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?
Published in You Belong to God
