July 11

BANKERS TRUST COMPANY

280 PARK AVENUE, NEW YORK

July 11, 1975

Sri Chinmoy

Dear Sir:

Thank you for letting Bankers Trust Company host an exhibition of reproductions of your work at our office at the corner of Third Avenue and 52nd Street from May 22 to June 17, 1975.

The exhibition attracted considerable attention both from passers by on the street and from visitors inside the office.

May you have every success in your artistic endeavors.

Sincerely,

J. PHILLIP BURGESS
ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT

 

President of York College

visits Sri Chinmoy

 

Sri Chinmoy meets with Dr Josephine Davis, President of York College — a branch of the City University of New York, based in Queens — at Annam Brahma Restaurant in Jamaica, New York.

 

These are excerpts from their conversation:

 

Dr. Davis: We are trying very hard to foster the spirit of peace, community, respect and dignity at our College. I am feeling so encouraged because the people who are coming around me now are of like mind and of like spirit; we all have oneness of heart. It is interesting how we are all arriving at the same level, saying that we really need to illumine the darkness. And the only way we are going to do it is through prayer and meditation. I respect very much your work and what you are doing.

After going to Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Berlin and the camp in Dachau, Germany, where they persecuted the Jews, I really had to commit myself to a peaceful existence. When you see the brutalities and the horrors of those places, there is no way that you can foster ill feelings among men. I often try to talk to students about the experiences I had in those four settings because they were the most unnerving, I think, of any that I have had in my life.

Sri Chinmoy: I have not been to Dachau, but I have been many times to Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Berlin. Have you ever been to Kamakura, Japan? For me, it is one of the most peaceful places on earth. There are thousands of statues of Lord Buddha in existence, but the large statue at Kamakura embodies boundless peace. When you go there, no matter how restless you are, no matter how much your mind has been bothering you the whole day, no matter how involved you are in the hustle and bustle of life, as soon as you stand before the statue, all your inner turmoil is washed away. The statue embodies the most powerful peace you can ever imagine or feel.

Dr. Davis: At this stage in my life, I am feeling the need to do more meditation. For the last month now I have been doing mantras while meditating on the heart.

Sri Chinmoy: While you are meditating on your heart, if you do not mind my mentioning it, you could do a few more things. No matter what time of the day you are meditating, even if it is in the evening, imagine the rising sun for a few fleeting seconds. Imagine that the sun is rising and radiating light inside your heart. Or you can imagine a most beautiful and most pure flower opening up and blossoming petal by petal inside your heart.

As soon as you see either the rising sun or the flower, you will feel the light or the purity of your heart. Then, as you breathe in and breathe out, you will feel the light or purity inside your heart increase. The more light and purity you feel in your heart, the brighter will be the rising sun or the flower. Afterwards, try to feel that you have become the rising sun, or try to feel that the purity-flower inside your heart has fully blossomed and that you have become this most beautiful flower. Feel that your very existence, from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head, has become the flower itself, and the beauty, the purity, the fragrance of the flower are your own.

Then, from the rising sun or the most beautiful flower that you have become, light will radiate and purity will spread. When the light and purity spread, they enter into those around you.

Dr. Davis: Is it all right if I share with you what I have been using as a mantra? Does it matter if I tell you?

Sri Chinmoy: It matters if you tell me in front of others. The mantra that you use, others should not hear. It is all right if you tell it privately to a spiritual master like me, for I can be always in tune with you; but others cannot. In India they say that if you share your mantra with others, its inner strength goes away. The mantra that you repeat is like your life-breath. You are repeating it millions and billions of times. It is part and parcel of your divine reality. That most sacred possession of yours represents your very existence on earth; it is not to be shared. Only you and God and the person who has blessed you with the mantra should know it.

Dr. Davis: But if I took the mantra from a book, does that still apply?

Sri Chinmoy: It is the same thing. Even if you got it from a book, that mantra is sacred for you. You are taking it very seriously in your life, and that automatically makes it sacred. Anything that we are serious about eventually becomes sacred in our life. Seriousness and sacredness go together. There are many things that you have read which you have not memorised or recited over and over again. But this one mantra you have selected. It is giving you immense joy and a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment. So this mantra has to be kept very sacred inside your heart; otherwise, it loses its power.

As soon as you share it with someone else, no matter how friendly that person is, immediately jealousy and other negative forces can enter. If the person with whom you share it is undeserving, he or she will ruin it for you. It is like dealing with a monkey. Let us say you have got a most beautiful flower and you are enjoying its beauty and fragrance. If you show the flower to a monkey, the monkey will just tear off the petals, because that is its nature. Similarly, if you reveal your mantra to people who are not praying and meditating, people who are restless and full of self-doubt, they will destroy its sacredness for you. As soon as they touch it, its beauty, its purity and its divinity will go away.

Dr. Davis: I did not realise that. You would think it would be just the opposite, that by sharing you can grow.

Sri Chinmoy: There are a few things that you can share; again, there are a few things that you cannot share. If from within you have acquired a constant supply of God’s Love, God’s Affection, God’s Compassion and God’s Grace, if you have a free access to this divine wealth, then you can and should share it with your dear ones according to their necessity. You can offer them inwardly your purest love and joy. But you should not outwardly share with them the secret way you are getting these things. This has to be very secret and very sacred; it is not their business. What you are giving them, they need. But how you have become a multi-millionaire in the inner world, it is not necessary for them to know.

Again, you have to know how much receptivity someone has. A five-year-old child can handle only one dollar. If you give him fifty or a hundred dollars, he will not know how to use it and he may throw the money into the street. The spiritual standard of your students right now is very limited. If you share with them your unlimited wisdom-light, it will just burst like a balloon because right now they are not ready; they are not mature. To a kindergarten student you cannot give a university course. No, first he has to learn the alphabet, the ABC’s. Otherwise, you will not help him at all but just confuse him.

[In a later impression (print run), this paragraph was edited as follow: /Again, you have to know how much receptivity someone has. A five-year-old child can handle only one dollar. If you give him fifty or a hundred dollars, he will not know how to use it and he may throw the money into the street. The spiritual standard of your students right now may be very limited. If you share with them your unlimited wisdom-light right now they may not be ready; they may not be mature. To a kindergarten student you cannot give a university course. No, first he has to learn the alphabet, the ABC’s. Otherwise, you will not help him at all but just confuse him.”]

Dr. Davis: This is very interesting. The path to spirituality is a very complex one.

Sri Chinmoy: The path to spirituality is not complex. Only there are different roads. If you want to go to Rome from some place in Europe, you can go by car, you can go by boat, you can go by airplane. If you go by plane, it is faster than the fastest. But if you take a boat, God knows how many days it will take. And if you are stupid enough to just start walking, then the road will never end!

In the spiritual life there are two main roads to take us to our destination. One road is longer than the longest; it is zig-zag and serpentine. That is the road of the mind. The other road is the road of the heart. This road is shorter than the shortest. You can say it is a sunlit road.

If you choose the mind-road, you will be constantly haunted by self-doubt: “Am I doing the right thing?” Or you will bring into your system the doubts of others. You will ask yourself, “What are they thinking? Are they saying that I am on the right course?” But if you follow the heart, it is not like that at all. Here there is a magnetic pull between God and you. He is your dearest Father and you are His dearest child, so both of you are using your own special magnets to pull one another closer.”

Dr. Davis: So I am on the right track! It is good that I came to see you. I needed this confirmation. It is truly amazing. It is incredible. I started meditating on the heart because I feel that to protect myself, I must keep my heart pure. I like to radiate peace, love and joy, and I like my face to give off a smile and brilliance. In order for my face to show that, I must feel it inside. I am trying to keep my heart as an open vessel. There’s a trait of youthfulness in me. I try to feel youthful, alive and energetic inside, and I hope it radiates.

Sri Chinmoy: Every day if you think of yourself as a child of four or five years old, then a childlike simplicity, sincerity and purity will abound in your life.

Dr. Davis: That is how I think of myself. What you are saying to me is very timely.

Sri Chinmoy: Your childlike qualities will always inspire others. The very presence of a child gives inspiration. When a child comes into a room, he brings spontaneous joy. And his joy is contagious; it enters into the elderly people who may be quarrelling and fighting there.

Each child is a new dream of God, bringing love, sheer love. When God’s Dream enters into these elderly people who are quarrelling and fighting, they have to be silent. When a child is running here and there, he does not look at my face or your face to see how beautiful you are or how ugly I am. He just runs and shares his spontaneous joy with everybody. Your very presence radiates that kind of love. You do not have to look at somebody; you just have to be there and the love spreads.

Dr. Davis: That is beautiful. My husband and I enjoyed your concert when we were there. It was marvellous to see you play so many different instruments. I did not even know the names of some of the instruments.

Sri Chinmoy: If you are free this Wednesday evening, we will have a special meditation at P.S. 86. About 400 people come to meditate with me. Collectively we try to raise the consciousness of mankind on the strength of our silent meditation.

Dr. Davis: I will try very, very hard to come on Wednesday.

Sri Chinmoy: If you would like to meditate for three or four minutes personally with me on the stage, I would like to offer you my special way of meditation.

It is better not to eat for two hours before the meditation. You can drink a cup of tea or liquid substance, but if you take solid food, the heaviness you feel will create lethargy. We have to be dynamic when we meditate. Peace is nothing but inner dynamism. When we are at peace, twenty things we can accomplish in one second in the inner world. If we are not at peace, we are not able to accomplish even one thing in twenty hours.

Dr. Davis: I notice that everybody wears open and free-flowing clothing. Is that significant?

Sri Chinmoy: Clothing has tremendous significance. When a policeman wears his uniform, the consciousness of the uniform enters into him and he is able to do his job more effectively. If somebody wears a military uniform, then he gets a military spirit. When a basketball champion wears his uniform, immediately the basketball consciousness enters into him. Otherwise, he may be thinking of his family, his wife, this and that. But as soon as he puts on his uniform, he thinks of how to score and other things. When these girls put on saris, immediately they feel serenity. They feel that something within them is inspiring them to lead a spiritual life, a life of peace. If they wear Western garments, they may not be inspired in this way. So no matter what we are doing, if we have a uniform it will help us get into the consciousness of that thing.

Dr. Davis: It appears to me that when you start on the spiritual path, that is when the evil things come at you at a more intense pace.

Sri Chinmoy: When we enter into the spiritual life, sometimes it happens that the hostile forces attack us more vehemently. We enter into the spiritual life to become one with God’s Will. Then the forces attack us and say, “We will not allow you.” God tells us, “You now want to become consciously one with Me. Then prove that you need My Love only.” So we pray and meditate and God inundates us with His Compassion and His Grace to fight against these hostile forces.

The last time when you told us that you could not come to the meeting that we had scheduled, I had such a feeling for your soul. I saw in the inner world that your soul wanted to come. I said, “How is it that the mind is not listening to the heart and soul?”

Dr. Davis: You reached out at the time when I really needed to come. But it was like an avalanche of crises that I had to deal with. So today when my assistant came in and said, “Sri Chinmoy is inviting you, but I know you cannot go,” I said, “No, I will be there.” When he mentioned your name, I said that I would cancel everything.

When I started practising meditation, I used to go to religious book stores and pick up the books you had written. I knew your name when I was in Georgia and Minnesota. Without knowing you, I was reading your books. When I learnt that you live in New York, I was just amazed. I said, “Sri Chinmoy is in Jamaica, New York! I do not believe this!” I was thinking one would have to go to the Himalayas to see you.

This meeting tonight is spiritual food for me. Whenever we begin trying to do something with the spirit, we let the mind take over and we say, “Am I doing the right thing? Should I give up and go on?” A meeting like this says, “You are doing the right thing.” Now I have confirmation.

Dr. Davis: May I ask you a question about the role of candles and burning incense?

Sri Chinmoy: Each thing has a spiritual significance. Incense gives us purity, and the flame of the candle represents our intense inner cry. Like the flame of the candle, our aspiration or inner cry is going up high, higher, highest. Our inner flame is going up to reach the all-illumining inner sun and then it is entering into the sun and becoming one with it. So definitely you should use a candle when you meditate. When you look at the flame, feel that it is burning in the heart, not in the mind.

Dr. Davis: Does the colour matter?

Sri Chinmoy: Use any colour that you like. Again, in each soul one particular colour is predominant. In your case, sky blue will give you much more joy than another colour. My favourite colour is also blue. The significance of that colour is Infinity. Blue represents the most beautiful, spiritual vastness. Although your main colour is blue, you can wear any colour. Similarly, you can select any flower to place on your shrine. You may like a rose whereas I may prefer a lotus.

Dr. Davis: The lotus is my favourite! I use the lotus as the symbol of my life. I started to tell you earlier that when I think about my life, I say that I am rooted in the water.

Sri Chinmoy: My most favourite flower is the lotus.

Dr. Davis: I chose the lotus as a symbol of my life because I want to stay grounded in water with the fluid motion around me. It goes deep. I tell people that I chose it as a symbol of my life because I want to be grounded in my family and God.

Sri Chinmoy: Water means consciousness.

Dr. Davis: When I meditate in the morning, I go to the water.

Sri Chinmoy [offering some books]: For me there is only one religion: love of God. You can be Christian, I can be Hindu, but our love of God is the only religion.

Published in Sri Chinmoy Answers, part 4

 

July 11

Diary Entry

by Sri Chinmoy
while in residence at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India

11 July

"Nolini-da, I have received a letter from Dilip-da."

"From Dilip? To you?"

"Yes. Recently I wrote an article about his father, D.L. Roy. I asked him to correct my article. He did so and sent it back to me with a letter. He has written much about you."

"About me?"

"You may wish to see it."

Nolini-da read the letter and said: "Mad, mad! Dilip compares me with his most illustrious father. He is really mad. I am sure you have told him that I am writing an article on his father."

I said: "No, I have not told him that. He has heard it from some other source, it seems."

"Anyway, if you answer his letter, tell him that I shall try to write something about his father. But don't say that I am writing something. You know me well. I may not get the necessary time to complete it."

Published in A Service-Flame and a Service-Sun

 

Capacity

A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at St Thomas’ Church Hall, Vasteras, Sweden

 

Dear sisters and brothers, dear seekers of the highest Truth, I wish to give a short talk on capacity. Capacity is something that everybody is familiar with; it is not something new to any human being. God grants us capacity the moment we take human birth. In fact, the soul is inundated with capacity in the soul’s world before we ever take human birth. The soul then assumes a physical body and uses this capacity to reveal and manifest God here on earth.

A child that is one day old knows how to move his hands and legs and how to cry. These are some of his capacities. As the child grows up, his capacities increase. When he becomes a fully-fledged man, either he misuses his capacities or he uses them properly. If he properly uses his capacities, he eventually realises the highest Truth on earth. If he misuses his capacities, then here on earth he lives in the world of ignorance and death.

Since we are all seekers, we all have some capacity to love God, to serve God and to surrender ourselves to God’s Will. If we love God, then we are doing the first thing first; we are watering the roots of the tree. If we serve God, we come closer to God and God comes closer to us. If we surrender ourselves to God’s Will, then we feel that we are complete.

Yesterday we cried and cried for God’s Love. Today we are smiling and smiling with God’s Love. Tomorrow with our smile we shall bring down the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. When we bring down the Kingdom of Heaven to earth, our Beloved Supreme will enjoy His rest on earth and all human beings will at last find their all-nourishing, all-protecting nest.

We must try to serve God in every human being. This service of ours has to be unconditional. If it is conditional service we will never be happy. Whenever we serve God or love mankind we have to do it unconditionally. Then only can we be continuously happy.

Two thousand years ago the Saviour Christ taught us the supreme lesson: “Let Thy Will be done.” Millions, billions and trillions of prayers have been offered to God, but there can be no better, no greater, no more fulfilling prayer than this. If we love God we become happy. If we serve God we become happier. If we surrender our individual will to God’s Will we become happiest.

There is a special way to become happy. If we know how to follow the inner guidance, then we can really be happy. This guidance comes directly from the soul. Unfortunately, quite often our vital being cleverly deceives us. It makes us feel that its own message is actually coming from the soul. How are we going to know whether a message is coming from the vital or from the soul? There is an easy, most effective way to know this. If it is the voice of the vital, then we will know immediately from the way we feel after we complete the action. After we act, the result of our action will come in the form of either success or failure. If we fail in something and then feel miserable, we can know that it was not the voice of the soul that told us to do that thing; it was the voice of the vital being. If we are successful and then become extremely happy and proud and try to dominate the world with our happiness and pride, again we can know that it was not the soul’s voice. The moment we get a message from the soul or hear its voice, we get an inner thrill. Whether we succeed or fail, we have an inner joy. This joy does not make us want to dominate the world; rather, it makes us feel our oneness with the world. With this joy we can enter into others’ hearts and help them to lead a better and higher life.

A life of peace is a life of tremendous capacity. How do we get peace? There are many ways to achieve peace but I wish to tell you of two main ways. One way is to minimise our desires. Since we are seekers, a day will come when we shall have no desires at all. But before that day dawns, our peace of mind will increase if we try to minimise our desires every day. The second way to get peace is to feel that we are not indispensable here on earth for anything or for anyone. Long before we came into the world, the world existed; long after we leave this world, the world will still exist. So how can we be indispensable? We stay here on earth for sixty, seventy or eighty years. Then we see our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren carry on where we left off in the supreme process of evolution.

In our daily life, sometimes we see good in others and sometimes we see bad. This is a form of capacity that we exercise every day. But we have to know that when we see bad in others we multiply our own bad qualities. When we see good in others we find that we can bring forward our own good qualities and see our own Source. This Source is the Unity which is trying to manifest itself through multiplicity.

Life is a constant battle between good forces and bad forces, between divine forces and undivine forces. When we lose in the battlefield of life we feel that we are doomed to disappointment. This disappointment is itself a negative force. During the fight we have already spent a considerable amount of energy. But if we pay attention to our disappointment and despair, we lose even more of our precious energy. To pay attention to anyone or anything is to expend energy. If we pay attention to the right people or the right things, then we get energy back from them in abundant measure. We offer our capacity to the human in them; then the soul or the divine in them gives us back even more capacity, out of gratitude. In the outer life, the more we offer knowledge to others, the more there comes to us a higher and deeper knowledge to illumine our mind and heart. In the spiritual life also, the more we serve others, the more capacity God grants us for service.

When we have earthly power, physical power, we feel that we shall be able to dominate the earth. When we have spiritual power, we feel that we can be of service to mankind. Spiritual power is the power of our inner cry. Spiritual power climbs high, higher, highest and brings down from above God’s Light, Peace and Delight. Then it distributes these qualities in the physical world. Spiritual power is the power of inseparable oneness. Physical, earthly power is the power of division and destruction. But when physical power is illumined and guided by spiritual power, then the physical power adds to the spiritual power in the tug-of-war against ignorance. Physical power, the younger brother, takes the side of spiritual power, the older brother, and together they battle against ignorance. When two strong persons are on one side and only one is on the other side, naturally the side that has two persons will win.

In the spiritual life there is a special way to increase our capacity every day, every hour, every minute. It can be done through gratitude. When we offer our soulful gratitude to God, our capacity for receptivity immediately increases. Our receptivity is like a vessel; this vessel can be enlarged. Naturally, the larger the vessel the more it will be able to hold of God’s Light and Delight.

The life of a seeker is the life of inner faith. Faith is something that constantly brings us the message of the Beyond. Faith is the foundation of our real life. We must have faith in God; we must have faith in ourselves. If we have faith only in God and not in ourselves, or if we have faith only in ourselves and not in God, then we cannot go very far. What is our faith? Our faith is our inner cry for God’s Light and Bliss in infinite measure. Our faith is God’s transcendental Smile, which transforms our life and carries us from the sea of ignorance to the sea of Wisdom. Our inner faith in God constantly helps us to run the fastest and constantly makes God run towards us in the fastest possible way. Because God’s speed is far greater than our speed, when we take one step towards God we see that God has taken ninety-nine steps towards us. Then we meet together.

Capacity means to give and to receive. What can we give God? We can give Him only what we have. What we have is a sea of ignorance. What He has is a sea of infinite Light and Delight. God is anxious and more than eager to give us what He has and what He is. It is we who do not want to give our ignorance to God. We feel that if we give our ignorance away to God, then there will be nothing that we will have or be able to claim as our own. But when we pray and meditate, we realise that we can claim God’s treasures as our own.

An unaspiring person feels that he can create a better universe. God not only feels that He can create a better universe but He actually has the capacity to do so. Seekers can help God in creating a better universe through selfless, dedicated service and through constant aspiration. If God wants me to be perfect, if I cry most sincerely and most devotedly, one day God will make me perfect. Then there will be one less imperfect person in this world. Tomorrow, if you also try most sincerely the way I have tried, then there will be two persons on the side of perfection. If every day one person takes the side of perfection, then this world of ours will eventually become perfect. The process goes from the one to the many, from the individual to the universal, from the earth-bound consciousness to the Heaven-free consciousness, from the finite reality to the infinite Reality which is God's Song of the ever-transcending Beyond.

We can do something for everyone: for earth, for God and for Heaven. We can bring down Heaven’s Smile for earth. We can offer our earth-cry to Heaven. We can offer our surrendered life to God. Finally, if we really want to love earth in a divine and supreme way, then we must remind ourselves of the long-forgotten promise that we are here on earth to embody God consciously, to reveal God devotedly, to manifest God unmistakably. Our embodiment of God, our revelation of God and our manifestation of God must be unconditional. If we do this, God’s infinite capacities will shower on us. At that time we become God’s ambassadors, His most perfect instruments on earth. And it is in and through us that He will then sail His Dream-Boat to the Golden Shore of the ever-transcending Beyond.

 

Published in My Rose Petals, part 4

 

Love, Service and Transformation

A talk by Sri Chinmoy
in White Plains, New York

 

How do we love the world? We love the world with our inner peace. How do we serve the world? We serve the world with our inner joy. How do we transform the world? We transform the world with our inner faith.

Outer peace is a mutual compromise. Two individuals or two nations find no better way to bring about some harmony; therefore, they resort to compromise. There is no inner satisfaction here, but just because two individuals have to stay together on earth, they feel that there is no other way. If they have to live on earth, then they have to resort to compromise. But inner joy, inner satisfaction, inner peace remain a far cry.

Inner peace is a mutual sacrifice. This sacrifice is founded upon conscious awareness of one’s reality. In this sacrifice the one finds fulfilment in the many and the many find fulfilment in the one. On the strength of their inner oneness, two individuals on the outer plane make a sacrifice. But when they dive deep within, they feel that there is no such thing as sacrifice. It is the supreme necessity in both of them to please, to satisfy and to fulfil each other.

Outer joy is nothing more than pleasure, pleasure-life. This pleasure-life is followed by depression and frustration-life; and what looms large in depression and frustration is destruction.

Inner joy is spontaneous satisfaction. This satisfaction we discover in the heart of universal oneness. In order to have inner joy we have to give up the desire-life and enter into the domain of aspiration-life. Only in aspiration-life can we discover the heart of universal oneness.

Outer faith is nothing more than a rope of sand; it crumbles in the twinkling of an eye. With outer faith we cannot sing the everlasting song of the Absolute Supreme. Only in the everlasting things can the Supreme, the Absolute in us, sing His transcendental, universal Song.

Inner faith is our divine conviction. Inner faith makes us realise that we are of God — that we have a source and our source is God — and also, that we are in God and we are for God. When we discover that we are of God, we feel that our life has meaning, our life has made a promise to God. Our human life, both individual and collective, must fulfil that promise. And what is that promise? That promise is to manifest God here on earth in God’s own way. We are in God. What does this mean? It means that we have accepted God’s cosmic Lila, His divine Game. We want to participate in His cosmic Game. God the eternal Player invites us and inspires us to play the Game, the eternal Game.

While playing the Game we will enjoy peace, bliss and satisfaction in boundless measure. We are for God. What does this mean? It means that we have become supremely chosen instruments of God and He is manifesting Himself in an unprecedented manner in and through us. He is manifesting His Divinity, His Eternity, His Infinity and His Reality in and through us on earth.

Each human being has three natures: the animal, the human and the divine. The animal in us is nothing short of immediate destruction. The human in us is give and take, or possess and be possessed. The divine in us is self-giving, and self-giving eventually is transformed into God-becoming. The divine in us grows, glows and flows. When it grows, it grows into the transcendental Consciousness, the transcendental Height. When it glows, it covers the length and breadth of the world. It finds its existence in the entire universe. And when the divine in us flows, it flows in Eternity. Eternity and the divine Love flow together.

Transformation, service and love. What is transformation? Transformation is the unlearning of the things that ignorance has taught us. This ignorance had a favourite student. That student was mind — the physical mind, not the higher mind or the illumined mind. The gross physical mind has taught the individual quite a few things which he now wants to unlearn. The sooner he can unlearn the teachings of ignorance, the sooner his transformation, the transformation of his entire being, will take place.

Service. Whom do we serve? The human in others or the human in us? We do not serve the human in others or the human in ourselves. We serve the divine in others, the Supreme in others. And the Supreme in others is the same Supreme who abides in us. When we serve the Supreme in others consciously, soulfully, devotedly and unconditionally, we feel a kind of expansion. In this expansion we feel that we are no longer for an individual, but for all. United we are singing, playing, dancing in God’s Garden. Human service is performed under compulsion. The human in us does not use the term ‘service’; it immediately uses the term ‘help’. But when the human in us thinks that it is offering help, the divine in us knows that this is a mistake. The divine in us serves the Supreme, the Absolute Supreme. The Absolute Supreme does not need help; He has and He is everything. He is Infinity, He is Eternity and He is Immortality. But when we serve Him, our humility grows, our spontaneous divinity grows. We feel that we are tiny drops in the ocean, insignificant, infinitesimal drops. But when we enter into the ocean, when even the tiniest possible drops lose their personality and individuality, they become the infinite ocean itself. So it is through our service, devoted service, that we consciously grow into the Vast, into Infinity’s Light and Delight.

Love. Why do we love? We love because our Source, He who created us, has taught us one supremely significant thing: love. He has infinite Love; He is infinite, eternal Love. This is what He has taught the soul in us, and the soul in us tries to bring this teaching always to the fore. The Supreme is the only teacher with only one subject, and that subject is love. Just because He is all Love, He is our dearest, He is our sweetest, He is our All. And because we want to love Him for the sake of love alone, without asking Him for any recompense, He feels that we are His chosen instruments.

Love is the greatest power, the most powerful power in us. But it is divine love that is most powerful, not human love. When a seeker enters into the spiritual life, he feels within and without him a flood of love. And when he feels this love, he consciously tries to dedicate himself to the Source. He sees and feels that he is becoming consciously and constantly the perfect embodiment of God the eternal Truth, God the eternal Light and God the eternal Delight.

Each individual seeker here and elsewhere is God’s conscious representative on earth. A seeker is he who knows that ignorance-life is not the answer. Aspiration-life, which is the life of love divine within us — love of God, love of truth, love of light — can be the only answer. A seeker may not be consciously aware of the truth that he is infinitely higher than those who are unaspiring. Even if he is aware of what he is and who he is, he may not fully manifest what he has and what he is within. For the manifestation of his inner divinity he has to aspire, constantly aspire and become the ceaseless, ever-mounting flame. The flame right now is within him, but there shall come a time when he has to grow into the flame itself. Once the seeker becomes the burning, glowing and illumining flame, the Absolute Supreme manifests Himself in and through this ever-mounting flame. And in this ever-mounting flame the seeker discovers not only his self-transcendence but also God’s Self-transcendence. He and his eternal Beloved together are transcending, constantly transcending the height of Eternity’s experience, Eternity’s realisation.

Published in AUM — Vol. 2, No. 8, 27 August 1975

 

Everest-Aspiration Talks

by Sri Chinmoy

You are Spiritual

8:10 a.m.
Jamaica High School Track,
Jamaica, New York

You are spiritual. That means you have only a few desires, very, very few desires. One day you will come to the point where you will have only one desire: God. God-realisation will be your only desire. Only one desire will be left you, and that desire will be fulfilled by God Himself with the deepest Love, Joy and Pride.

You are spiritual. That means you are sincere. There are two types of sincerity. One is human sincerity, the mind’s sincerity. The other is divine sincerity, the heart’s sincerity. The human sincerity that you speak of comes from the most developed member of your human family, the mind. The mind tells you that this is sincerity, this is insincerity. The mind inspires or commands you to say the right thing, the sincere thing. But there is also something called the heart’s sincerity. The heart’s sincerity is a different matter. Heart’s sincerity is oneness with the Will of the Supreme. Sometimes the mind is sincere, but only when the mind can get some profit or benefit from sincerity. Sometimes the mind is sincere because it feels an inner compulsion; it feels inwardly obliged. But in the heart’s sincerity, which is oneness with the Supreme’s Will, there is an inner, special purpose which the human mind cannot fathom. If you are spiritual, you will be ready eventually to unite your will with the Supreme’s Will. That kind of sincerity you are aiming at.

You are spiritual. That means you are humble. Here humility means the acceptance of the world’s burden according to your capacity. God is all Humility. He has accepted as His own lot the entire weight of the world. So you also accept the burden around you, according to your limited capacity. You are like a tree. The tree carries leaves, flowers, fruits and everything. You also can bear the burden of the world around you on your head and shoulders. This is your humility.

You are spiritual. That means you are secure. Security means that you feel the living Presence of God inside you, and you feel your living presence inside God. Also, you tell yourself that you are for God and that God is for you. When you tell yourself that God is for you and you are for God, and when you feel your presence inside God and God’s Presence inside you, that is your security.

You are spiritual. That means you are pure. What kind of purity are you aiming at? You are aiming at the purity that will satisfy God and capture Him inside your heart, inside your mind, inside your vital and inside your body. All your impurity will leave you when God comes to live inside your body-room, vital-room, mind-room and heart-room. If you can feel that God is living inside you, then only can you develop real purity.

You are spiritual. That means you are divine. At first your divinity will say that there is no adamantine wall between you and God. You are facing God and God is facing you. Your divinity will make you feel that two Gods are facing each other and conversing. But eventually you will merge into the God that you are now facing. You will know there is only one God and that the entire world is His projection. Then there will come a time when God will ask you to play His role. He will make you feel that you are God and He is your projection. Then He will hide Himself and play the role of the universe, while you play the role of God. He becomes the creation and you become the Creator. You are God’s creation according to His Vision, Mission and Necessity. But when He is fully satisfied with your spirituality, He says, “My son, I am changing the game. I shall become the creation and you become the Creator.” This is how you become inseparably one with the Source who conceived of you and created you.

Spirituality

10:00 p.m.
St Paul’s Chapel,
Columbia University, New York

Spirituality. Spirituality is man’s conscious longing for God. Spirituality tells us that God, who is unknowable today, will tomorrow become knowable and, the day after, will become totally known.

We must need God for God’s sake. God can fulfil us in our own way, but it is we who will not be truly fulfilled when God satisfies us in our own way. Our crying heart, our aspiring heart, our illumining heart, will never be satisfied unless and until it pleases God in God’s own Way; therefore, our God-realisation is for God’s sake. Man’s perfection lies in God-satisfaction.

A beginningless beginning tells us that spirituality is an aspiration-plant. This plant grows and grows; eternally it grows. An endless end tells us that spirituality is a surrender-tree. This tree bears divine fruits, and these fruits come to us on the strength of our constant, conscious and surrendered oneness with our Beloved Supreme.

True spirituality is our conscious acceptance of life, not the annulment, not the negation, not the annihilation of life. We must needs accept life and radically change the face of life into the very image of our Beloved Supreme.

Spirituality says to the heart, “O heart, why do you remain insecure? Do you not feel that inside you the Almighty, the Lord Supreme, abides? You must not feel insecure, for it is you who can proclaim to the world at large that inside you is the living Presence of the Beloved Supreme. Of all the parts of the being, you have been chosen to be the first and foremost instrument to guide the mind, the vital and the body to the soul. The soul eventually will bring them to me.”

Spirituality tells the mind to remain silent. It says to the mind, “O mind, do not think any more. Your thinking power is nothing short of confusion. You confuse the other members of your family — body, vital and heart — and, at the same time, you are yourself confused when you indulge in the thought-world.”

Spirituality says to the vital, “O vital, do not crave. Do not crave for name and fame. Do not crave for anything, for even if you possess the things that you crave, these possessions will not satisfy you. Even inside these possessions there will be a cry for more possessions. You will always act like a beggar if you crave for anything. No matter what you get, you will remain dissatisfied and unfulfilled. So do not walk along that path. Your craving must come to an end. Do not crave anything.”

Finally, spirituality says to the body, “O body, how long will you sleep? Don’t you know that you have been sleeping from time immemorial? It is because of your ignorance-sleep that the rest of the members of your family are not able to reach the Golden Shore, the destined Goal. O body, sleep not! The Goal is only for those who are awakened. Awake, arise! The rest of the members of your family will run faster than the fastest the moment you become active and dynamic and cast aside the shackles of ignorance-sleep.”

Spirituality tells the seeker not to live in the hoary past, not to live in the remote future, but to live in the immediacy of today, in the eternal Now. This eternal Now embodies man the aspiring seed and God the all-nourishing Fruit.

Published in Everest-Aspiration, part 1

 

Sri Chinmoy reads a selection of poems from Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants during a public meditation at Public School 86 in Jamaica, New York, to celebrate the first anniversary of the series that he began on 10 July 1983.

 


Listen to Sri Chinmoy reciting the poems...

 

 

Three simple words — The Golden Path — by Sri Chinmoy, say it all.

 

July 10

Photo by Bhashwar Hart

 

Sri Chinmoy plays a synthesizer during a Peace Concert at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York.

 

July 10

Photo by Adarini Inkei

 

Sri Chinmoy simultaneously lifts Democrat Hon. Gary L. Ackerman (centre) and his Republican colleague Hon. Benjamin A. Gilman (left) — both Members of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York — on a two-platform lifting apparatus, one of us with each arm, in the Rayburn Gold Room on Capitol Hill, Washington DC.

 

If I had not experienced it, I could not imagine this to be possible. — Hon. Gary L. Ackerman

 

July 10

The Secret of Joy

A lecture by Sri CHinmoy
in Room 10 of the University of Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden

 

Dear seekers, dear sisters and brothers, today I shall talk on the secret of joy. There is nobody on earth who does not want joy. There is nobody on earth who does not need joy. But there are only very, very few people who know the secret of joy.

The secret of joy is not to be found in the life of desires; the secret of joy is in the life of aspiration. The life of desire blinds us and binds us. The life of aspiration illumines us and liberates us. The life of desire makes us feel that we are all beggars. The life of aspiration makes us feel that we are all God’s divine children. The life of desire is the life of pleasure. A life of pleasure can never be a life of joy, because pleasure is followed by frustration and frustration is followed by destruction. But joy is followed by deeper joy, deeper joy is followed by deepest joy and deepest joy is followed by infinite Joy.

In the spiritual life, we can have joy only when we surrender ourselves to God’s Will. Two thousand years ago the Saviour Christ taught us the supreme message: “Let Thy Will be done.” There can be no higher message, no deeper secret, than this. If we want to have infinite Joy, then here is the secret. As long as I am in the finite my joy is bound to be finite. I can have unlimited joy only when I enter into the Infinite. How much joy can a drop of water contain? But when this drop enters into the mighty ocean and becomes inseparably one with the mighty ocean, the joy it can contain becomes infinite.

We get joy from self-conquest. To conquer ourselves we have to discipline our life. From a disciplined life we get self-mastery. From self-mastery we get the message of self-discovery. Self-discovery and God-realisation are one and the same. When we realise God, our inner consciousness is flooded with Light and Delight. At that time we have infinite Joy, infinite Peace and infinite Light.

There are various ways to get joy, but the easiest and most effective way is through love. When the mother loves her child, how happy the child is! But the mother remains on earth for seventy or eighty years and then she dies. Her son, who has now become a grown-up man, does not get any more joy from his mother because she is no longer on earth. He has received love, which is joy, from his mother for thirty or forty years. This joy we call the joy of the finite. But when we love God, the Inner Pilot, who is eternal, then our joy will be permanent and eternal. I am not saying here that we should not give importance to a mother’s love. We can enter into infinite Joy without throwing aside finite joy.

In our life of joy service is as important as love. If we serve God in mankind, we can become happy. If we serve those who need our help, then we can become happy. Each time we serve, we expand our consciousness, and real joy grows in the expansion of our consciousness. Service means going from one to many, from many to the Infinite. First I eat and serve myself. Then I feed my near and dear ones. And then I try to feed the whole of humanity. As I serve more and more seekers, as I increase my service, I also increase my joy.

Something which is quite important in our spiritual life is freedom. Freedom from what? Freedom from falsehood, darkness and ignorance. Every day God gives us freedom. It is we who have to use this freedom. With our freedom we need not pray to human beings to give us things. We can easily pray only to our Lord Supreme, who is our Liberator. We can love only God, who is our Beloved Supreme. But in order to pray to God, meditate on God and love God, we need inspiration. This inspiration we may get from a flower, from a flame, from the sky, from the mountains, from the sea, from the moon, from the stars, from the sun. Or we can get this inspiration from a God-realised man. We may look at a flower for inspiration or we may look at the flame of a candle, but we have to know that the flower has not realised God, the flame has not realised God. If we meditate on the picture of a Master, we get a kind of inspiration which is much more powerful than the inspiration that we get from a flower or a candle flame. If we meditate on a picture of the Christ, Sri Krishna, the Buddha or other spiritual Masters in whom we have faith, then naturally we shall get infinitely more inspiration than if we meditate on a flower or a candle flame.

Here on earth we are caught by the animal in us, by the human in us and by the Divine in us. When we are caught by the animal in us, we fight vehemently to free ourselves. What are the animals inside us? Doubt, jealousy and aggression. When we are caught by the human in us, it compels us to be satisfied only with a small, insignificant thing. It forces us to remain inside a tiny cave. It tells us that we cannot realise the Infinite. The Divine in us catches us most lovingly. The Supreme holds His divine child most lovingly and tells him that He is dreaming in and through him. He wants His child to grow up and one day become as great as He is.

In our daily practical life there is a way for us to get joy. If we lead a simple life and go to our goal on a direct path, if we walk along a sunlit path, then we can have joy. A simple life is the life of happiness. A direct path is the path of joy. A sunlit path is the path of constant joy.

We do not get joy because the world is full of chaos. Who has created this chaos? You and I. It is we who have to be blamed. When our body only sleeps and snores, we create chaos. When our vital strikes others, we create chaos. When our mind doubts others, we create chaos. But if we use our body to serve God in man, if we use our vital to inspire others, if we use our mind to illumine others, then we are bound to get joy.

We have made many, many promises to God. Every day we promise God that we shall do this for Him, we shall do that for Him, but we never, never do what we promise. God has made only one promise to us and that promise is that He will give us His Joy. His Joy He wants to give us in infinite measure, but when He wants to give it to us, we do not receive it. God is like the sun, an inner sun; He is all Light. If we keep our windows and doors shut, then the sunlight cannot come in. Similarly, if we keep our heart’s door shut, then God’s Joy cannot come in. But if we keep our heart’s door open, then we get light and illumination from God the inner Sun.

We have three special rooms: the room of the soul, the room of the heart and the room of the mind. There are two more rooms: the room of the vital and the room of the body, but most of the time we keep the doors to these two rooms closed. When we live in the soul’s room, we see that there is nowhere for death to stay. When there is nowhere for death, naturally we will be extremely happy. When we live in the heart-room, we see that at times there is a seat for death. Naturally, we cannot be as happy as when we are in the soul’s room. This moment, when our heart identifies with Light divine, naturally there can be no death; but the next moment, when our heart identifies with the ignorance of the world, at that time all is depression, frustration, destruction and death. In the room of the mind, not only is there a seat for death, but death is welcome to sit on any seat he wants to. Death comes in and sits either on its own seat or on any other seat it wants to occupy. So there can be no joy at all in the room of the mind. If we are in the mind-room, we have to pray to enter into the heart-room. If we are in the heart-room, let us pray and meditate to enter into the soul’s room. It is only in the soul’s room that we will find infinite Joy, infinite Satisfaction and infinite Perfection.

Published in My Rose Petals, part 4

 

Everest-Aspiration Talk

by Sri Chinmoy

I Am a Born Prayer

8:15 a.m.
Jamaica High School Track,
Jamaica, New York

I am a born prayer. I am extremely grateful to my Beloved Supreme, for He has given me the prayer-capacity to become one with the Christ consciousness.

I am a born concentration. I am extremely grateful to my Beloved Supreme, for He has given me the concentration-capacity to become one with the Brahma consciousness.

I am a born meditation. I am extremely grateful to my Beloved Supreme, for He has given me the meditation-capacity to become one with the Vishnu consciousness.

I am a born contemplation. I am extremely grateful to my Beloved Supreme, for He has given me the contemplation-capacity to become one with the Shiva consciousness.

I am a born aspiration. I am extremely grateful to my Beloved Supreme, for He has given me the aspiration-capacity to become one with the Ramakrishna consciousness.

I am a born dedication. I am extremely grateful to my Beloved Supreme, for He has given me the dedication-capacity to become one with the Buddha consciousness.

I am a born realisation. I am extremely grateful to my Beloved Supreme, for He has given me the realisation-capacity to become one with the Chinmoy consciousness.

I am a born manifestation. I am extremely grateful to my Beloved Supreme, for He has given me the manifestation-capacity to become one with the Shankara and Vivekananda consciousness.

I am a born perfection. I am extremely grateful to my Beloved Supreme, for He has given me the perfection-capacity to become one with the Krishna consciousness.

I am a born satisfaction. I am extremely grateful to my Beloved Supreme, for He has given me the satisfaction-capacity to become one with Him, with His Consciousness that is already manifested and with His Consciousness that is yet to be manifested.

Published in Everest-Aspiration, part 1

 

Receptivity

A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Receptivity is emptiness. What we call emptiness today, that very thing we can aptly call fulness tomorrow. Let us try to lead once more a life of simplicity, humility, sincerity, purity, gratitude and surrender. Some of us may think and feel that they are already blessed with these divine qualities. To them, my simple request is this: They should try to discover the capacities of these divine qualities. Simplicity increases receptivity in our physical body. Humility increases receptivity in our vital. Sincerity increases receptivity in our mind. Purity increases receptivity in our heart. Gratitude increases receptivity in our aspiration-life. Surrender increases receptivity in our dedication-life.

The way we live either increases or decreases our power of receptivity. There are two ways of living: wrong living and right living. There are two kinds of human beings on earth: the ignorance-lover and the God-lover. The ignorance-lover wrongly depends on wrong living. The God-lover rightly depends on right living.

Receptivity is available in two worlds: the desire-world and the aspiration-world. In the desire-world, receptivity is found in the thick jungle of attachment. In the aspiration-world, receptivity is found in the beautiful garden of devotedness.

Receptivity succeeds and receptivity proceeds. When we invoke God the divine Light, our receptivity succeeds in the battlefield of life. When we invoke God the supreme Delight, our receptivity proceeds along Eternity's all-fulfilling and all-satisfying Road.

Measureless and fathomless receptivity we can have if we are not afraid of the unknown and if we are ready to love the Unknowable.

Here we are at Harvard. Harvard embodies unparalleled capacities, and one unparalleled, sky-vast capacity is its sea-deep receptivity. Again, receptivity comes from God's Compassion-Eye, and God's Compassion-Eye comes from God's Oneness-Heart. This Oneness-Heart each seeker can have, provided he claims God's Oneness-Heart as his own, very own. Once a seeker can claim God's Oneness-Heart as his very own, his will be the measureless and fathomless receptivity. And inside his fathomless receptivity, at every moment what will loom large is God's own Transcendental Vision.

Published in Truth’s Fountain-Melody

 

 

Sri Chinmoy begins his epic poetry series Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants in Jamaica, NY, USA.

 

Poem no. 1

Twenty-seven thousand
Aspiration-plants:
Indeed, the distance is too long.
But my Beloved Lord Supreme
Says to me,
“My child, the distance is too short.
In top secrecy I am telling you:
I shall walk with you
All the way.”

Published in Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, part 1

 

No Expectation

A talk by Sei Chinmoy
at his home in Jamaica, Queens, New York

 

We are born with expectation. If I cry, my mother will come and give me milk. If I cry, my father will take me to the town. But Lord Krishna said, “You have the right to action, but not to the fruits thereof.”

Yes, we take it as our right to do something; but we have no right to expect the fruits of our action. In our case, we expect the action and the result to go together. If we touch a drum, we expect that there will be a sound. But why should there be a sound? We are expecting the sound while we are touching the drum. But while touching the drum we must not think of the sound. Our job is only to strike the drum. The sound we have to keep separate from the striking.

The trouble is that most of the time, as soon as we do something, we want the results. But we should say, “If the result comes and it is good, then it will please me. But if it does not come, I must not be disturbed.” But we do not always do that. At every second, we have expectation.

As soon as we come out of the house, our expectation is that there will be a soothing breeze. The cool morning breeze will be blowing: that is what we expect. If we come out of the house and, instead of a cool breeze, we find that a very hot wind is blowing, then we are doomed to disappointment. But if we say, “I will come out, no matter what kind of weather it is, because I feel from within it is good to go out,” then we shall not be disappointed.

Unfortunately, we do not say that. Before we perform an action, we try to get the result. We have to come to the point where we can say, “I will act, but I will not care for the results.” That is when we make progress. Otherwise, even before doing something, we are expecting the results. Even before we touch the drum, we expect the sound to come.

Where does unconditional surrender come into the picture? While crying for God, do we say, “God, I am crying for You. If it is Your Will, come. But if it is not Your Will, do not come. I want to please You in Your own Way”? How many people every day repeat, “I want to please You, God, in Your own Way”? More than ten times if we say it, we become sick of hearing our own voice! Then we change our prayer: “I will please You only when I feel like it, and I do not mind even if You do not please me, as long as we can please each other once in a blue moon.”

Now let me tell a story about unconditional surrender.

Today I was looking at some old family pictures. When I saw a picture of my cousin, Nirmala-di, I immediately started shedding tears. She was so close to our family. She died while plucking flowers. She was standing on the roof of her house at the Ashram. To one side was a protection-flower tree. The Mother gave that particular flower the name “Protection.” My cousin was plucking those flowers and somehow she fell on her head on the street below. She died then and there. My sister Lily was passing by. She heard the sound, but she did not see what had happened. She was just walking along the street, and she went home. In five minutes she received the message that this had happened, and she came running.

This was the cousin who was responsible for my getting the job for Nolini-da. She said I must work there, I must. She was the one who said I must give Nolini-da a gift. My gift was one of his prose articles which I had turned into poetry, English blank verse.

But the most important thing happened when I came to the Ashram at the age of one year and three months. How kind was Nirmala-di! She was so fond of my mother. For one month, whenever my mother wanted to spend time in the main Ashram building or go to see the Divine Mother on the balcony or elsewhere, this cousin made the sacrifice of looking after me. And how I used to cry, cry, cry and scream for my mother! The sound would cover quite a few blocks! To my own sisters, this cousin of mine said, “You people go. I will take care of him.” Even though she herself had only been in the Ashram for two months when I was brought there — she came at the same time as my brother Hriday — she made this sacrifice. She wanted my mother to spend as much time as possible in the main building and to see the Divine Mother. This was my cousin. She was so fond of us. At every second she would scold us. She was older than my sisters. If you are older, you have every right to scold the younger ones.

Coming back to the point, what did Nirmala-di expect from her service? She could have said to my mother, “You brought your child here. He is your responsibility. Why are you not asking one of your daughters or one of your sons to take care of him? You have four or five other children who can easily take care of him. Let them do it.” But she did not do that. Instead she said, “I have been here for two months. You will be going away in a month, so let me make this sacrifice.” It was all because of her love for my mother. This kind of unconditional surrender she made.

How many of you have tried — sincerely tried — to see everything in my own way? Will it be my fate not to have one single disciple like that? In some cases, year after year disciples have not tried to please me because they have blocked their inner door and outer door completely. I cannot open their outer door, and I cannot open their inner door. I do not exist inside them. I am outside, outside, outside. I am neither in their mind, nor in their heart; I am not in their existence.

Nobody can dare to tell me, “I do everything in your own way.” Again, nobody will be able to say, “I always try to do everything in your own way.” Someone may try to do everything in my own way for one week or for one month, but then that person becomes tired. He simply says, “I tried so hard to please Guru for one month. Now he should please me at least for one day or two days or three days.” This kind of surrender is only a joke. It creates suffering for me.

A disciple may try to please me for two days, and then he expects me to please him for ten days — not even the other way round. And people sometimes say, “Since Guru has the capacity, since he is stronger than I am spiritually, he should please me more in my own way.” But this is not the correct philosophy. The disciples should say, “Since Guru has more capacity, let me become one with him. Then I will have his capacity.” That attitude people should adopt.

For a few weeks or a few months, you try to please me. Then you bring expectation forward. When your expectation is not fulfilled, you say, “Oh, our philosophy is not to expect,” and once more you start trying. But you do not forget to use your expectation once again. You say, “Who knows, next time Guru may fulfil my expectation.”

From today you can start trying to serve without expectation. Better late than never! We always make promises in our lives, like my brother Mantu. Every morning he makes a resolution not to read any newspaper. Then one of his friends will come and say, “Mantu Babu, Mantu Babu, have you read about such-and-such? Do you know?”

“What? What?” says Mantu.

Then his friend will say, “I do not want to tell you. I do not want to take away your joy. There is something most significant in the newspaper. Go, go immediately and read it for yourself!”

Mantu’s resolution lasts perhaps for another twenty minutes. Then he goes as fast as possible to the library to read the article.

In your case, you can make a resolution right from today to sincerely try to see everything and do everything in my own way. Just repeat, “Cheerful obedience, cheerful obedience, cheerful obedience.” Then you can say, “No expectation, no expectation, no expectation!” and also, “Fastest progress, fastest progress, fastest progress!” If you can repeat those words like japa, if they are engraved on the tablet of your heart, then definitely you will be able to make the fastest progress.

Published in Live in the Eternal Now

 

July 10

 

Sri Chinmoy crosses the 100-metre-race finish line in a time of 15.29 seconds at the Sri Chinmoy Masters Games held at Victory Field in Forest Park, New York. Coming in behind him is Rupantar LaRusso, a race director for the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team.

 

July 10

 

Sri Chinmoy, javelin in hand, competing at the Sri Chinmoy Masters Games held at Victory Field, Forest Park, Queens, New York.

 

July 10

This article about Sri Chinmoy’s weightlifting is printed in the Sport around the World section of DELO, one of the main daily newspapers in Slovenia. (Number of printed copies: 87,700)

 

Translation

 

At the age 69 years he lifted 272 kg

 

New York — At the age 69, Sri Chinmoy set an astonishing record for his age: he bench pressed 272 kg by simultaneously pressed up two gigantic 136 kg weights. 

Interestingly, Sri Chinmoy improved his achievement each day by lifting weights of at least 22.5 kg heavier than the previous day for three successive days. 

But this record is not the only one he has set in the last months. Previously he set records including the standing double-arm dumbbell lift (590 kg), seated double-arm dumbbell lift (200 kg), standing calf raise (907 kg) and seated calf raise (544 kg).

Published in DELO, 10 July 2000

 

July 10

 

Sri Chinmoy, age 15, paints this 4⅜x7⅛-inch watercolour on brown paper at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India.