Recent Content

God’s Power of Love in Today’s World

This talk by Sri Chinmoy
at the Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium
United Nations Secretariat, New York

Aum, Aum, Aum.

God's Power of Love has three gifts to offer: aspiration, liberation and perfection.

Man's power of love has three gifts to offer: possession, frustration and destruction.

God's Power of Love in today's world can be felt only by the special few who have discovered the inner truth that love is the beauty of our aspiring life and the duty of our manifesting soul.

Aum.

The body of today's world is a filthy pig. 
The vital of today's world is a mad elephant. 
The mind of today's world is a devouring tiger. 
The heart of today's world is a timid deer. 
The soul of today's world is a helpless lamb.

In supreme silence, God's Power of Love is performing its eternal divine duty. Slowly, steadily and unerringly, it is transforming the body — the filthy pig — into the clean and pure child, the vital — the mad elephant — into a one-pointed dynamic runner, the mind — the devouring tiger — into a seeker of the highest Truth, the heart — the timid deer — into a brother of boundless confidence and concern, the soul — the helpless lamb — into a chosen instrument of divinity's eternity.

Aum.

Marguerite Blessington said, "Love in France is a comedy; in England a tragedy; in Italy an opera seria; and in Germany a melodrama."

Now I wish to add to that, "Love in America is at once a frightening and enchanting experience of a green life's red adventure."

The master-philosopher Plato remarked, "Love — a great mental disease." When our physical consciousness lives in the doubting, suspecting and unaspiring mind, this great utterance of Plato is to some extent undeniable. But if our awakened consciousness lives in the illumining soul, love is nectar, the very breath of immortality.

Napoleon Bonaparte has given us an amusing and interesting piece of advice: "The only victory over love is flight." Now, when our human emotions run riot, the necessity of flying away is perhaps indispensable. But when our divine emotion, the all-loving emotion, reigns supreme, we have to know that we do not need victory over love, but victory of love. This victory of love is self-expansion in God-Manifestation.

India's matchless leader, Mahatma Gandhi, has a special message. His inner message runs: "Love is the reverse of the coin of which the obverse is Truth."

In the life of aspiration we come to realise that love is truth embodied and that truth is love revealed.

Man's obtrusive ignorance of divine love results in a most damaging failure in the battlefield of life.

Man's power of love is constantly wanting in perspicuity and lucidity.

Man's love of power knows not how to procrastinate. Fast, faster and fastest it runs and finally when it reaches the goal, it is compelled to shake hands with bitter frustration.

Earthly experience, frustrated and shattered, convinces a lover that there is no such thing as love. It is all chicanery. Heavenly experience, illumined and fulfilled, reveals to a God-Lover the truth that love alone is here on earth, there in heaven.

Here at this august hall, the Dag Hammarskjold Hall, we are trying to throw light on love in today's world. My heart tells me that the love that the United Nations has is not a guarded and limited concern, but a soulful dedication to the Supreme Cause.

An unaspiring man loves God in a perfunctory manner. An aspiring man loves God in a soulful and ebullient manner. A God-Realised man loves God in an unconditionally surrendered manner. It is through him that God, the inner Pilot Supreme, reveals His Power of Love in today's world.

Published in AUM – Vol. 7, No. 5, 27 Dec. 1971

The Role of Humility in the Spiritual Life

A short talk by Sri Chinmoy
in the Chapel of the Church Centre for the United Nations, at the United Nations in New York

In our spiritual life, in our life of aspiration and in our life of dedication, humility is the root, divinity is the tree and Immortality is the fruit. Only when I am soulfully humble does God allow me to make a perfect estimate of His Universal Reality, His Transcendental Reality and my own life.

The perfect man is he whose inner being is flooded with humility. And it is he who eventually becomes God's Transcendental Choice and God's Universal Voice.

Humility and self-conceit are two real strangers to each other. Humility and God-awareness are two eternal friends. Humility and divinity's reality-expansion are eternally inseparable, inseparably one.

When I am humble to my inferiors, they adore me. When I am humble to my equals, they love me. When I am humble to my superiors, they appreciate me. When I am humble to God, He claims me as His best instrument on earth. To climb up God's Vision-tree I need only one thing: humility's beauty. To climb down God's Reality-tree I need only one thing: humility's magnanimity.

There are many roads that lead to God. There is one road which is undoubtedly by far the shortest and, at the same time, most illumining and that road is the humility-road.

Published in Reality-Dream

Independence

A talk by Sri Chinmoy
in Jamaica, New York

Independence, independence, independence!

The human in me thinks that it is dependent on the persons it agrees with. It thinks that it loses its independence as soon as it sees eye to eye with others.

The divine in me thinks otherwise. It thinks that when it agrees with others, it enlarges its vision and establishes firmly its oneness with the rest of the world.

The human in me feels that it loses its independence the moment it takes something from others or even expects something from others.

The divine in me feels otherwise. The divine in me feels that God's creation is for give and take. Give what you have and take what you need, for there is only one common Source, and that Source is God. This moment God is playing the role of the Giver through me, and the next moment He is playing the role of the Receiver through me. It is all oneness-game.

The human in me thinks that it loses its independence as soon as it starts thinking of others, whether they are good or bad. It feels the supreme necessity of thinking only of itself and not of anybody or anything else, because it feels that nothing belongs to it.

The divine in me feels otherwise. The divine in me thinks, feels and knows that the moment it thinks of God, it creates a thought-world that is the precursor of an action-world. Once we have established a reality in the thought-world, then the next step is to bring that reality into the action-world for manifestation. In our action-life only can we have true satisfaction.

The divine in me knows that there is and there can be no such thing as independence. It is all dependence, and inside dependence what looms large is the message of constant oneness. God gives us what He has — His Compassion. We give God what we have — our love. God gives us what He is — His Goodness. We give God what we truly are — our aspiration to become greater.

We depend on God for His Compassion. God depends on us for His Manifestation. This kind of dependence is actually mutual oneness playing different roles at different times, for constant satisfaction and constant perfection, for constant perfection and constant satisfaction.

Published in Aurora-Flora

Here and Now

Prayers by Sri Chinmoy
at the Peace Concert in Old Pine Street Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

123.

HERE and NOW
I have just cancelled
My desire-land-journey.

124.

HERE and NOW
I must conquer my mind's
Frustration-exasperations.

125.

HERE and NOW
I have made a solemn promise:
I shall never, never enter
Into my mind's
God-disobedience-country.

126.

HERE and NOW
I must love and serve
God the Supreme Guest
Devotedly, soulfully, self-givingly
And sleeplessly.

127.

HERE and NOW
I have come to realise
That from God's Compassion-Eye
Every human being has
His own infallible origin.

128.

HERE and NOW
I unmistakably feel
That God's Desire-Heart
To please mankind
Is infinitely stronger
Than mankind's desire-heart
To please God.

129.

HERE and NOW
My God-worshipping heart-tears
Must reach God's Golden Shore
Of the ever-transcending Beyond.

130.

HERE and NOW
I must offer
All my heart's aspiration-tears
And
All my life's gratitude-smiles
To my Absolute Lord Supreme.

131.

HERE and NOW
I must keep
A soulful and prayerful eye
On all God's
World-transformation-actions.

132.

HERE and NOW
With my God-devotion-tears
I must row my life-boat
To God's Nectar-Heart-Harbour.

Published in Here and Now

Spirituality

A talk by Sri Chinmoy
in Conference Room 14, United Nations

Dear friends, esteemed brothers and sisters, before I give a talk I wish to sing a devotional song. "Lord Supreme, I do not know who You are. I do not know who You are to me in my inner life of aspiration and in my outer life of dedication. But I know that You are my Beloved Supreme."

[Sri Chinmoy sings "Tumi je amar devata eka."]

Once more I wish to tell you that I am extremely glad and grateful that you have given me this opportunity to be of service to each of you.

I wish to give a very short talk on my most favourite subject, spirituality. Spirituality is at once a simple and a complicated word, a simple and, at the same time, complicated concept. Each individual has a special approach to spirituality. Whatever I know with regard to spirituality, in a few words I wish to offer to the aspiring hearts in you.

Spirituality is truth-awareness. Spirituality is life-emancipation. Spirituality is oneness-manifestation. Spirituality is perfection-satisfaction.

There are two types of spirituality. One is false, totally false. The other is true, absolutely true. False spirituality tells us that we have to negate and reject life in order to reach Heaven or in order to achieve Peace, Light and Bliss in our human life. False spirituality tells us that we have to renounce everything if we really want Joy, Peace and Bliss in life and from life. True spirituality tells us that we must not reject anything, we must not negate anything, we must not renounce anything. True spirituality tells us that we have to accept everything. We have to accept the world as such and then we have to transform our inner world and our outer world for God-realisation, God-revelation and God-manifestation. It is only in God-realisation, God-revelation and God-manifestation that we can have boundless Peace, boundless Light, boundless Delight.

False spirituality is the dance of teeming desires. Desire is something that binds us to our possessions. There comes a time when we realise that although we are the possessor, we are actually slaves to our possessions. True spirituality is the song of aspiration. Aspiration liberates us from our binding and blinding possessions — material possessions, earthly possessions, possessions that do not help elevate our consciousness to our life's true inner and outer goals. 

False spirituality is desire. The acme of desire is this: "I came, I saw and I conquered. I came into the world, I saw the world and I have conquered the world. Now I am in a position to lord it over the world." The strangling vital, the demanding vital, the authoritarian vital wants this world for its enjoyment. But aspiration tells us something quite different. The teachings of aspiration are soulful, meaningful and fruitful. Aspiration tells us that each individual has come into the world to see, to love and to become inseparably one, to become fully aware of his universal existence. Mere individual existence is of no avail. One has to have a free access to the universal life within him.

Desire-life is the life of success; aspiration-life is the life of progress. The life of desire constantly demands, whereas the life of aspiration soulfully expects. The life of desire demands constantly from the world around us. The life of aspiration expects everything from the world within.

Success is short-lived satisfaction. Most of the time this short-lived satisfaction is followed by bitter dissatisfaction. In dissatisfaction what actually looms large is frustration; and frustration is the harbinger of total destruction. Progress is our continuous, illumining and increasing satisfaction within and without. Those who follow the spiritual life know and feel the supreme necessity of progress each day, each hour, each minute, each second. A seeker has to feel that he is making progress. He is running fast, very fast, towards his destined Goal. He is climbing high, speedily, towards his transcendental Goal. He is diving deep within extremely fast to reach the Absolute Lord in the inmost recesses of his heart.

In order to make progress each seeker has to have two satisfactory friends. These friends are always reliable, most reliable. Prayer and meditation are two most intimate friends of a seeker of the Absolute Truth. When the seeker prays to the Almighty Lord, he feels his Lord's presence high up in the skies above his head. He feels his Lord's existence above, far above, his mental vision — let us say in Heaven. In Heaven is his Lord Supreme. But when he meditates, he feels that his Lord Supreme is nowhere else except in his heart — in his loving, aspiring heart. His prayer tells him that his God is above. His meditation tells him that his God is within. When he reaches his Beloved on the highest plane of consciousness on the strength of his prayer, he enjoys the sweetest intimacy. He claims his Lord as his eternal Friend, his beginningless and endless Friend. And when he reaches his Friend inside the very depth of his heart, he enjoys boundless ecstasy and delight in his Beloved Supreme.

Spirituality is the simplification of life. Spirituality is the glorification of life. When we are in the ordinary human life, there are countless problems. Every day we encounter these countless problems, and we find that there is no way to solve these problems or to simplify our complicated human life. But spirituality is our saviour. It comes to solve our problems, to simplify our complicated life; and again, it glorifies the divine in us. The divine in us is that very thing that wants to expand, illumine and fulfil the Immortal in us.

How do we simplify our life? Is there any specific way to simplify our complicated life? Yes, there is a way which enables us to simplify our most complicated life; and that is our concentration, our power of concentration. When we concentrate on our problems we come to notice that our power of concentration has actually come from a Source which is infinitely more powerful than all our problems put together. And this Source shows us how to simplify our problems. If we can concentrate on our problems even for five fleeting minutes, I wish to tell you from my own experience that this complicated world of ours will not remain complicated.

Once our complicated life is over, once our life of confusion and complication is over, we expect satisfaction from our lives. We naturally expect a life of peace and harmony. This world of ours has everything except one thing: peace of mind. If we have peace of mind, we do not need anything more from this world, from any individual or from ourselves. Now, how do we get peace of mind? The answer is the same: through spirituality, through meditation.

Spirituality has a most powerful hero-soldier. The name of that hero-soldier is meditation. If we know how to meditate for five minutes early in the morning before the day dawns, before the hustle and bustle of life begins, then we enter into a world of serenity, clarity, purity and finally peace — a world which is flooded with peace. Each individual seeker has the potentiality, the capacity to meditate soulfully. Some may not know how to meditate immediately. It may take a few days or a few weeks or a few months. But no individual will forever remain unknowledgeable in the art of meditation. The art of meditation is something inherent in each individual.

So, meditation is the way to acquire peace of mind. Once we have established peace of mind, then in our day-to-day multifarious activities we shall enjoy boundless satisfaction. And in this satisfaction we shall notice progress — gradual, continuous, illumining and fulfilling progress. When we walk along the road of Eternity, what we need is progress. And inside our progress is God the ever-transcending Reality, which is the birthright of each individual seeker here and everywhere.

Published in Reality-Dream

Hope

by Sri Chinmoy

Published in Aurora-Flora