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The Master’s Indifference

a story by Sri Chinmoy

“Master, Master, today I have discovered something unique.”

“What is your discovery, my child?”

“Master, I have discovered that when you are indifferent to me, when you withdraw a little from me, I make better progress. Others say that I am your most favourite disciple. At times I agree with their feeling; at times when I cherish the thought that I am your most favourite disciple, I am bloated with pride. Yet other times I feel that I am only one of your favourite disciples. Again, there have been occasions when I felt that I am not even one of your favourite disciples, but just an ordinary disciple. Anyway, Master, I wish to tell you one thing which you already know — that your disciples are all undivine.”

The Master said with a smile, “Including yourself, I believe.”

The disciple said, “Of course. I have been exploiting your compassion and love. So, Master, I want you to withdraw from me from time to time so that I can make good progress. I feel this is the only way for me to make rapid progress.”

The Master replied, “You fool! Why do you want to realise God in a negative way, in a way which will take you such a long time? Always try to adopt the positive approach. Accept the right path, walk along the right path.

“You are a seeker. That means you are hungry. You need Peace, Light and Bliss. In your ordinary life, suppose you need three pieces of bread to satisfy your hunger. Now if you get only two pieces of bread, what will happen? You will feel weak, and you will not be able to function well. In the spiritual life, you have to feel that the amount of love, joy and compassion that I give you is necessary for your inner growth. If I give you less than this amount of love, joy and compassion, then you are bound to feel weak.”

“But Master, in my case — and I have also observed in others’ cases — when you give us joy, love, blessings and concern in abundant measure, we exploit you. We feel that you need us; our vital feels that you run after us because you need us. But when you give us less than we normally get, that is to say, when you withdraw, or become serious, or get angry or displeased with us for any particular reason, we are scared to death. We feel that our whole world will be shattered. So we try to behave well and please you in every possible way; we try to become unconditional disciples of yours. At that time we feel that it is we who need you, and not vice versa. So, Master, this is why I want you to withdraw from me from time to time.”

The Master said, “You fool, why do you have to cherish the idea that it is only you who need me and that I do not need you? If you cherish the idea that only you need me, the human in you may one day revolt. Your vital pride may come to the fore and say, ‘Why do I have to be a beggar to him? Why is it that I don’t have anything to offer him which he needs desperately?’

“In this world, we should play the game of mutual acceptance, mutual self-giving. Now, if you feel that I do not need you, but you need me, then there will come a time when you will feel that it is a hopeless case. You will say, ‘I need him, true, but he may not give me what I actually want, or he may not give me everything to the fullest extent. If I want to have abundant Light, he may not give it to me, precisely because he does not need anything from me in return.’ But if you feel that the Master also needs something from you, then you have some confidence in yourself. But you have to know what the Master needs from you. The Master does not need millions of dollars from you. He needs an iota of sincere love, an iota of sincere devotion, an iota of sincere surrender from you. If you can give him these things, you can rest assured that they will form the foundation of his divine Transcendental Building on earth.

“I do not want to punish you. The right way to bring a disciple closer to Truth and Reality is not through punishment, but through love, by making the disciple feel that he and the Master need each other. If you receive my Love-light and gradually, gradually enlarge your heart-vessel so that I can pour in more Love, more Light, more Bliss, then you will be able to manifest the divine Truth, Light and Bliss on earth.

“Withdrawal is not the answer; the answer is to increase your capacity. You take three pieces of bread to strengthen yourself and keep your body fit. Then, when you become strong and develop greater hunger, you take four or five pieces — not out of greed, but out of necessity — so that you will gain more energy, more strength, a stronger life-force to work and accomplish things here on earth. In the spiritual life also, when you have developed inner hunger and enlarged your heart’s receptivity-vessel, I shall pour into you Peace, Light and Bliss from Above in abundant measure. And the more you receive, the more you will be able to manifest the divine Truth, the Light of the Supreme on earth.

“So, my child, do not instigate me to do something wrong. I cannot and will not withdraw from you, but I expect you to do the needful, the right thing, at every moment. Do not exploit my boundless love, concern and compassion for you. Each time I show you special attention in the form of concern, love and blessings, you have to feel that what you are getting has to be manifested in and through your life, through your loving service and dedicated oneness with me and with all human beings on earth.

“Again I tell you, withdrawal is not the answer. The answer is for you to increase your receptivity; the answer is for you to cry consciously and constantly for the embodiment of infinite Light and Truth and for its revelation and manifestation here on earth.”

Published in The Ambition-Deer

Surrender

A talk by Sri Chinmoy
at the University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware

Why do I surrender? I surrender because I want to prove to myself, and to nobody else, that I am a great truth-seeker, a mighty light-discoverer and a perfect God-lover.

What do I surrender? I surrender my unconscious body, my ferocious vital, my doubting mind and my fearful heart.

To whom do I surrender all this? I surrender all this to my Beloved Supreme, to Him alone, whom I claim to be my only sweet Dream and my only pure Reality.

No pretense, no pretense! I do not want to pretend that I have made my surrender complete and perfect. No, my entire being I still have not surrendered to the dictates of my Beloved Supreme. My complete surrender, my unconditional surrender, is still a far cry. Yet I do feel that there shall come a time when my entire being will be His, only His. Then only will my surrender be complete, and will I be His Vision-Reality. For complete surrender what I need is intense aspiration, the constantly mounting flame that climbs up to reach not only the unknown but also the Unknowable.

Lo, I have made my surrender to my Lord Supreme complete. Now, what have I learned from my complete surrender? Previously I thought that God is all Power, but now I clearly see that His Power is nothing other than His Love. I see that I have surrendered not to God the Power but to God the Love, to God who is all Love.

This is not my mind’s hallucination but my heart’s illumination.

Before, I thought that I had many enemies. I did not want to surrender to anybody for I thought that the entire world was my enemy. But now I clearly see that all along I had only one enemy, and that enemy was myself. Now that I have surrendered my very existence to my Lord Supreme, I have no enemies — not even myself. I have only oneness-friends inside the Heart of my universal Oneness-Friend: my Source, my Beloved Supreme.

Before my life of surrender, I wanted world-attention in order to please myself. Now I wish only for my Lord’s constant examination so that I can perfect myself in every way. My new life of surrender will make the world feel that unconditional surrender to the Lord Supreme is not an impossible task. No, it is a task that every human being will eventually have to perform so that perfection will become his outer name and satisfaction will become his inner name.

Now that I have surrendered, I am enjoying vastness in infinite measure. Surrender is my oneness with Eternity’s Peace, Infinity’s Bliss and Immortality’s Love.

Published in Truth’s Fountain-Melody

How Far Am I From Realisation?

by Sri Chinmoy

Published in Captain, My Captain

Sri Chinmoy Answers

questions at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York

Question: You once said that there is a new consciousness growing in Austria. What is it?

Sri Chinmoy: Long live the Austrian consciousness! In the Austrian consciousness I am seeing both dynamism and eagerness. Some people are dynamic, but they have no eagerness. Still others are eager, but they have no dynamism. But the Austrian consciousness has both. I am very, very pleased with Austria.

Question: Is there any special significance to the town one is born in?

Sri Chinmoy: Definitely your soul selected that particular town. There are countless towns on earth. Why did your soul choose that particular town? So here the choice itself is something significant.

Question: There is a saying that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Is that true in the spiritual life?

Sri Chinmoy: Spirituality is not a matter of pulling and pushing. Those who pull and push are eventually pushed aside and pulled behind. Pushing and pulling is not spirituality. Spirituality is surrender to God’s Will, patience, tolerance, acceptance of the situation for its transformation.

Acceptance of the situation does not mean that you are surrendering to the situation. But you have to accept something in order to transform it. If you do not accept it, how are you going to transform it? If you see some obstruction on the street, some dry wood for example, if you do not pick it up, how are you going to keep the street clean? Spirituality is like that. You accept something, then you transform it.

If somebody tries to come near me by pushing others aside or by pulling them out, then that person can never be close to me. In spirituality there is no pushing, no pulling, but only cheerful acceptance, a cheerful feeling all the time.

Whether you have come late to the meeting and you have to sit at the back, or you come before anyone else and you can sit at the front, be cheerful. Cheerfulness if you have, no matter where you are — right in the front row or at the back — that is how you will receive the utmost.

You have to know that the Master hides. He can be looking at one person, but his heart will be looking at someone else, his heart will be working inside someone else. So try to have that cheerful consciousness no matter where you are; my eyes can be looking at another person, but my heart will be working inside your heart.

Question: If we are aspiring to do something like swim the English Channel or run 1,000 miles, how can we know if it is your will or just a desire on our part?

Sri Chinmoy: You can easily ask me, “Shall I do it?” Then if I see that you have the capacity, I will say, “Do it.” If I do not see the capacity, I will ask someone else to try. I am very proud of one German girl who has swum the English Channel and, again, six German girls have swum it in a relay. So one has done it all by herself and six have done it together. How can you know if you should try? Just ask me. And if you get permission, then you can try. And if you fail, do not give up. But first you have to know whether you have the capacity.

Question: I have a hard time finding joy in running. Do you think if I play tennis it will help my running?

Sri Chinmoy: Tennis will never help your running, far from it. But running will help your tennis, especially if it is sprinting. Stretching exercises and speed work definitely will help your tennis. That is what Arthur Ashe does. Again, if you want to play five sets, if you want to become a world champion tennis player, then you need stamina. For that you have to practise long-distance running.

Tennis is not going to help your running speed, that is absurd. But if running does not give you joy and tennis gives you joy, then you can play tennis for joy.

Question: How can I get more joy in running so that I can continue running?

Sri Chinmoy: If you do not get enough joy from running itself, then you have to do something with your running to get joy. Try to bring in some variety. Seven days a week you run, so you can vary your schedule. Do not run each day at the same speed or for the same distance. One day you can run one mile, the second day two miles, the third day seven miles, then again one mile. Every day change the distance and change the speed. If you run at seven minutes per mile, then one day go deliberately at a nine-minute pace. The next day do something different: 100 metres walk, 100 metres run, 100 metres walk, 200 metres run. In that way, you will develop a different kind of joy and confidence.

That is what I do. In one mile, if you can have all kinds of variation, then you may get joy. I find that it gives me joy. Otherwise, if I have to run one full mile, sometimes it is so boring.

Another day you can run according to your mood. Just let your mind or your heart decide. Sometimes you will run for 20 metres and walk for 200 metres, then again you will run for 800 metres. Allow yourself to be carried by your inspiration. Do not have a fixed distance in mind. You just surrender to your mind’s whims. Then afterwards you will get so much joy when you see that you have covered so much distance.

There are so many ways to get joy from running, but if you are badly injured, like me, then there is no way to get joy from running. At that time, just enter into a different field.

Published in Sri Chinmoy Answers, part 35