, will be manifested even during my lifetime. Otherwise, when I am gone, physically gone, either slowly and steadily my disciples all over the world will manifest my light, or some new souls from Heaven will descend to expedite the manifestation of my divine and supreme promises that I have offered to the world.

* Hanuman is the greatest devotee of Sri Ramachandra and one of the central figures in the ancient Indian epic, the Ramayana.

---

Published in You Belong to God

 

Questions about Hanuman

answered by Sri Chinmoy

 

Question: How can we be more like Hanuman?

Sri Chinmoy: That question is very ancient. Instead of asking, “How can I become like Hanuman?” just say, “I can do this, I can do this, I can do this!” Then say, “I have done it, I have done it, I have done it!” In the mind or in the inner world, anywhere, on any plane of your consciousness-physical, vital, mental, psychic or spiritual — on any plane if you feel that you cannot accomplish something, just say, “I can do it, I have done it! I can do it, I have done it!”

It is a matter of faith. Faith and surrender go together. If you have faith, then you can have unconditional surrender. If there is anything that you cannot do or cannot become in your life, no matter how difficult it is, just say, “I can do it, I have done it!” You are not fooling yourself. When you say this, you can establish your faith. On the one hand, it is extremely difficult; on the other hand, it is extremely easy.

If you have a problem, and for years you have been unable to conquer that problem, simply say, “No, I can do it.” Next you can say, “I have done it.” If you have implicit faith in your Master, sleepless and breathless faith, then say, “I can do it and I have done it!”

It is only a matter of changing direction. You know that there are two directions. There is something called forward march and something called backward march. If you are marching backward because you feel that is easier, then I will say, “Go forward, march forward! Who is preventing you from marching forward? Again, who is begging you to march backward?”

Each time you lose faith, each time you lose a divine quality, you have to feel that you are marching backward. And each time you regain your good quality, you are going forward. No matter how many days, how many months or how many years you have marched backward by not listening to your Inner Pilot or your Master or your own soul or your inner being, start again at this moment and say, “The past is dust.” That is our philosophy. Just say, “The past is dust. If the past has not given me this Hanuman-type faith, if the past has not given me unconditional surrender, then let me have it in the present, so that I can carry it into the future all my life.”

Again, always say, “I can do it and I have done it!” Anything that is wrong, undivine, just forget. Avoid it, avoid it. And if there is anything good that you want to achieve, immediately say, “I can do it.” No matter how many times you have failed, even countless times, tell yourself that you can do it and you have done it. As soon as you say you have done it, on the inner plane you have already done it. Then in the outer world you have also accomplished it, because the inner world has come forward. You have sown the seed. Then you will see the plant and the tree.

Question: You said that the race is to the swift. Some people are born with a lot of natural dynamism. If you do not have a lot of energy, can you develop that speed through will-power alone if you are on a spiritual path?

Sri Chinmoy: Absolutely, absolutely! The race is to the swift. But swiftness also comes from faith and Grace. On your part is your faith, and on God’s part is His Grace.

Just look at me. I did not want to become a world champion in weightlifting — far from it. But I had faith in the Supreme. I had faith that if the Supreme wanted me to lift heavy weights, He could easily lift in and through me. That much faith I had and I have. If He really wants me to do something, then He will do it in and through me.

There is a theory that poets are born and not made, but I do not agree with it. Some poets are born, true. At the same time, if a seeker wants to be a poet, Grace can descend from Above and turn that person into an excellent poet. It happened in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Sri Aurobindo had quite a few disciples who became excellent poets, but they were not poets in the beginning of their lives. At that time, their poetic capacities were a far cry.

Once you enter into the spiritual life, it is like a river entering into the ocean. If the river has the eagerness, then the ocean will immediately come and meet it. Today I happened to be reading a book about some of our South Indian saints. There it was written, “Who says God does not become impatient?” The Master said it in a very emotional way. I asked myself, “How can God become impatient?” Then he explained, “To see a true devotee and meet with him and converse with him, God definitely becomes impatient.” This theory, from a certain point of view, is absolutely true.

Coming back to the point, if one has the eagerness to become a singer or an athlete, or to shine in any other walk of life, he does not necessarily have to have talents. God can endow him with those talents and capacities. My philosophy is that one per cent is our capacity and ninety-nine per cent is God’s Capacity, God’s Grace. But again, the same God has given us even that one per cent capacity.

Here there are many disciples who are doing very, very well in running, singing and other activities. If they had been left alone with their own capacities, the progress that they have made over the years in these fields they would not have made. The Supreme in me has been extremely, extremely generous. If you think that because you worked hard, very hard, in a certain field you have made this kind of progress, I wish to say that is not true. Other people may have worked harder, infinitely harder.

I used to go to a gym. The owner was a former Mr. Universe. He was a very nice man and he always said such encouraging things to me. When he saw my weightlifting capacities, he said, “You can do it, you can do it!” Then one day he told me how he thought I did it. He said that I remain a few inches above my head. He said that he had worked so hard in weightlifting all his life. In comparison, I had done nothing, according to him. So how was it possible for me to lift up these heavy weights? He said that he could not lift such heavy weights, but because I live a few inches above my head, I could do it.

But I wish to say that I live inside my heart. Very deep inside my heart I live. That is why it is possible for me to lift heavy weights. When you also live inside your heart, Grace from Above will descend most powerfully and most generously.

Right now you may not have the capacity to shine in a certain field, but you cannot say that just because you were not born with this capacity, it will be useless for you to try. No! If you have the inspiration and aspiration to become something, whether in music or in sports or in any other field, the Grace will descend.

Where is the talent in my case? Some people say I am an artist. In our family, nobody went in that direction; nobody showed artistic capacity. In primary school I did study art once a week, but did I ever think of becoming an artist? And did I ever think of becoming a weightlifter? Like this, there are many, many fields which I have entered where I did not have any background.

In the field of literature, my goal was to write two hundred books. Then I went far, far beyond that goal. Sometimes it happens that if God is pleased with you, then when you set a goal, God laughs at you. He says, “You are such a fool! I know what kind of receptivity you have.” Then, with God’s Grace, you go far beyond anything that you have done previously. I had a set goal in the field of literature — not that I would climb up the Himalayas, just that I would go a few metres. But God’s Grace enabled me to climb up higher and higher.

I always say that our goal is not fixed. Today’s goal is tomorrow’s starting point. Who gives us capacity? Somebody above us, Somebody within us gives us the capacity. Why does He not give it to others? We have to say that He is pleased with us. That means we have done something good for Him. If someone has done something good for God, God is not going to remain indebted to that person.

At this point I wish to say that many, many people have served the Supreme in me over the years. In the outer life perhaps I will remain indebted to you; but in the inner world I will never, never remain indebted to anybody. In the inner world, I will definitely give you more than you deserve. And I do hope that if I can give you something — which I shall do — in the inner world for your aspiration and for the dedication which you have offered over the years, it will compensate for what you have offered to me.

Outwardly many of you are serving me in so many ways, and it is true that, outwardly, I do not thank you adequately. At times I do not express my gratitude in public. Some people feel that unless I express my gratitude in public, that gratitude is no gratitude. But I tell you, when I offer my gratitude to you privately, inwardly, it is infinitely more powerful than when I offer my gratitude outwardly. Outwardly when I give it, at that time the insecurity and undivine qualities of others, like hungry wolves, will try to take it away from you. But inwardly, privately or in silence, let us say, if I offer gratitude to you, and if your heart is at that time receptive, then I assure you that nobody can take my gratitude away from you.

Anything that I give you in silence, nobody will be able to steal. But when I appreciate you outwardly, there will be many who will try to grab my appreciation and take it away from you. Again, if you are very strong, if your faith in me, your love for me and your surrender to me is strong, then nobody can take it away from you. But it is a real challenge at that time, and many people fail to meet the challenge.

Question: If somebody is totally pure, is it really possible for him to lose his purity?

Sri Chinmoy: Certainly. Some people can be absolutely pure, but then again they can lose their purity. Does a child not lose his purity? Here is the proof. When a child is a few months old or one or two years old, when the child is all heart — before the mind is developed — he is absolutely pure. Then, when the other parts of his being start developing, at that time it becomes difficult for him to maintain his purity. The mind enters, the vital enters and in this way the child loses his purity.

But there is something called aspiration. When we enter into the spiritual life, we do not allow the mind to think wrong thoughts or to direct us in a wrong way. The mind itself cannot say, “This is pure; that is impure.” No, only the heart can be the judge of purity. The heart will be the judge by virtue of its implicit faith either in the soul or in something deeper than the heart.

Many human beings do not know about the existence of the soul. I use the term ‘soul’, but others may not use this term. But they do know that there is something that can be deeper, infinitely more beautiful and infinitely more powerful, let us say, in their life. That something they have to think of.

The heart everyone knows. Immediately we think of the muscle, or we just feel our heart palpitating. But something is inside the heart. Let us call it the soul, or we can say it is God. God is everywhere. He is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. But if we meditate on the heart or concentrate on the heart, either the soul or God will tell us what is right and what is wrong, what is pure and what is impure.

When the mind becomes the judge, many wrong things the mind will say are right. Similarly, many undivine things the mind will say are pure. The mind cannot be the judge; the heart has to be the judge. Again, the heart is not the actual judge, but the heart begs the soul or God to be the judge. When the heart has faith in either the soul or God, then the heart waits for the message from within. And when the heart gets the message, it can keep the entire mind, vital and physical body pure.

Purity is in oneness with God’s Will. When we accept God’s Will in God’s own Way, there is always purity. But in order to accept God’s Will in God’s own Way, at every moment we need faith in God. For anything that we want, whether it is purity or something else, the first thing God will ask us is, “Do you have faith in Me?” And we also have to ask ourselves if we have faith in God.

The second thing that we have to ask ourselves is how many times we have become happy by pleasing ourselves in our own way and how many times we have become happy by pleasing God in God’s own Way. We will see the difference between making ourselves happy by saying something or doing something in our own way and making ourselves happy by listening to our heart or our soul or our Master.

One second of joy if you can get by pleasing me, then this one second of joy can last for days, for weeks, for months. When you have pleased me by doing something or by becoming something, then immediately you can say, “I have pleased Guru in his own way.” The joy that you get at that time will last for a very long time. Again, if you have pleased yourself by doing something in your own way, then you may be happy, but that happiness is nothing in comparison to the other happiness — nothing, nothing, nothing.

Purity is only a part of divinity. There are so many other good qualities: simplicity, sincerity, gratitude, oneness with God’s Will and so on. These good qualities we can lose, and again, we can get them back. It is not that once we lose them, we shall never regain them. But a time comes when, if we go on losing our divine qualities for days, weeks, months and years — losing and losing and losing — we will have no inclination, no eagerness to regain them. That is what happens. Not only purity, but all the divine qualities that a seeker has, he can lose, he can lose, he can lose.

Real purity is your oneness with God’s Will and your one-pointed faith in God’s Will. All the divine qualities can be found in your oneness with God’s Will. If you want these divine qualities to blossom, if you want them to increase, abundantly and infinitely, then this is the way. There is no divine quality that cannot be increased in boundless measure if you have constant and conscious oneness with God’s Will.

I wish to tell you a humorous story about oneness with the Master’s will. One day I asked one of my ‘famous’ disciples to do something. I said to him, “On other days I have asked you to do something in a totally different way, but this time I am requesting you to do something else. I am making it very clear to you. Now tell me what I have just said.”

He repeated what I had said. Then he did exactly the opposite! I said, “What did I ask you to do?” Again he repeated what I had asked him to do.

“Why did you do otherwise?” I asked him. He answered, “Usually you ask me to do it the other way.”

I asked him to do it one way, and he repeated my request. Then he did it the other way! I said to him, “For centuries and centuries, I meditated inside the Himalayan caves and prayed to God. What for? Only for one disciple like you. God did listen to my prayer, and He gave me you!”

Again, who can tolerate this type of affectionate public comment from me except this famous disciple of mine?

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Published in You Belong to God

 

 

Commentary on The Bhagavad Gita (2)

The second in a series of four lectures by Sti Chinmoy
at Vanderbilt Hall, New York University, New York

 

Chapter two of the Bhagavad Gita is entitled Samkhya Yoga — “The Yoga of Knowledge.” Arjuna’s arguments against war are very plausible to our human understanding. Sri Krishna read Arjuna’s heart. Confusion ran riot across Arjuna’s mind. The unmanly sentiment in his Kshatriya blood he took as his love for mankind. But Arjuna was never wanting in sincerity. His mouth spoke what his heart felt. Unfortunately, his sincerity unconsciously housed ignorance. Sri Krishna wanted to illumine Arjuna. “O Arjuna, in your speech you are a philosopher; in your action, you are not. A true philosopher mourns neither for the living nor for the dead. But Arjuna, you are sorrowing and grieving. Tell me, why do you mourn the prospective death of these men? You existed, I existed, they too. Never shall we cease to exist.”

We have just mentioned Arjuna’s philosophy. Truth to tell, we too would have fared the same at that juncture. Real philosophy is truly difficult to study, more difficult to learn, and most difficult to live.

The Sanskrit word for philosophy is darshan, meaning ‘to see, to envision’. Sri Ramakrishna’s significant remark runs: “In the past, people used to have visions (darshan); now people study darshan (philosophy)!”

Equally significant is the message of the Hebrew Bible: “Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.”

Arjuna for the first time came to learn from Sri Krishna that his human belief concerning life and death was not founded on truth. He felt that he was distracted by illusions. He prayed to Sri Krishna for enlightenment: “I am your humble disciple. Teach me, tell me what is best for me.” For the first time, the word ‘disciple’ sprang from Arjuna’s lips.

Until then, Sri Krishna had been his friend and comrade. The disciple learned: “The Reality that pervades the universe is the Life immortal. The body is perishable; the soul, the real in man, or the real man, is deathless, immortal. The soul neither kills nor is killed. Beyond birth and death, constant and eternal is the soul. The knower of this truth neither slays nor causes slaughter.”

Arjuna had to fight the battle of life and not the so-called Battle of Kurukshetra. Strength he had. Wisdom he needed. The twilight consciousness of the physical mind he had. He needed the sun-bright consciousness of the soul’s divinity.

Sri Krishna used the terms ‘birth’, ‘life’ and ‘death’.

Birth is the passing of the soul from a lower to a higher body in the process of evolution, in the course of the soul’s journey of reincarnation. The Samkhya system affirms the absolute identity of cause and effect. Cause is the effect silently and secretly involved, and effect is the cause actively and openly evolved. Evolution, according to the Samkhya philosophy, can never come into existence from nothing, from zero. The appearance of ‘is’ can arise only from the existence of ‘was’. Let us fill our minds with the immortal utterance of Wordsworth from “Intimations of Immortality”:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home:

Here the poet carries us into the mystery of the soul’s eternal journey and reminds us of the perennial Source.

What is life? It is the soul’s only opportunity to manifest and fulfil the Divine here on earth. When life begins its journey, Infinity shakes hands with it. When the journey is half done, Eternity shakes hands with it. When life’s journey is complete, Immortality shakes hands with it. Life lives the life of perfection when it lives in spirituality. When life lives in spirituality, the Breath of God, it stands far above the commands of morality and the demands of duty.

God says to the human life, “Arise, awake, aspire! Yours is the goal.” The human life says to God: “Wait, I am resting. I am sleeping. I am dreaming.” Suddenly, life feels ashamed of its conduct. Crying, it says, “Father, I am coming.” Throbbing, it says, “Father, I am come.” Smiling, it says, “Father, I have come.”

Life, the problem, can be solved by the soul, the solution; but for that, one has first to be awakened from within.

He who lives the inner life knows that death is truly his resting-room. To him, death is anything but extinction. It is a meaningful departure. When our consciousness is divinely transformed, the necessity of death will not arise at all. To transform life, we need peace, light, bliss and power. We cry for these divine qualities. They cry for our aspiration. They are equally anxious to grant us everlasting life. But until our body, vital, mind, heart and soul aspire together, the divine power, light, bliss and peace cannot possess us.

The body dies, but not the soul. The body sleeps; the soul flies. The soul-stirring words on death and the soul in this chapter of the Gita, let us recollect:

Even as a man discards old clothes for the new ones,
So the dweller in the body, the soul,
Leaving aside the worn-out body,
Enters into a new body.
The soul migrates from body to body.
Weapons cannot cleave it,
Nor fire consume it,
Nor water drench it,
Nor wind dry it.

This is the soul and this is what is meant by the existence of the soul.

Now we shall be well advised to observe the existence of death, if there is any, in the momentous words of Sri Aurobindo, the founder of the Integral Yoga. “Death,” he exclaims, “has no separate existence by itself. It is only a result of the principle of decay in the body and that principle is there already — it is part of the physical nature. At the same time, it is not inevitable; if one could have the necessary consciousness and force, decay and death are not inevitable.”

What we call death is nothing short of ignorance. We can solve the problem of death only when we know what life is. Life is eternal. It existed before birth and it will exist after death. Life also exists between birth and death. It is beyond birth and death. Life is infinite. Life is immortal. A seeker of the infinite Truth cannot subscribe to Schopenhauer’s statement: “To desire Immortality is to desire the eternal perpetuation of a great mistake.” There is no shadow of doubt that it is the ceaseless seeker in man who is Immortality’s Life, for his very existence indicates the Supreme’s Vision that illumines the universe, and the Supreme’s Reality that fulfils creation.

Arjuna the disciple further learned: “Do your duty. Do not waver. Be not faint-hearted. You are a Kshatriya. There can be no greater invitation than that of a righteous war for a Kshatriya.”

A Kshatriya’s (warrior’s) duty can never be the duty of an ascetic. Neither should an ascetic perform the duty of a Kshatriya. Also, a Kshatriya must not follow the path of a world-renouncer. Imitation is not for a seeker. “Imitation is suicide,” so do we learn from Emerson.

A warrior’s duty is to fight, fight for the establishment of Truth. “In his victory, the entire earth becomes his; in his death, him welcome the gates of Paradise.”

Sri Krishna unveiled the path of Samkhya (knowledge) to Arjuna: “Arjuna, take them as one, victory and defeat, joy and sorrow, gain and loss. Care not for them. Fight! Fighting thus, no sin will you incur.”

The Teacher had already revealed the path of knowledge. Now he wanted to teach the student the path of action (Karma Yoga). Arjuna surprisingly learned that this path, the path of action, the second path, is fruitful and also will bring him deliverance. The truth sublime is: “Action is your birthright, not the outcome, not the fruits thereof. Let not the fruits of action be your object, and be not attached to inaction. Be active and dynamic; seek not any reward.” We can simultaneously kindle the flame of our consciousness with the lore of the Isa Upanishad: “Action cleaves not to a man.”

We have already used the term ‘Yoga’. What is Yoga? “Equanimity,” says Sri Krishna, “is Yoga.” He also says: “Yoga is skilful wisdom in action.”

Arjuna’s inner progress is striking. He now feels the necessity to free himself from the desire-life. Sri Krishna teaches him how he can totally detach himself from the bondage-life of the senses as a tortoise successfully withdraws its limbs from all directions. Sense-withdrawal, or withdrawal from the sense objects, by no means indicates the end of man’s journey. “Mere withdrawal cannot put an end to desire’s birth. Desire disappears only when the Supreme appears. In His Presence the desire-life loses its existence. Not before.”

This second chapter throws considerable light on Samkhya (knowledge) and Yoga (action). Samkhya and Yoga are never at daggers drawn. One is detached, meditative knowledge, and the other is dedicated and selfless action. They have the self-same Goal. They just follow two different paths to arrive at the Goal.

To come back to the sense-life. Sense-life is not to be discontinued. Sense-life is to be lived in the Divine for the Divine. It is the inner withdrawal, and not the outer withdrawal, that is imperative. The animal in man has to surrender to the Divine in man for its total transformation. The life of animal pleasure must lose its living and burning breath in the all-fulfilling life of divine Bliss.

The Katha Upanishad declares the rungs of the ever-climbing ladder:

Higher than the senses are the objects of sense,
Higher than the objects of sense is the mind,
Higher than the mind is the intellect,
Higher than the intellect is the Self,
Higher than the Self is the Unmanifest,
Higher than the Unmanifest is the Supreme personified,
Highest is this Supreme, the Goal Ultimate.

We have seen what happens when we go up. Let us observe what happens when we muse on the sense-objects. The Gita tells: “Dwelling on sense-objects gives birth to attachment, attachment gives birth to desire. Desire (unfulfilled) brings into existence the life of anger. From anger delusion springs up, from delusion the confusion of memory. In the confusion of memory, the reasoning wisdom is lost. When wisdom is nowhere, destruction within, without, below and above.”

The dance of destruction is over. Let us pine for salvation. The disciplined, self-controlled aspirant alone will be blessed by the flood of peace. Finally, the aspirant will be embraced by salvation, the inner illumination.

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Published in The Oneness of the Eastern Heart and the Western Mind, part 2

 

Simplicity, Sincerity, Purity and Divinity

A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at the Melbourne Assembly Hall, Melbourne, Australia

 

Dear seekers, dear sisters and brothers, let us try to be simple. Simplicity is a simple word, but everyone knows how difficult it is to become simple in life. Each time a seeker becomes simple in his life-activities, in his life-achievements, in his life-successes, he feels that he has achieved self-discovery. And each time he becomes complex or complicated in his nature, he feels that God-realisation is a far cry. A simple heart runs fast, faster, fastest towards the Goal. In the seeker's list of life-desires, when one item is removed and the list becomes more simple, the seeker gets an abundance of inner illumination.

Let us all try to become sincere. Sincerity is unparalleled in the spiritual life. Each time a seeker tells a lie, in order to justify the lie he will tell ten more lies. And each time he tells a lie he consciously gets an additional burden on his shoulders. The seeker has to run fast, faster, fastest towards his destination. If he is carrying something heavy on his shoulders, he can never go fast. Sincerity expedites our journey. Sincerity shortens the road. Sincerity offers us a short cut to our Goal. He who is sincere is bound to discover his Reality-Self infinitely sooner than the person who is not sincere.

A child's sincerity conquers the heart of all human beings. A sincere heart conquers the length and breadth of the world. A sincere seeker sees, feels and realises that God-realisation can never remain a far cry. There are people who say that spirituality is nothing short of mental hallucination, nothing but building castles in the air. But a sincere heart knows and feels that spirituality is something spontaneous and natural, for the Source — the Ultimate Source which is God — is natural and simple. Therefore, at every moment, right from the journey's start, the sincere heart feels that his is the way and his is the Goal, the destined Goal.

Let us all try to become pure. Purity is nothing short of self-expansion. It is inside our purity that we see the real Self of all. Purity expands and enlarges our consciousness. The whole world we can claim as our own, our very own, when we have a pure heart. If we do not have a pure heart, we can never claim anything as our very own. Inside our purity-existence we see our oneness-light, our universal oneness. When we do not have purity, we feel a sense of separativity. Each time we are wanting in purity we feel that there is nothing on earth that can satisfy us. But when purity enters into us, we feel that our entire being is surcharged with light. There is no darkness either within or without. Our whole being is flooded with Light and Delight.

He who has purity feels God's loving Breath at every moment, and his life's multifarious activities offer him fruitful realities. He opens his eyes, he observes the beauty of nature and he adores it. He closes his eyes and in the inmost recesses of his heart he observes the inner beauty. With outer beauty he fulfils the outer realities. With his inner beauty he fulfils the inner realities. It is he who sees the world of illumining Vision and fulfilling Reality. God's Silence-Life and God's Sound-Life he claims as his own, very own.

The seeker then dives deep within and enters into the world of divinity. There he sees God as Soul-Reality; there he sees God in His infinite manifestations, which are both Sound-Life and Silence-Life. In this world of divinity the seeker accepts everything as a form of God's manifestation. Today's world is far from perfect. But inside each material object, each creation of God, he sees and hears the message of ultimate perfection. The seeker who sees divinity in unmistakable terms inside each creation of God notices the sea of perfection in each human nature, in each human life.

Divinity is the Source. When the seeker is fully aware of his Source, he feels like a running river going towards the universal Sea of aspiration. The seeker's divinity makes him constantly conscious of the promise he made to the Absolute Supreme before he entered into the world-arena. At that time he made a solemn promise that he would manifest the Absolute Supreme here on earth. Realisation, revelation, manifestation and perfection: these divine achievements are what the seeker of the highest Absolute Truth achieves in the course of time. In the process of his own evolution, at God's Choice Hour he embodies, reveals and manifests God here on earth.

As he learns many things, the seeker of the Highest Truth also unlearns many things in the course of his journey. What are the things that he unlearns? He unlearns fear, doubt, anxiety, jealousy, insecurity. He unlearns the teachings of the earth-bound life, of the sophisticated mind with its disproportionate ego. He unlearns everything that the physical world has taught him. He comes to realise that the physical mind, which is full of doubt and suspicion, has taught him quite a few things which are standing in the way of his God realisation. Each time he uses his mind he sees clearly that the mind is creating an additional obstacle on his way. Therefore, he tries to unlearn everything that the physical mind has taught him and he uses an illumined mind.

This illumining and illumined mind comes into existence in his life only when he becomes a loving and aspiring heart. In his loving and aspiring heart he sees the effulgence of his soul. The soul's effulgence illumines his heart totally. Then the heart brings this effulgence of light into the mind and illumines the mind. When the seeker's mind is illumined, the seeker receives and achieves peace in boundless measure. This boundless peace the mind brings into the vital, strengthening the vital. There comes a time when the illumined mind is successful in transforming the restless, destructive vital. The illumination of the mind changes the aggressive vital into the dynamic vital. Then, the illumining and revealing vital enters into the lethargic physical body, the body that enjoys wallowing in the pleasures of lethargy, darkness and ignorance. For countless years this physical existence of ours did not care for the inner light. It wanted to remain with ignorance-life and swim in the sea of ignorance. But after some time, the illumining and illumined vital enters into the emotional physical. Slowly, steadily and unerringly our physical existence is transformed and illumined and becomes a perfect instrument of God. When the body-existence of the seeker's physical reality becomes a perfect instrument of God, God-manifestation becomes an elevating, illumining and fulfilling experience in the seeker's body. The seeker's very presence illumines and inspires those who happen to be around him. At this point, the seeker realises that each thought of his reality-existence is a world of its own. Previously, when he was living in the desire-life, he was not aware of thought-power. But now he sees that when he was in the desire-life, each thought destroyed a real divinity in him. Each thought was a form of destruction, conscious or unconscious. Each thought wanted him to maintain a sense of separativity or wanted him to lord it over others. Each thought made him feel that his was the life of superiority, his was the life of supreme authority.

Now the seeker sees in each thought a world of divine creation, a world of illumination a world of perfection. Each thought creates in him a world of progress, a world of satisfaction. And each time he grows into the satisfaction-tree, he feels the ultimate Absolute Lord, author of all Good, showering His choicest Blessings upon his illumined mind, aspiring heart and self-giving life.

Simplicity, sincerity, purity and divinity.

With sincerity the seeker starts his journey and with divinity the seeker completes his journey. But the journey never ends; the Goal is an ever-transcending reality. Each time the seeker reaches a Goal, that Goal becomes the starting point of a higher, brighter, more illumining and more fulfilling experience and reality.

The seeker starts with simplicity and goes along the road of sincerity, purity and divinity. Inside divinity, at every moment he realises a Goal, a Goal that is constantly transcending its own Infinity, Eternity and Immortality.

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Published in My Heart's Salutation to Australia, part 2