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The Frustrated Lifter

A story told by Sri Chinmoy
in Chile

Ernie Franz, the man who certified my 2,000-pound lift, is so frustrated with his own lifting. He keeps the book of my lifts next to his bed for inspiration. He has such faith in my lifting. Then when he tries to lift up heavy weights, he has problems and becomes frustrated. That is how people give up. I should have said in my book that I failed 213 times before I lifted my 300 pounds.

Published in My Weightlifting Tears and Smiles, part 3

No Tea During Ramadan

A story told by Sri Chinmoy
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Today, here in Kuala Lumpur, I had a long meeting with the King of Malaysia. He was formerly the Sultan whom I met with nine or ten years ago. This time also he was extremely, extremely kind to me. He was asking me what kind of rituals we have. I told him that ours is the way of prayers and meditations. Then I deeply appreciated and admired him for observing Ramadan.

During this holy month, followers of the Muslim religion bring down Allah’s Grace. During the whole year they pray to Allah, but specially this month, Allah’s boundless Bounty, Compassion and Love He gives to His children.

Here the outer starvation and the inner feast go together. Outwardly Muslims fast, but inwardly Allah blesses them with His boundless Affection, Joy and pride. This is the inner feast.

I told the King that I am a Hindu, but I have the deepest appreciation for Ramadan and I have the deepest admiration for all those who make this solemn sacrifice for Allah with their love, adoration and devotion.

His Majesty was very moved. Then he told me that he was extremely sorry that he could not entertain us, even with a cup of tea, during this fasting month.

I said to him, “Your blessings are the most important most delicious and most significant feast for us.”

Then he was very, very happy.

***

A non-seeker drinks coffee
To keep awake,
A seeker drinks consciousness-light
To keep awake.

Published in My Book of Tea and Coffee Experiences

Thomas Jefferson

by Sri Chinmoy
in Kuantan, Malaysia

Question: Why is Thomas Jefferson not fully appreciated?

Sri Chinmoy: Who has been fully appreciated? Has anybody on earth been fully appreciated? Was the Saviour Jesus Christ fully appreciated? Will anybody who has the high, higher, highest vision be fully appreciated? God knows how many years it will take. Those individuals will be appreciated only long after the unimportant ones are appreciated.

The higher you go, the more you will be misunderstood. Appreciation comes from God, in the form of His Blessings.

Published in God-Made, God-Moulded, God-Shaped

Computers, e-mail and Spirituality

A talk by Sri Chinmoy
to his students in Guatemala City, Guatemala

Dear ones, please take me seriously when I request you not to indulge in e-mail for spiritual activities. If you want to be good disciples, then you must not use e-mail for your spiritual life. If you think you are manifesting the divine light in a faster than the fastest way with e-mail, then I wish to tell you that you are not manifesting the light, but you are only going away faster than the fastest from me, from my divine consciousness, from my divinity. In every possible way human beings try to remain in the world of indulgence and comfort. They try to discover instant God-realisation, the way instant coffee is available. Perhaps there are spiritual Masters who can give instant God-realisation. Unfortunately, I am not one of those. My approach is the sincere heart’s inner cry.

If you want to use e-mail for the purpose of your business, your work, I have nothing to say. But please remember, I have told you many, many times that using the computer for your livelihood is enough. For the purpose of your livelihood, I will immediately say that many things are necessary. Beyond necessity please do not go.

If you work with computers and you want to become a multi-millionaire, then you can become a multi-millionaire in your outer life. But more than is necessary for your livelihood if you enter into the computer-world, then you are going away farther than the farthest from your divinity. For your business, you may do anything you like. Definitely it is all right. But for spiritual purposes, please do not use e-mail. It is like trying to supply instant God-realisation. This so-called God-realisation should not be spread to others.

Again I am telling you, whether you believe it or not, that if you are indulging in computers more than is necessary for your livelihood, then you have to feel that you are nowhere in the spiritual life. At the end of your journey’s close you will believe it. Necessity knows no law, but beyond necessity if you are entering into the computer-world, you are only trying to create instant God-realisation in your spiritual life. God-realisation is not another type of instant coffee. If you want to make progress, bring to the fore your heart’s inmost cries. Shed bitter tears for God. Do not turn the spiritual life into a comfortable life. The spiritual life is not for luxury.

There was a time, for years and years, when I was strongly opposed to television. I saw that people were watching television in the name of world information. Information is not illumination. Now I show comedy at my house to provide relaxation for some disciples who work very hard. To protect them from undivine activities, I invite them to watch innocent comedy. It is only to protect a few people who devotedly serve our spiritual family. But for years and years I was against television. Recently I read that some parents had hoped that their children would become wise by watching television. Now the same parents feel miserable that their children have badly descended by watching television. This is the point of view of many parents.

If you want to make your life faster than the fastest, do it — but not when your spirituality is involved. If you are prepared to be a useless seeker, then you can enjoy your computer genius and do whatever you want. But do not mix real spirituality with the computer-brain. The more you unnecessarily develop your computer-brain-power, the sooner you will become bankrupt in your heart-life, your spiritual life. If you want to follow the spiritual life, if you want God, then use your heart, not your brain. Brain-power will never, never allow you to approach God’s Heart. Only your heart-power will allow you to enter into His Heart. Your heart-magnet and God’s Heart-Magnet will work together.

Faster than the fastest you may want to go in the spiritual life, but do not bring a machine into the picture. If a machine could have given a human being the capacity to run faster than the fastest, God would have placed the machine above the human being. In the process of evolution we advance from the stone life to the plant life to the animal life to the human life. If computers were more developed than human beings, then God would have put them above human life. Will computers realise God long before man? No! We have to feel that man is still the highest on the ladder of evolution. If human beings adopt something which they think is higher than man’s heart, then I am the wrong person to appreciate it.

If you want to follow our path, please stay on the strength of your heart’s cries, not the brilliance of your brain. Otherwise, at the end of your life you will say, “What have I done?” At that time I will say, “What did you do? Ask yourself.”

Again, it is a question of necessity. Do not go beyond necessity. Speed is needed, but if I have the capacity to run a mile in ten minutes and all of a sudden I start to run at a five-minute pace, then I will collapse and die. Go forward with inner speed, according to your capacity, according to your adaptability. Ask yourself how far you can go, how deep you want to dive into the spiritual life. Ask yourself! There are millions of people on earth who have not accepted the spiritual life, so you can once again join them if you wish. You can say that your spiritual life was an adventure. You studied at this spirituality-school for five years or ten years or fifteen years or twenty years, and now the adventure is all over. Please make the choice. Do not mix your brain’s efficiency with your heart’s cries.

Unfortunately, the stronger you are unnecessarily making your computer-brain, the weaker you are making your heart. The faster you want to go scientifically, the slower will be your spiritual progress. If God is our goal, then the heart is the way to go to God. If something else is our goal, then definitely science and computers will take us there. But that destination will never be God. No! Science and computers are also part of God, but the thing that will take us to God is the heart’s cry and nothing else. Please choose your speed. If you choose the speed that you cannot control, your spirituality will be at stake at every moment.

Again, for your business, for your work, you can do anything that you like. But when it is a matter of spirituality, if you cannot live without the computer, then I can say that your spirituality can live without you. True spirituality can live without you if you cannot live without your computer and your e-mail. Spirituality is a subject of the heart, of the soul. If you want to study this subject in your own way, you are at perfect liberty to do so. But as long as you keep me as your teacher, then my way kindly follow.

Published in Only Gratitude-Tears

Self-Assertion says, “I Know, I Know, I Know.”

A talk by Sri Chinmoy
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I have just come back from India. For three or four days while I was there, I could not lift. There was no weightlifting machine where I was staying, and the Indian heat made me feel very, very weak. So yesterday, here in the hotel, I started lifting weights once again. I should not have lifted heavy weights after so much travelling, but the problem is that I do not have any lighter weights. I have only my standing double-arm lift with 200 pounds on each side. Still, I started trying to lift it. One part of me was telling me how stupid I was for trying 400 pounds after not lifting for four or five days.

Then I came to Sumadhur and Bishwas’ machine. There I was so happy because I can adjust the weight. I can start from 30 pounds on each side if I wish, so I do not have to worry. I started with 30 pounds, and the cautious man in me said, “Do not go over 70 pounds. You will get hurt.” But when I was able to lift 70 pounds, I experienced tremendous joy, so I continued up to 80 pounds, and then 90 pounds. After 90 pounds, something within me said, “Now stop, for God’s sake. You have not done lifting for so many days. You may get hurt if you go on.” So there I surrendered.

Today when I started weightlifting, again the same wisdom was coming — something within me was saying, “Only on the third day should you start lifting heavy weights.” Again, my greed or determination or whatever you call it came forward. The divine in me calls it determination; the human in me calls it greed. So I began using the seated double-arm machine with heavier and heavier weights. When I thought of lifting 100 pounds with each arm at the same time, the human in me said, “Do not try, do not try. It is too high.” But something within me made me try, and it was quite easy.

Then the human in me said, “I should stop, for God’s sake.” But fortunately or unfortunately, another part of me was saying, “Let me try to equal the heaviest weight that I have lifted so far: 110 pounds with each arm.” When I tried, I was successful. I was so happy and so satisfied. After that I lifted 120 pounds and 130 pounds with each arm separately.

At every moment self-doubt will come and try to take away our inspiration, but once we do something, we are very happy. Something in us will always be stronger, either our determination or our so-called wisdom. But quite often our ‘wisdom’ is nothing but self-doubt. Wisdom is very good, but if there is determination in addition to wisdom, determination can increase the light of wisdom. Many times wisdom is seeing something in one way, but determination is seeing the same thing in a completely different way. Wisdom is urging us to exercise caution, but determination is seeing that we can go one step forward or one step higher. Again, if we quite often ignore the voice of wisdom, we may meet with an accident.

Here what we are seeing is the so-called wisdom or the so-called freedom of the mind. The mind tells us, “Do not do it. You cannot do it. You will get hurt.” When we give freedom to the mind, we cannot go very far. The mind tries to show us how much wisdom it has. In my case, all the time it says, “Be cautious, be cautious. One hundred pounds will break your arm.” But inside the heart there is tremendous love or oneness with the metal. When I look at the heavy weights with my heart, there is no fear. A child has a feeling of oneness with his father. Even if his father is very tall and stout, he will not be afraid of him. Similarly, when I look at the weights with my heart, I am not frightened at all, no matter how heavy they are. But when I look at them with my mind’s eye, I am filled with fear. I have no idea how I am going to lift them.

Now I am coming to the point: do not give freedom to the mind. We think that by giving the mind freedom, it can take us very far. True, on the strength of imagination, the mind can take us to the Himalayas in the twinkling of an eye or the mind can give us the capacity to cover the distance of a marathon in two hours. Again the same mind can say, “No! You will take ten hours.” When we give freedom to the mind, either it will create self-doubt or mental hallucination. Mental hallucination is the exaggeration of one’s capacity. When I want to walk seven miles, the mind says, “Oh, you will easily be able to do it.” Again, the next moment, the same mind will say, “You cannot even walk 800 metres. You do not have the capacity.” First the mind exaggerates our capacity, and because it exaggerates our capacity, we make so many mistakes in life. But most of the time when we allow the mind to be our judge, it only minimises our capacity.

As soon as we make the mind our boss, either it will take away our capacity or it will try to convince us that we are useless and worthless. Early in the morning at five o’clock you are supposed to get up, let us say, and even at six o’clock you are not getting up. Again and again you set the alarm. The mind says, “It is too early. Nobody is up. There is nothing wrong. Yesterday you worked so hard. You deserve another hour of rest.” Then when it becomes eleven o’clock, you eventually get up and the same mind says, “You are so useless! Look, everybody is already up. What were you doing?” This stupid mind was telling you all the time, “You deserve rest because yesterday you worked so hard. In every way, you deserve rest.” Then, when it is an absolutely useless time, the mind is blaming you and telling you, “How useless you are! Everybody else is up. Everybody has already prayed and meditated.”

The mind can take you to a place where you can become totally lost. Again, the same mind can push you down. It can take you very far to a wrong place where you will make all kinds of mistakes without realising it. Then, in another way, the mind may convince you that you are not doing anything wrong. At five o’clock if you do not get up, the mind will say, “Nothing is wrong.” At six o’clock it will give the same message, “Nothing is wrong.” Then when you get up at twelve o’clock, the mind says, “You fool! You have done everything wrong!”

The mind will tell you for days and months and years that you are not doing anything wrong. Then after a few years, the same mind will blame you and say, “Who asked you to listen to me?” The mind convinces you all the time that you are right, and then it blames you for listening to it.

The mind is nothing but self-assertion. Today I offered a prayer on self-assertion:

My Supreme, my Supreme, my Supreme!
My self-assertion,
You are embarrassing me.
You are weakening my heart.
You are destroying my life.
You are taking me away
Farther than the farthest
From my own divinity.
You are taking me away
Far beyond my own imagination
From my All,
My Lord Beloved Supreme.
My Supreme, my Supreme, my Supreme!

This self-assertion has come from the mind. We have become implicitly one with the mind. That is why our mind-teacher has taught us self-assertion. Our other teacher, the heart, relies on a higher light, a higher force.

I offered another prayer this morning:

My Supreme, my Supreme, my Supreme!
My only happiness
Is in the fulfilment
Of Your express Commands.
My Supreme, my Supreme, my Supreme!

I am seeing that when the Supreme requests us to do something, we do not value His Request. But when the Supreme commands us, either we value His Command or we discard it. When He makes requests inwardly via our soul or our heart, most of the time we do not listen. But when He commands us, at that time also, either we obey Him immediately or we revolt. We feel that we do not have to listen to Him. Then after six months or ten years or in the evening of our life, the penalty comes.

Always God tries first with His Request. Then, if He meets with failure, He commands those to whom He gives another chance. If some disciples or seekers do not listen to the request of the inner voice or the Master or the Supreme, at that time the Supreme may say, “It is a hopeless case,” and withdraw. He may not give any more chances. But in some cases, He still has hope. Then He gives a special chance to some people by giving a Command. If His Command also does not work, then it is a hopeless case.

To come back to the point, if we give freedom to our mind, it can lead us into the world of fantasy. We are walking in a dreamland. Eventually we come to realise that it was not a dream even; it was a nightmare. So do not use the mind. Use the heart. Everyone has a heart, and I request you all to use the heart. Then you will see how good you are, how divine you are, how strong you are, how powerful you are, how ready, how willing, how eager you are to manifest the Light of the Supreme.

Self-assertion says, “I know, I know, I know.” When you are in a divine consciousness, self-assertion is nothing but embarrassment. There will be no enlightenment, only embarrassment. And what does this self-assertion do? Gradually, gradually it takes away all our divinity. It takes us away from our Inner Pilot. It takes us away from our All, our Eternity’s All.

Published in Sri Chinmoy Answers, part 31

Mantras are Not the Sole Monopoly of Sanskrit

A talk by Sri Chinmoy
in Christchurch, New Zealand

There was a time when my ignorance-ocean thought that mantras could be written only in Sanskrit. Ignorance vast was my name. Then, when I read and studied Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri, wisdom dawned on me. I came to realise that mantras can be created in English as well. My wisdom increased when I read the lines of some well-known English poets. To my great surprise and joy, English poets have definitely created mantras. About other languages, forgive me, I do not speak those languages, so I have no right to say. I am sure that other languages also have offered mantras.

Now I know that mantras are not the sole monopoly of Sanskrit or the sole monopoly of English. They can be the most divine wealth of each and every language.

Our Lord Beloved Absolute Supreme, out of His infinite Bounty, has created thousands of soul-stirring, heart-elevating and life-awakening mantras, incantations, in English, in and through your Master.

Published in Sri Chinmoy Answers, part 31