Inspirational Talks
by Sri Chinmoy
in New York
Dear ones, once a week we have our compulsory meditation. On that day, can you not meditate for half an hour or an hour more? Sometimes I come to the meeting late. Some of you feel, “Since Guru is coming late, we can also come late.” Spirituality is not cleverness. Spirituality is soulfulness. Cleverness and soulfulness are not the same thing; they can never be the same thing.
I was brought up in a spiritual community. I was also a disciple. Even now, I am a disciple of my Absolute Lord Beloved Supreme. It happened that the Mother of our spiritual community would give a time when she would appear. Sometimes she would come late — one hour, two hours, three hours or even four hours after the time she had given. Still, people waited and waited. Of course, there were a few unfortunate disciples who would go away; but the majority waited and waited.
A few years ago, I heard a story about a young spiritual Master who was supposed to visit a particular state. Alas, the plane was delayed. For eight hours, while waiting for him to arrive, his disciples chanted and chanted most soulfully and devotedly. I was so moved when I heard this story.
Many times I have seen that at our Aspiration-Ground weekend functions during the day, there may be only twenty or thirty disciples, but when it is time for prasad, the number becomes seventy or eighty. Where do they come from? They fly in like birds from here, there and everywhere! I fully understand that some are working at Divine Enterprises and other places. If those people arrive at the last moment, I will not mind. But there may be many who are not working or doing something very, very important. Perhaps they are only enjoying lethargy.
Being near your Master is infinitely more valuable than any other kind of activity. Satsang is a Sanskrit word. Other spiritual Masters have given tremendous importance to satsang. It means to be in the company of a spiritual Master or a holy man. With my students I have acted like a grandfather, not like a father. It is all my fault! A father is strict with his children, but a grandfather can never be strict. Again, something unusual has happened: some of my spiritual grandchildren are more devoted and more self-giving than their parents.
Some individuals are working very hard for manifestation, specially with regard to my weightlifting activities. For that you will definitely get my inner gratitude. But some of you feel that because you work very hard for manifestation, you can do anything you want to do in other aspects of your life. If you do not believe in self-discipline, then I cannot be of outer help to you. Inwardly I will offer you gratitude, but I cannot take you as really special disciples just because you are working very hard. You are working towards manifestation and for that I am very, very grateful. There are many, many disciples who do not care for manifestation. But if you are wanting in discipline in your own spiritual life, then please, please, do not expect my tremendous outer attention, gratitude and pride.
Those of you who come here from other states and countries also, please take spirituality as soulfulness, not as cleverness. Do not think that if I can come late, you can also come late. If you come earlier, who will get the advantage? Who will get more benefit from the spiritual life? It is you and nobody else.
There is something else to consider. For you it takes five minutes or ten minutes or fifteen minutes to enter into your highest consciousness, but at a moment’s notice I can enter into my highest. I doubt that anybody among my disciples has the capacity to enter into their highest consciousness in the twinkling of an eye. Such being the case, if you come here ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes or half an hour early, it is only to your advantage. If you can meditate soulfully for an hour or two, will you not get more benefit from your spiritual life than if you meditate for only five minutes? Yes, there is a theory that it is better to meditate for five minutes with utmost soulfulness than to sit for an hour and think only of unspiritual things, but this is a totally different matter.
True, I have made it compulsory to attend our collective meditation once a week, but in many ways I doubt that any other spiritual Master is so indulgent with his disciples. Of course, in the West everybody is indulgent! But in India and other places, there are many, many strict spiritual Masters and their disciples also have become very, very strict with their own lives. Coming back to my point, once a week if you come here half an hour or an hour before the meeting starts, you will get tremendous benefit from your inner cry.
There are many more things I would like to say, but the main thing is this: take spirituality as sincerely as possible. Nobody has forced you, nobody has begged you; nobody can force you, nobody can beg you to be on the path. It was your decision, it is your decision and you can continue with your own decision. Kindly be strict with yourself. Do not look around. If you are strict, then it is worthwhile to be in my boat. If you are not strict, then you are wasting your most precious time. You can do something else outside my boat. Perhaps that will give you joy.
The more you can develop love of God, love of your own self, love of your own divinity, the faster you will run towards your Destination. You made the choice. Now be worthy of your choice, if you wish to continue.
Please take everything I have said today as soulfully as possible. This will help you. I have not come into the world to be a disciplinarian — no! I have come into the world to be a lover of God and a lover of mankind and to be a server of God and a server of mankind. Please do not misunderstand me. I am your spiritual father.
There shall come a time when you will be consciously in touch with your soul and your soul will tell you that I have loved you, I love you and I shall forever love you infinitely more than you can ever imagine. Your mind may not believe it. Your mind may say, “How can Guru think of me more than I think of myself? How can he love me more than I love myself?” But once you have a free access to your soul, you will see that what I am saying today is true, absolutely true. It is your soul that has given me this responsibility because your soul knows that spirituality means bringing the soul’s light into the mind, the vital and the physical.
The soul is the only reality that will last. This body-reality, vital-reality and mind-reality will not last. The soul is an eternal portion of God. Believe in the soul! After thirty, forty or fifty years you will be the soul-reality, not the body-reality. Just because you do not see the soul right now, you cannot say the soul does not exist. Just because an Indian villager has no way to come to America, he cannot say, “Oh no, America does not exist.” In spite of hearing about America from people who have come to America, if someone does not want to believe in its existence, who can make that person believe? Again, all the spiritual Masters, if they are really genuine, will definitely speak about the existence of the soul and the supreme importance of the soul.
If you are spiritually developed, you are bound to see the soul and communicate with the soul, with the supreme reality. Only one thing you need and that is the inner cry. As we need outer means, like money-power, to travel to another country, even so, we need the ceaseless inner cry to communicate with the soul.
Just because I do not know about something, it does not mean that very thing does not exist in the world. In exactly the same way, just because you have not seen the soul, just because you have no access to the soul, you cannot deny the existence of the soul. How many people have seen God? If belief in God’s existence has to depend on eye-to-eye contact, then nobody will accept the spiritual life! Just because spiritual Masters have said that God exists and Someone deep within you — your Inner Pilot, who is God — tells you that He does exist, you believe in God. Belief comes from the inner feeling'. We have to believe. If believing does not precede seeing, then spirituality is of no value. If you say that you will believe in God only if you see Him face to face, then God will say He has more important things to do than to come and stand before you.
You have to believe — believe in your soul, believe in your own inner existence, believe in your own inner reality. Then you will see. Because you have belief, you pray and meditate. But if you want to see God first, before you start praying and meditating, that is absurd, absurd, absurd. Always we have to have faith in ourselves, faith in God, faith in our Master. If faith is taken away and we only demand proof, then that proof is no proof at all.
There are atheists. They do not believe in God. They challenge the theists, people who believe in God. Now, just because the atheists do not believe in God, is God going to come and stand in front of all these non-believers? No, never! In exactly the same way, just because we are not illumined, we cannot say that illumination does not exist. Just because we are unable to do something, we are unable to become something, we cannot say that it is impossible. Impossibility in the spiritual life does not exist. It is merely a dictionary-word. When it comes to the inner life, impossibility does not exist. Even in the outer life, my mind will never agree that impossibility exists.
I have lifted thousands and thousands of pounds over the years. If I use my ordinary human mind — not the illumined mind — my own mind will be the last one to believe in what I have done. Let us take away my mind of illumination, my mind of oneness with God. My regular mind, my ordinary mind, will be frightened to death to think of lifting up such heavy weights. But if I go beyond the mind, I see that it is possible. It is all the Grace of the Supreme. God says to me, “I want you to inspire people with the message of the spirit in and through your physical body.”
Sri Aurobindo said, “Matter and spirit must go together.” Is it not the message of the spirit that my body is carrying? In the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, I was perhaps the best athlete. There they had a huge gymnasium. Two days a year I went there and lifted twenty pounds only to increase my strength a little for shot put. Now I am lifting thousands of pounds. Why? To convey the message of the spirit. The inner spirit and the outer body must go together.
Why do I give so much importance to physical fitness for my disciples? I am not asking you to be a tennis star or a great football player or a champion athlete. No! I simply want you to keep your body fit. Otherwise, early in the morning you will be afflicted with a headache, stomach upset and other ailments. Kindly take care of the body. Every day set aside one hour for exercise. Out of twenty-four hours, one hour you can give. I spend at least three hours a day! From 4:30 in the morning, I spend a minimum of three hours, believe it or not, on the physical. Stretching exercises I take for about forty-five minutes or more. I do all kinds of stretching exercises. You may call it greed, but I call it wisdom, because I know that if we have to stay on earth, physical fitness is of paramount importance.
Again, if you are not physically well, do not delay. Go to a doctor! Do not wait for six months or three months or even one month. Please, please, if you have pain in your physical, take a doctor’s help. God is also inside the doctor. As God is inside your prayer, so too, He is inside the doctor. God is omnipresent. Be wise! Go to the right person.
Forgive me; I have given a long sermon. I have to be very, very strict with all the disciples. Some of you are doing very well, while others are not disciplined at all. You feel, “Oh, I have done so many things for Guru this week. Now I can be relaxed.” There is no such thing as continuous relaxation. Certainly you can relax for a few minutes or a few hours. But if it continues for days, then it is nothing short of destruction. Please, dear ones, take me seriously.
Published in I Wanted to be a Seeker of the Infinite
