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A True Seeker

A talk by Sri Chinmoy
at St. Xavier Auditorium, St. Francis Xavier School, 122 West 17th Street, Manhattan, New York,

A true seeker does not make complaints, for he knows that each complaint of his is a blight, a spot, in the Heart of his Beloved Supreme. A true seeker is he who does not criticise the world around him, for he knows that each criticism of his is a blight in the Heart of his Beloved Supreme. A true seeker wants a world of perfection. This world of perfection he will find only through his oneness, his ultimate oneness with the world within him, the world around him. Each time he complains, each time he criticises, he fails in his own purpose. It was his own promise, when he was in the soul’s world, to serve the aspiring mankind. This was the solemn promise he made to the Supreme, the Pilot Absolute. It is not through criticism, not through complaining that he can bring about world peace and world harmony. It is through acceptance of earth-reality as such. It is through constant self-giving, which eventually grows into God-becoming. Today’s self-giving is tomorrow’s God-becoming.

A true seeker does not try to influence the world, for he knows that to influence the world is to ask the world to see the reality the way he himself sees it or the way he wants to see it. A true seeker wants only to inspire the world. When he inspires the world, he feels that he is giving the world ample opportunity to see the reality in its own way. Here there is no imposition. Here there is no direct or indirect insistence that the reality be seen in a certain way.

A true seeker is always ready to serve the Supreme Beloved in each individual. First he tries to serve the Supreme according to the world’s receptivity. Then, after he himself makes considerable progress, he tries to serve the world the way the Supreme wants him to serve the world. While he is a beginner, while he himself is making progress, he feels that it is his bounden duty to help the world accelerate its own progress and success the way the world wants to achieve progress and success. But there comes a time when he feels that he has to see the success and progress of the world the way his Inner Pilot wants him to see it.

A true seeker is nothing short of a lamp-post. This lamp-post offers its glow not only to the fellow travellers who walk along his path, but also to those who walk along other paths. He offers light and travellers walking along other paths are able to receive and achieve the light that he offers. His life is for all; but again, for those who want to be in the same boat he is in, he feels that he has extra responsibility. They are his fellow travellers, journeying to Infinity’s Shore.

A true seeker knows what divine authority is and he knows what divine responsibility is. To him, authority is not the power that lords it over the world; authority is the recognition of the illumining and liberating, transforming and immortalising reality as world-power. To him, responsibility is not an unwanted burden. Each responsibility is an added opportunity to serve the Inner Pilot in an inimitable way, in God’s own Way. He feels that each responsibility is an opportunity to add to his soul’s reality and he knows that he can increase this opportunity. How does he increase it? He increases his opportunity by creating happiness. Happiness increases opportunity. And what is happiness? Happiness is a quality of the soul. This quality of the soul we notice and grow into only when we see that the Vision-world and the reality-world can become one.

The Vision-world is God’s Silence-world; the reality-world is God’s sound-world. The seeker comes to realise that either he has to climb up from the body-consciousness to the soul’s loftiest height or he has to bring the soul’s loftiest height down into the gross physical world. When he climbs up, he lifts up humanity’s consciousness and places humanity’s consciousness in the lap of Divinity. And when he brings down Peace, Light and Bliss from above, he feeds humanity’s age-long hunger. But whether he carries humanity up the tree or brings down the fruits, he offers Divinity the golden opportunity to transform, to shape and to mould humanity’s life-breath the way the Eternal Pilot wants humanity transformed, illumined, perfected and fulfilled.

A true seeker has discovered the truth that his Pilot Supreme is not only the Highest but also the lowest. The magnitude and the infinitude of his Beloved Supreme is the reality precisely because the Supreme’s Love-power has become the Universal Consciousness, the Transcendental Consciousness, the Infinite Consciousness, which is expanding at every moment; and also because He is smaller than the smallest, tinier than the tiniest. The Beloved Supreme is the reality just because He can become Infinity and just because He can become the finite, the infinitesimal drop. The true seeker feels a one-pointed inner urge to see the Infinite in the finite and to see the finite in the Infinite.

When a true seeker aspires, he sees that it is the real in him that aspires. The unreal in him just waits for the opportunity to be transformed at God’s choice Hour. The unreal in him cannot aspire; only the real in him can aspire. What is the real in him? The real in him is happiness, delight. What is the unreal in him? The unreal in him is the suffering that he creates for himself. How does he create suffering? He creates suffering by mixing with the unreal in himself. The unreal is his desire-world; the unreal is his thought-world. Each desire is a world of its own; each thought is a world of its own. The unreal in him is sorrow. When he mixes with sorrow, with desire, with suspicion and doubt, when world-suffering assails him and he identifies himself with world-suffering and with his own suffering, at that time he sees darkness within, without, below, above. But when he identifies himself with inner happiness and outer happiness, at every moment he transcends his own reality. At every moment he dances with the reality of self-transcendence.

Instead of staying in the unreal — in the desire-world, in the thought-world — a true seeker wants to live in the aspiration-world and the will-power-world. His aspiration-world tells him, “Not this, not that, but something beyond this, something beyond that.” And what is it that is beyond this, beyond that? It is his constant inner flame, the flame that at every moment achieves satisfaction. Again, at each level of satisfaction he feels an eternal hunger to achieve higher satisfaction. This hunger is not simply a cry for the world of truth and reality which has given him his present satisfaction; it is a ceaseless cry for Light, abundant Light, infinite Light. A true seeker cries for satisfaction and when satisfaction dawns, he cries for higher satisfaction. He is not like an ordinary human being in the desire-world who can never be satisfied. The seeker is satisfied, but at the same time he still wants to go higher. The true seeker’s satisfaction in crying for a higher world, a higher reality, is his spontaneous inner growth. An iota of satisfaction can please him; but he feels that the greater his satisfaction, the greater the opportunity he will have to manifest the Divinity within him. It is not that from dissatisfaction he is going to satisfaction; but from satisfaction he is growing to higher satisfaction. From God’s aspiration-world he is climbing to God’s realisation-world. And inside the realisation-world he tries to see God’s manifestation-world, God’s Perfection-world.

A true seeker is he whose name is always synonymous with devotion. A true seeker has discovered the truth that it is his devotion that can fulfil the Divine in him, the Supreme in him. In his devotion, God’s perfect Perfection and God’s continuous Satisfaction loom large. His devotion is not the devotion of a man touching somebody else’s feet. His devotion is speed, the fastest speed of his own aspiration-reality and God’s Compassion-Reality. When his aspiration-reality and God’s Compassion-Reality are bridged by his own inner cry, which is nothing else but his devotion, at that time he sees the world of the Eternal Now as his own, very own. He sees that there is no past, no future; there is only one Eternal Now, only one Eternal Life, only one Eternal Love. What he has and what he is, and what God has and what God is, are nothing but the Eternal Now. Here he sows, here he grows. Here he is God the seed; again, here he is God the fruit. In the Eternal Now, God’s Self-Transcendence-Reality and his own life-liberating, life-immortalising reality abide.

Published in Sri Chinmoy Speaks, part 4

Everest-Aspiration Talks

by Sri Chinmoy

Gratitude

5:30 a.m.
Sri Chinmoy Centre,
Jamaica, New York

Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.

Gratitude is a miracle-action in us. This miracle-action strengthens our physical body, purifies our vital energy, widens our mental vision and intensifies our psychic delight.

The seeker in us tries to be simple, pure, humble, sincere. Every spiritual seeker tries to cultivate these qualities in abundant measure. The easiest and most effective way to cultivate these qualities is to open the gratitude-flower and let it blossom inside our heart petal by petal. How can we do this? Not only do we have to give more importance to what we have, but we also must give all importance to what we do not have.

What we have is wishful thinking, wishful seeking, wishful becoming. Wishful thinking: We think that we shall be great or successful in some way. Wishful seeking: We seek the truth and light in our own way, in the place where we think truth and light must abide. Wishful becoming: This is the most deplorable mistake we make. We want to become something that pleases us. If we want to please ourselves in our own way, then consciously or unconsciously we bring the vital-wolf to the fore.

What we do not have is the breathless inner cry and the measureless outer smile. If we can develop the breathless inner cry, then automatically we develop the measureless outer smile.

Either from within we come without, or from without we dive deep within. We can start our journey either from the soul's capacity or from the body's capacity. Ultimately these two capacities have to be united. Needless to say, the soul's capacity is infinitely greater than the body's capacity. But the little capacity that the body has, has to be united with the soul's capacity. The body's greatest capacity is the acceptance of the soul's leadership. If the soul is accepted as the supreme leader, if the soul gets the opportunity to guide, mould and shape our destiny, then we get what we do not have right now: the sweet, pure, breathless, intense inner cry and the sure, measureless outer smile.

I do not know

8:30 a.m.
Jamaica High School Track
Jamaica, New York

“I do not know.” This is indeed an answer. This answer satisfies the sincere seeker in us, for the sincere seeker does not stoop to insincerity. But we have to know how far this answer can lead us. Can it lead us to our destined Goal? No, never! We have to be able to say, “I know.”

In order to find the answer, first we look around us. But the outside world laughs at us, ridicules us and sometimes looks down upon us. It considers us to be the worst possible fools. Then we dive deep within in order to get the answer. At that time something deep within tells us that what we think of ourselves is what we truly are. What we feel ourselves to be is what we truly are. What we shall ultimately become consciously is what we truly are.

What do we think we are? We think that we are devoted instruments and thoughtful seekers. What do we feel ourselves to be? We feel ourselves to be soulful lovers. And what shall we ultimately become? We shall become fruitful servers. Devoted instruments, thoughtful seekers, soulful lovers and fruitful servers of the Supreme: If we can think of ourselves in this way, if we can feel that we are all these things, then there can be no other answer for us either here on earth or there in Heaven.

This is the answer: we are the devoted instruments, the thoughtful seekers, the soulful lovers and the fruitful servers of the Supreme. “I do not know” is now transformed into “I do know.” What do I know? I know that I have all along been seeking for the birthless Vision and the ever-transcending Reality of my experience-realisation, my realisation-revelation and my revelation-manifestation.

Dream

3:50 p.m.
Bethpage State Park,
Long Island, New York

What is dream? Dream is creation. Creation is either division or union. “Division” is a complicated word. When we use division to divide the existence-reality, we enter into the world of ego and “I”-ness. But again, when we use it to divide work, labour, capacities, at that time it is a veritable blessing. If we divide and, through our division, get the result in a solid, concrete way to form one truth and one reality, then that division is good. But when we divide the reality into pieces and give supremacy to one piece and do not appreciate or value the other pieces, then we sing the song of separativity. This kind of division ends in destruction, the destruction of the little world that we claim to be ours.

“Union” is also a complicated word. When we work together, it is a great blessing. When we mix together, it is a great blessing. But when it is the union of darkness and light, when it is the union of desire and aspiration, then it is a deplorable mistake. The aspiration-life must not mix with the desire-life. If it is to mix, always it must mix with the renunciation-life — the renunciation of unnecessary possessions, of the things that are not divine, illumining and perfect.

With the aspiration-life we have to start our journey. But then there comes a time when we feel that our aspiration-life has blossomed considerably, and is ready to enter into the desire-life to transform it. The aspiration-life has to play the role of the bridge between the desire-life and the realisation-life. The seeker’s aspiration-life will enter into the desire-life for the immediate and total transformation of the desire-life. The seeker’s realisation-life will enter into the aspiration-life for the perfection of the aspiration-life and for the manifestation of the Absolute Supreme.

Each dream is a creation. Each creation is either conscious aspiration or unconscious aspiration. Our aspiration enters into the desire-life, the little brother, and helps him clean his body, purify his mind and illumine his earthly existence. Each iota of aspiration also expedites the arrival of realisation. Our aspiration enters into the realisation-life or brings the realisation-life into the aspiration-life in order to make the aspiration-life completely perfect for the awakening of our physical reality, and for the blossoming of the soul-reality, which is within us and for us.

A dream is God’s creation in the inner world. From the inner world we enter into the realisation-world. Creation and dream, aspiration and realisation — they are all members of the same family. If we can become aware of one, then automatically we can have the other three; for our dream is, after all, a disguised reality, and a disguised reality does not remain always in disguise. It purifies our mind. It offers dynamism to our vital and it offers an inner awakening in our physical reality.

I bow to dream because it is sweet and pure. I bow to reality because it not only has possibility and potentiality but it also has inevitability in boundless measure. I bow to aspiration, for it has love for us inside its boundless existence. But I love realisation, for realisation is the only thing that I need to make my Inner Pilot constantly and supremely happy.

Security

4:38 p.m.
Bethpage State Park
Long Island, New York

Security is life. Insecurity is death. When one is secure in one’s life, one sees an hour inside a second. When one is insecure in one’s life, one does not see even a second inside an hour.

Secure people smile, not because they have something but because they are something. Secure people belong to an ever-transcending creative force. Insecure people unconsciously and deplorably have made friends with self-doubt, which is the worst possible poison. Once they have made friends with self-doubt, they are forced to make friends with somebody else, and that somebody else is self-destruction.

When one is secure, one guards what one has and what one is. What one has is simplicity, sincerity, serenity, purity and many more divine qualities. These divine qualities have to be guarded. When one is secure, only then is one in a position to guard them. When they are well protected, they can play their respective roles most satisfactorily inside the physical consciousness, vital consciousness and mental consciousness.

Security is an honour that one gives and one gets. When one becomes a security guard, one serves a superior.

The superior is being honoured because he is being guarded by others. The security guard shows the utmost respect, love and adoration to the superior; therefore, the world may think that only the superior is being honoured. But I wish to say that it is a mutual honour.

This is a public park, and undivine people are all around. I am sitting here, and you are around me with folded hands. With your aspiration and devotion you are guarding me from the wrong forces. You are guarding me; therefore, you are honouring me. You are honouring me, true, but I am also honouring you. Out of 140 people I have requested you to come here.

It is the same thing when we pray to God. We think that we are honouring Him. We are honouring Him, true, but God has already honoured us by choosing us to be His Instruments. We are honouring Him with our aspiration and devotion. But by His acceptance of us, God is also honouring us. When we serve Him, love Him and cry to Him, at that time we honour Him. But it is He who has given us the opportunity to serve Him and aspire for Him. So the security guard, when he helps or protects the superior in any way, is not at all inferior. He is only honouring and being honoured.

God has given us the capacity, the aspiration, to pray to Him and meditate on Him. By praying and meditating we are honouring Him. Again, using us as His chosen instruments, He is honouring us. When we give our security to Him, we get back His Security. By honouring God through prayer and meditation, we also honour ourselves.

God is secure in us because He dreams in and through us. He is the eternal Life-Tree; we are His projecting branches. We are not aware of our own reality; we are not aware that we are part and parcel of the Life-Tree which is God; therefore, we are insecure. But by praying and meditating we come to realise that the branches, leaves and flowers are part and parcel of the Tree itself. When we realise this, we become secure in the Source and secure in the flow. When the flow realises its absolute Source, it becomes secure. The Source is always secure in the flow, for the Source knows that its own capacity is always boundless.

Published in Everest-Aspiration, part 1

The Inner Hunger

A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at the Graduates’ Memorial Building, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

Dear sisters and brothers, dear seekers of the infinite Truth, here we are all seated in a boat. The name of this boat is God’s Dream-Boat. This Dream-Boat is sailed by our Inner Pilot. In it we are safe and it shall take us to the Golden Shore of the Beyond.

Is there anybody on earth who has never been hungry? No! Is there any soul in Heaven who has never been hungry? No! Each human being on earth is suffering from inner hunger. Each soul in Heaven also is suffering from inner hunger. Here we are all seekers. A seeker is hungry for God-realisation. A soul in Heaven is hungry for God-manifestation.

As an ordinary human being, an unaspiring being, we have already known what earthly hunger is. To fulfil earthly hunger we need material food and material possessions; we need a distinct individuality and personality and we need the pride of supremacy. This is what we notice in our unaspiring earthly hunger, our ordinary human hunger. But when we become spiritual seekers, we have a different hunger. At that time we hunger for God’s Light, Truth, divine Beauty, Peace and Bliss. We hunger for Infinity, Eternity and Immortality.

When we have earthly hunger, very often we adopt foul means to satisfy our hunger. We try to feed ourselves in our own human way without knowing, without feeling and without becoming the inner light. But when we try to satisfy our divine hunger, we try to satisfy it by pleasing God in His own Way. We are able to satisfy it only by pleasing the Supreme in His own Way. We become the song of unconditional surrender, divine surrender to God’s adamantine Will. This Will is also His all-loving Will.

A human child has hunger. He is hungry for affection and love from his parents, but his hunger is not illumined. His hunger is unlit. Within each human seeker there is a divine child. Call it a soul or anything else you want to. This divine child also needs Affection, Love, Concern and Compassion from God the Father and from God the Mother. But there is a striking difference between these two children. When the human child sees that his parents show affection and love to others, he immediately falls victim to jealousy. He feels sad and miserable. The divine child is pleased only when his divine, transcendental Parents offer equal Love, Affection, Concern and Compassion to all his friends, relatives and acquaintances. This child will never be pleased in a selfish way. He will be pleased only if everybody gets the same things that he gets. This child is pleased only when it sees satisfaction within and satisfaction without.

Each individual soul is hungry for God’s Smile. It knows that there is nothing as important as God’s Light in the life of aspiration and dedication. God too is hungry, hungry for the seeker’s smile. That is the only thing He wants from us. He waits for millennia in order to get a smiling face from His earth-children.

We pray to God for millions of things; we pray to God to fulfil our countless desires. But when we become seekers we feel that there is only one thing that will satisfy us and that is God’s Smile. If a seeker is not advanced, if he is not on the verge of Self-realisation, he finds it difficult to feel that God is constantly smiling at him from His transcendental Height of divine Concern and Compassion. Because this seeker does not dive deep within, he finds it difficult to believe that God is smiling at him while transforming his agelong ignorance into eternal Wisdom-Light.

It has been said that no clock is more regular than the sun. This truth is undeniable. But in the spiritual world we can say that no clock is more regular than our Heart’s inner mounting cry. This inner cry wants to climb high, higher, highest and reach the acme of perfection. This cry is constant inside each fleeting second, and its climbing flame is birthless and deathless.

When we become soulful seekers, we become consciously aware of the inner cry of aspiration. Before that, this inner cry remained hidden inside; we did not feel it. But once we begin to consciously aspire, we feel the need of something eternal and perpetual; once we feel that terrestrial things do not please us, at that time we get the inner cry for something that can satisfy us permanently.

Right now we are beginners in the spiritual life, but we are not going to remain beginners forever. One does not remain in the kindergarten all his life. One hungers for ever-increasing wisdom until there comes a time when he gets his Master’s degree and Ph.D. Similarly, the beginner-seekers will not be doomed to disappointment. Everyone plays the role of a beginner at some time. But ultimately the beginner becomes advanced and reaches the highest Height.

The body has a hunger of its own. The vital has a hunger of its own. The mind has a hunger of its own. The heart has a hunger of its own. The body’s hunger can be satisfied by material food or by wallowing in the pleasures of ignorance. But the same body-consciousness eventually comes to realise that in pleasure-life there is not and cannot be any abiding satisfaction. Pleasure-life is eventually followed by a sense of tremendous frustration, and inside frustration what looms large is a sense of utter destruction.

The vital’s hunger can be satisfied by domination. To lord it over the world like Napoleon or Julius Caesar is its desire. But the vital, too, eventually comes to realise that in domination there is no abiding satisfaction. There is only an ever-increasing craving and an ever-mounting frustration which houses destruction within its breast.

The hunger of the mind can be satisfied by doubting the world. If it can doubt the entire creation and nullify or annihilate the whole world, the physical mind gets tremendous satisfaction. The mind feels it is the highest member of the human family and that it alone can illumine the whole being. At times the mind goes so far as to feel that it is in a position to add to the light of the soul, although this idea is most ridiculous. The soul is the guide and representative of the Lord Supreme. The soul has infinitely more light than the mind even at its highest. Nevertheless, the mind cherishes this kind of absurdity. Frustration and destruction loom large in the hunger of the mind.

The hunger of the human heart is to love and to be loved. When the heart is hungry for love, the heart does not see in itself the light of the soul. This is because it consciously or unconsciously mixes with the vital, or we can say that the vital enters into the heart. Rather than inspire, the vital instructs or instigates the human heart to claim love from others, and the heart tries to force its way into others. This is absolutely wrong! When the human heart plays the game of possession, which is not a positive or divine quality, it finds no satisfaction because the person it possesses is a bundle of ignorance. Once again frustration and destruction play their roles. When the heart itself becomes a flood of sincerity, it sees its mistakes and feels miserable that realisation is still a far cry.

When we are insincere, we feel not only that we have reached the goal but also that we are ready to offer the goal to the world at large. When we are sincere, all our imperfections come to the fore and we realise how far we are from our goal. When we pray and meditate, our heart does become sincere. When this sincerity speaks, our heart feels miserable and immediately runs to the soul, to its elder divine brother, for guidance and illumination. Then the soul guides the heart. When the heart establishes a free access to the soul, the heart is safe. The human heart at that time becomes the perfect instrument for God-manifestation on earth.

Earth has a hunger, a special hunger. Earth hungers to see the face of Heaven. Earth has had the vision of Heaven’s face only in silence during its highest plane of wakeful consciousness. But earth wants to see the face of Heaven inside its multifarious activities twenty-four hours a day. Earth wants to see the reality of Heaven not in a dream but in its waking hours. Earth feels that Heaven embraces all the Glory, Divinity, Infinity, Eternity and Immortality of the Absolute Supreme. Earth feels that by establishing a deep friendship with Heaven it will be able to get God’s Grace, Compassion, Love and Blessing in the twinkling of an eye.

Heaven too has a special hunger. Heaven hungers to feed the heart of earth. It feels that earth’s heart is simple, sincere, genuine, pure and all-loving. Heaven feels that its dream can be manifested only through the aspiring heart of Mother Earth. Heaven tries to make friends with the heart of earth because it feels that this is the only way it can manifest and transform its dream into reality.

Earth feels that by pleasing and becoming one with Heaven’s consciousness it will be able to bring down God’s Light sooner than at once. Heaven feels that by establishing a deep friendship with the heart of earth it will be able to fulfil its dream as soon as possible. This dream was Heaven’s promise to the Absolute Supreme that, with the cooperation of earth, it would manifest God’s Light, God’s Beauty, God’s Truth, God’s Peace and all His divine qualities here on earth.

Human hunger starts with “I”, but when it turns spiritual it becomes “we”. When it turns absolutely divine, this hunger becomes nothing short of “God-existence”. When we are hungry to achieve and fulfil God the Root, then only can we begin to fulfil the God-Tree’s branches. If we do not have a hunger for the Source, our hunger will not be perpetual, everlasting and immortal. A seeker of the highest Truth comes to realise that with human hunger there will be no satisfaction. Only if we are hungry for the infinite Light will real satisfaction dawn in our lives. The human satisfaction of claiming others we shall deny for the divine satisfaction of self-giving. Not by claiming others as our very own, but only by constant self-offering to the world at large do we attain lasting satisfaction. When we offer ourselves totally and unconditionally to our Inner Pilot, our life-long hunger for oneness with our Source is satisfied for Eternity.

Published in My Rose Petals, part 3

This is the first of 100 talks Sri Chinmoy delivers in 20 days. It is given at 9:30 p.m. in Woodrow Wilson Hall, Monmouth College, Asbury Park, New Jersey.

I Pray, I Meditate

I pray to God and meditate on God.

I pray to God because God is my Lord, my Sovereign Lord, my Lord Supreme.

I meditate on God because God is my Friend, my eternal Friend, my only Friend.

I pray to God because He is powerful and thoughtful.

I meditate on God because He is beautiful and fruitful.

I pray to God to see His Face of Height.

I meditate on God to feel His Heart of Delight.

I pray to God to grant me what He is.

I meditate on God to regain what I have lost.

I pray to God to show me the way.

I meditate on God to transform my life of ignorance-night into a life of wisdom-light.

I pray to God to become the sound-sky in my human life.

I meditate on God to become the silence-sun in my divine life.

In my desire-life I pray to God because I am my necessity's slave.

In my aspiration-life I meditate on God because God and I have become our necessity's mutual satisfaction.

My prayer breathlessly loves God's Compassion-Power.

My meditation unconditionally loves God's Justice-Light.

Salvation-gift I have received from my prayer.

Perfection-gift I have received from my meditation.

I pray to God and meditate on God.

Published in Everest-Aspiration, part 1

Sri Chinmoy Answers

A question about South America
during his visit to Guatemala

Question: Which qualities can we develop more in South America to offer to the world? What kind of special qualities does South America have?

Sri Chinmoy: One most extraordinary thing you have: the feeling of oneness, oneness, oneness. Oneness you have, but dynamic enthusiasm you have to increase if you want to be of service to all the countries that you are mentioning, the South American countries. You need not only enthusiasm, but dynamic enthusiasm. With your dynamic enthusiasm you will be able to bring to the fore the special light that your countries have. The abundant, infinite light that your countries have can be brought to the fore only with dynamic enthusiasm. If you have dynamic enthusiasm, and if your dynamic enthusiasm is in action, then you will be able to perform miracles throughout the length and breadth of the world.

Enthusiasm can be sleeping, or enthusiasm can be dynamic and very progressive. Unfortunately, you are lacking in enthusiasm. Every country has good qualities and bad qualities. But because I have mentioned a bad quality, you should not feel that you are doomed to disappointment. On the contrary, you will muster and collect all your inner strength to do something for your beloved countries and for the whole world. Oneness you have. Oneness of the heart I can see and feel. What you need now is enthusiasm which is dynamic. So try to bring forward your dynamic enthusiasm to inspire the rest of the world and aspire for the rest of the world.

If we have love and other good qualities, then they have to be spread out and for that, only one thing we need: enthusiasm. Every day we must invoke enthusiasm.

If you do not have enthusiasm, that does not mean that tomorrow you will not be able to develop or cultivate enthusiasm. Again, some of my disciples feed their souls and hearts with boundless enthusiasm for months. Then afterwards, the same disciples starve their hearts and souls to death! They work so hard to manifest the Supreme and then they get disappointed and disheartened and their enthusiasm drowns! Then it takes time for them to revive their enthusiasm.

Still other disciples start to give talks with tremendous enthusiasm. They run at top speed. Then, when they are disappointed, they do not lose their enthusiasm altogether; only they go slowly, slowly, slowly. From the speed of a jet plane, they come almost to the speed of an Indian bullock cart, but they never give up. They still maintain their hope. Just because they do not give up, I have such appreciation for them.

Everything has its own time, but on our part, we should not give up. Let the manifestation go at bullock cart speed, but do not give up. Who knows at what point these new little Centres will be able to run fast? We need only one solid person in each Centre. If one person is self-giving and dynamic, then that Centre can remain very, very strong. We have a few Centres like that. One individual keeps the Centre alive.

I wish to tell you a story that happened many, many years ago. My first boss who gave me my job at the Indian Consulate was Mr. Mehrotra. I had no qualifications, but he gave me the job anyway. Later he became the Indian Ambassador to Argentina. At that time, his daughter Aparna developed a very close friendship with a particular disciple of mine. She happens to be the only disciple in Argentina. For years and years she has maintained her eagerness to manifest her Guru's light. Her Centre does not get any more members, but she has never given up, never given up.

When Mr. Mehrotra saw this girl, he said to me, "You do not need more disciples in Argentina! One disciple is enough. How devoted she is to you!" I never forget when somebody says nice things about my disciples.

Published in Conversations with Sri Chinmoy