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The Song of the Infinite

A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massetcutis.

 

The Vedas are the most ancient scriptures in the library of consciously evolving humanity. For our own conscious evolution we may be inspired to read the Vedas by Max Müller’s encouragement: “I maintain that for everybody who cares for himself, for his ancestors, for his history, for his intellectual development, a study of Vedic literature is indispensable.”

The Vedas embody intuitive visions, divine experiences and life-illumining Realities. From the ignorance-sea we have to enter into the Knowledge-Sea. The Rig Veda inspires us, saying, “The vessels of Truth carry men of good deeds across the ocean of ignorance.”

Present-day human life is nothing but an endless despondency. To come out of the trap of despondency is almost impossible. But the Yajur Veda offers us a solution: “He who sees all existences in the Self and the Self in all existences, falls not into the trap of blighting and weakening despondency.”

The Vedas are universal; hence, the West can claim them as well as the East. The great American philosopher Thoreau said something most significant about the Vedas: “What extracts from the Vedas I have read fall on me like the light of a higher and purer luminary which describes a loftier course through purer stratum, free from particulars, simple, universal. The Vedas contain a sensible account of God.” Undoubtedly they do.

The firm belief of Sir William Jones is challenging and at the same time illumining: “I can venture to affirm, without meaning to pluck a leaf from the never-fading laurels of our immortal Newton, that the whole of his theology, and part of his philosophy, may be found in the Vedas.”

The Vedic commandment for the human physical is shaucham. Shaucham means purity — purity in the body and purity of the body. Without the body’s purity nothing divine in us can expand; nothing divine in us can be permanent.

The Vedic commandment for the human vital is ahimsa. Ahimsa means non-violence — non-violence in the vital and non-violence of the vital. It is from non-violence that man gets his greatest opportunity to feel that he does not belong to a small family, but to the largest family of all: the universe. India’s philosophy of non-violence was first put into practice by the compassionate Lord Buddha and his followers. Gandhi’s non-violence was a most precious gift to the life-loving humanity of the present.

The Vedic commandment for the human mind is satyam. Satyam means truth or truthfulness. Truthfulness in the mind and truthfulness of the mind alone can lead us to a higher life, a life of illumining Divinity and fulfilling Immortality.

The Vedic commandment for the human heart is ishwarapranidhan. Ishwarapranidhan means the heart’s loving devotion to the Lord Supreme. When we have pure and spontaneous devotion for the Supreme Lord we feel our inseparable oneness with Him, with the Eternity of His Spirit, with the Infinity of His Body and with the Immortality of His Life.

In the Vedas the concept of sacrifice looms very large. We sacrifice to God what we have: ignorance. God sacrifices to us what He is: Perfection. God’s sacrifice is always unconditional. Our sacrifice at times is conditional and at times is unconditional. In conditional sacrifice we fight and win the battle. In unconditional sacrifice we do not have to fight at all, for the Victory is already won. Victory is our birthright; it is forever ours.

Sacrifice is self-offering. Self-offering is self-fulfilment. Self-fulfilment is Love-manifestation and Truth-perfection. Through our outer sacrifice we become a divine part of Mother Earth. Through our inner sacrifice we become an immortal part of Father Heaven. We make the outer sacrifice when we come out of the domain of binding desires and enter into the domain of liberating aspiration. We make the inner sacrifice when we try to manifest God in the world of ignorance after having achieved God-realisation. The outer sacrifice demands the strength of a hero. The inner sacrifice demands the power of an army. With our outer sacrifice we see the Truth. With our inner sacrifice we become the Truth.

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Published in The Vedas: Immortality's First Call

 

 

William Blake

A talk by Sri Chinmoy
in Room 550 of the United Nations, New York

 

William Blake, English poet. Imagination he had; vision he had. Needless to say, he had these two supernal qualities in abundant measure. To him, imagination was reality's all-illumining beauty and vision was beauty's all-fulfilling reality. To him, imagination was a true man and vision was a true and perfection-inspiring man.

Insane he was — so thought some of his contemporaries, even some of his own friends. But he was not insane. Unfortunately, his reality-worlds most people were not and are not wont to see. Most people have no access to these worlds. An inner cry is needed, a true love of the unknown is needed and a brave heart is needed to go beyond the fact-world, beyond the reality-world already seen and already acquired.

Blake's immortal poem The Tyger is humanity's invaluable treasure.

"Tyger, Tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"

Here we see that ignorance-energy, which threatens to devour the entire world, finally discovers its transformation-salvation in the realisation of the absolute One. This absolute One embodies both ignorance-energy and knowledge-energy and, at the same time, far transcends them both.

The soul's soulful originality was Blake's gift to mankind. Blake the art-painting-lover and the thought-progress-lover was the puissant and incessant flow of originality-creativity.

Blake's friend and disciple, Samuel Palmer, realised him and made it easy for the world to realise him. Blake was a man without a mask: his aim single, his path straightforward, his words few. So he was free, noble and happy. Something more: Blake was humanity's challenge to go beyond the achievements of the earthbound life and divinity's challenge to grow and glow in the ever-transcending Beyond's reality-existence.

Blake's life-boat sailed between the soul-essence-purity and the body-substance-impurity. Indeed, this experience each human life encounters. Then there comes a time when the unlit and undivine part in us cheerfully and devotedly surrenders to the lit and divine part in us. Here surrender means conscious awareness, inseparable oneness. In the realisation of its inseparable oneness with the divine, the undivine in us receives illumination, satisfaction and perfection.

In his lifetime Blake was obscure; recognition was a stranger to him. Now, a century after his departure from the world-scene, the world has discovered and recognised in him a world-lover who had the message of transformation — the transformation of hell-torture into Heaven-rapture and the transformation of the body's ignorance-sea into the soul's wisdom-sky.

Today is Blake's birthday. On November 28, over two hundred years ago, Blake was born; but his soul is still aspiring, still illumining the world and still trying to manifest the divinity that it embodies for earth-awakening, earth-illumination and earth-fulfilment. The poet has the vision of tomorrow, the artist has the vision of tomorrow; the scientist, the singer and the musician all have the vision of tomorrow. All the human beings who are awakened and who are more than ready to contribute something of their own, their very own, in the world at large are really blessed souls and the invaluable, immortal treasures of Mother Earth.

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Published in Reality-Dream

 

Twenty-Two Prayers

given by Sri Chinmoy in Singapore

 

55

My Lord tells me
That every eager effort
Of my heart
He deeply values.

56

An intense God-love
Means a desire-conquered life.

57

Alas,
The fleeting moments of my life
Are empty of God’s Light.

58

God’s Flute
Awakens my heart.
God’s Gong
Awakens my mind.
God’s Drum
Awakens my life..

59

I have millions of flowers
In my heart-garden,
But I love the silence-flower
Infinitely more than any other flower.

60

Detachment — not out of shock,
But out of wisdom-light —
Permanently lasts.

61

A God-unwillingness-mind
Is, indeed,
A real God-failure-life.

62

What I sleeplessly need
Is a Heaven-ascending heart.

63

My Lord,
Every day my love increases for You.
How is it that Your Love for me
Does not increase even once a year?
“My child,
I really do not know
How to answer your question.”

64

My Lord,
Please, please free me
With Your Compassion-Eye.

65

My Lord,
Please, please, please bind me
With Your Affection-Heart.

66

When I arrive
At my Lord’s Palace,
He immediately embraces me
Most fondly and most proudly.

67

When my Lord arrives
At my cottage,
I immediately place myself
At His Feet
And devour the dust of His Feet.

68

My heart’s gladness
And my life’s sadness
Both hear my Lord’s choice Voice.

69

Impossibility-accomplishments:
This is what my Lord
Every day expects from me.

70

Each time I prayerfully cry
Or soulfully smile,
My Lord invites me
To enter into
His Heaven-Heart-Garden.

71

The divine Grace
Comes down from Above
Not when I want it,
But only when I desperately need it.

72

Not God’s Eye,
But God’s Heart takes the timing
In all our Heavenward races.

73

A gratitude-God-lover
And a devoted God-seeker
Are God’s most favourite children.

74

God has a very big Desire:
His Desire is to see me happy
Twenty-four hours a day.

75

What is my mission?
My mission is the outer manifestation
Of my Lord’s inner Vision.

76

Heaven is nowhere else
Save and except
In my Lord’s Compassion-flooded Eye.

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Published in My Christmas-New Year-Vacation Aspiration-Prayers, part 22

 

Love, Devotion and Surrender

A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at the American International School, Zurich, Switzerland

 

Love is sweet, devotion is sweeter, surrender is sweetest.

Love is sweet. I have felt this truth in my mother's spontaneous love for me.

Devotion is sweeter. I have discovered this truth in my mother's pure devotion towards the perfection of my life

Surrender is the sweetest. I have realised this truth in my mother's constant surrender towards the fulfilment of my joy.

Again, love is mighty, devotion is mightier, surrender is the mightiest.

Love is mighty. This truth I feel when I look at my father's face.

Devotion is mightier. This truth I discover when I sit at the feet of my father

Surrender is the mightiest. This truth I realise when I live in the breath of my father's will.

Love, devotion and surrender. St. Augustine has blessed us with a profound message, "Love and then do what you like."

Our mind thinks that this is absolutely true. Our heart feels that this is undeniably true. But unfortunately, in our day to day life we are not able to practise it. That is to say, we do not know what love is. We do not know why we love something or someone. Finally, we do not know how to love.

What is love? From the spiritual and inner point of view, love is self-expansion. Human love binds and is bound. Divine Love expands, enlarges itself. Here we are dealing with the Divine Love.

Devotion is the intensity in love, and surrender is the fulfilment of love. Why do we love? We love because at every moment we are pinched with hunger to realise the highest, to feel the inmost, to be consciously one with the universe, with the universal truth, universal light, peace and bliss, and to be completely fulfilled.

How to love? If we love with a view of achieving something from others, then that love is no love. Love means constant self-offering on the strength of one's own inner aspiration.

This world of ours needs peace, joy, bliss, harmony, and understanding. We feel that here on earth there is no light, no truth, no divinity, nothing of the sort. All the divine qualities, all aspects of the Lord Supreme are in the skies, in the deep blue skies, not here. This is what we feel. Hence we always look up high for help. We feel that God is in Heaven, not on earth. God will come down into the world to our rescue. He is not to be found here on earth. Here we are wallowing in the pleasures of ignorance. There can be no light, no truth here.

But we must realise that, God being Omnipresent, He is here too. He is within us. He is without us. In the inmost recesses of our heart, we feel His living Presence.

As you all know, George Bernard Shaw has warned us, "Beware of the man whose God is in the skies." But our God is everywhere. He is not only in Heaven, He is here on earth. He is with us, He is within us, and He is for us. We do not have to enter into the highest regions of consciousness to see God. Our inner cry will bring to the fore our inner divinity, which is nothing other than God.

Surrender. Surrender is protection, and surrender is illumination. Surrender is our perfection. We begin our journey at the very commencement of our life. We surrender our existence to our parents and the result is protection. We listen to our parents. We surrender to their will, to their advice and suggestions, and we are protected, well protected. Joy boundless we felt in our day to day life when we were children. Why? Because we surrendered our personal will, our own inner thinking to our parents. Here immediately we received joy plus protection. In protection is joy and in joy is protection.

Now in the evening of our life, what happens? If we follow the inner life and the spiritual life, in the evening of our life we surrender. To whom? To the Inner Pilot, the Lord Supreme. At the end of our journey we surrender our very breath to the Supreme. Then we again get joy, perfect joy, unalloyed joy.

To quote Dante, "The happiest man is he who can connect the evening of his life with the beginning."

Now, if we are all sincere seekers of the ultimate Truth, then our journey begins with surrender to our parents, who are our well-wishers, who are our dearest and nearest ones. When we surrender to them our existence, we get joy in abundant measure. Then, when we walk along the path of spirituality, every moment we try to listen to the dictates of our inner being. The more we listen to the inner being, the greater is our joy, the higher is our fulfilment; and then, when our term is over, when we have to enter into another world for a short rest, if we consciously surrender to God's Will, ours will be the supreme joy, ours will be the glory supreme.

It is difficult to love mankind. It is difficult to devote oneself to mankind. It is difficult to surrender oneself to mankind. This is true. In the same way, it is difficult for us to love God, to serve God, to devote ourselves to God, and to surrender our living breath to God.

Now, why? The simple reason is: we want to possess and be possessed. Now, here we are constantly making ourselves victims of ignorance. That is to say, our desire can never be fulfilled. We have countless desires. God will fulfil only those desires that will be of some use, from which we will derive benefit. But if He fulfilled our countless desires, then He would be doing an injustice to our aspiring souls. That He will not do. He knows what is best for us and He has given us beyond our capacity, even beyond our necessity. But unfortunately we are unaware of this fact.

St. Francis, from his own experience, has offered a unique truth to the world at large, " He who thinks that God's Love is inadequate is very greedy." Really we are all greedy people. If we go deep within, we see, we feel, we realise that God has given us infinitely more than we need, needless to say, more than we deserve.

Love, devotion and surrender. These are the three rungs in the spiritual ladder, or should we say the ladder of our evolving consciousness. The first rung is love; the second, or you can say the penultimate, is devotion; and the ultimate is surrender.

A tiny drop enters into the ocean and becomes the mighty, the boundless ocean. Unfortunately in the West, surrender is misunderstood. We feel that if we surrender to someone, that means he will lord it over us. We will have no individuality and personality. From the ordinary point of view, the human point of view, this is true. From the spiritual point of view, it is absolutely wrong. When the finite enters into the Infinite, it becomes the Infinite all at once. When a tiny drop enters into the ocean, we cannot trace the drop. It becomes the mighty ocean.

Each moment we are given ample opportunity to love mankind, and if we really love mankind, then we have the feeling of devoted service to mankind. And then when we really want to enlarge our existence, expand our consciousness and be one, inseparably one with the vast, then surrender is the only answer.

Each moment we see right in front of us a barrier between one human being and another human being — an adamantine wall between two human beings. We cannot communicate properly, wholeheartedly, and soulfully. Why? Because we are wanting in love. Love is our inseparable oneness with the rest of the world, with God's entire creation. We can break asunder this adamantine wall that we feel between us on the strength of our soulful love.

India's greatest poet, Rabindranath Tagore, said, "He who loves finds the door open." So our heart's door is already open for those who really, truly, and soulfully love.

God loves us out of His Infinite Bounty, and His Heart's Door is always wide open. Just because He is all Love, we approach Him. He is our dearest, not because He is Omniscient and Omnipotent, but just because He is all Love.

Love, devotion and surrender.
To serve and never be tired is love.
To learn and never be filled is devotion.
To offer and never to end is surrender.

Love is man's reality
Devotion is man's divinity.
Surrender is man's immortality.

Reality is all-pervading.
Divinity is all-elevating, and
Immortality is all-fulfilling.

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Published in My Rose Petals, part 1 

 

I Thank You

A prayer-offering by Sri Chinmoy
during the Thanksgiving Concert
at The Society for Ethical Culture New York

 

Listen to Sri Chinmoy offering this prayer...

 

I thank You, O my Beloved Supreme, because You have given me the soulful receptivity to need You only.

I thank You, O my Beloved Supreme, because You have given me the fruitful capacity to love You only.

I thank you, O my wise soul, because you know who I eternally am. I am a God-lover. I am a God-server.

I thank you, O my aspiring heart, because you love me.

I thank you, O my searching mind, because you think of me.

I thank you, O my dynamic vital, because you struggle for me.

I thank you, O my conscious body, because you suffer for me.

I thank you, O Earth, because you have given me patience-light. Because of patience-light I still exist on Earth.

I thank you, O Heaven, because you have given me promise-delight. My promise-delight is to manifest God unconditionally.

I thank you, O India, because in you, India, I achieved the beauty of God-Realisation.

I thank you, O America, because in you, America, I am entrusted with the duty of God-Manifestation.

I thank you, O East, because I am one of your God-worshipping flowers.

I thank you, O West, because I am one of your man-nourishing fruits.

I thank you all, O my seeker-friends, because in me you see a simple instrument of God.

I thank you all, O my seeker-friends, because in you I see the living Presence of my Beloved Supreme.

I thank you, O my dear friends, because you inspire me to bring to the fore my good and divine qualities.

Finally, I thank myself, because I am all gratitude, within and without.

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Published in I Thank You

 

Poem 5,000

Sri Chinmoy reaches the halfway point of his poetry epic Ten Thousand Flower-Flames when he completes his 5,000th poem, in Jamaica, Queens, New York.

When I want to think God grants my mind A large room to think. When I want to pray God grants my heart A larger room to pray. When I want to surrender God grants my life The largest room to surrender.

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Published in Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 50