June 26
June 26
Sri Chinmoy offers a silent meditation at the start of the 9,000-mile Liberty Torch Relay, at Battery Park in Manhattan, NY, USA.
Sri Chinmoy begins his weightlifting career with an overhead lift of 40 lbs. at Aspiration-Ground in Jamaica, New York.
Inauguration of ‘RUNNERS ARE SMILERS’ 2-Mile Races
A talk by Sri Chinmoy on Tuesday evening
at Flushing Meadows Park, Queens, New York
Today we have inaugurated something very beautiful and very, very, very meaningful. I am extremely grateful both to the officials and to the runners. Again and again I am thanking you from the very depths of my heart. You all have my special love and gratitude. I shall be very, very grateful if you can come regularly; I shall offer you my heart of love and gratitude. Unless you are severely injured, you should run regularly. If you cannot run, please come here as spectators. Especially the officials must come regularly. Those of you who are officials, please take this as part of your devoted and selfless service.
I am very, very happy, very pleased, very proud of my children. I sincerely feel that this has been a tremendous success. By next week we will be able to announce this race to many organisations, and they will join us. Two miles is nothing. Invite your friends!
One other thing: I would like both the officials and the disciples who are not participating to please be extremely kind and sympathetic in every possible way to all the runners.
First Weightlifting Anniversary
A prayer by Sri Chinmoy
before weightlifting training at his home in New York
My Lord Supreme, my Beloved Supreme, my Eternity's All, today marks the first anniversary of my weightlifting career.
There was a time when You made me a runner, a sprinter, an athlete.
Now You have turned me into a bodybuilder, a weightlifter.
My Lord, soulfully, devotedly and unconditionally I shall become what You want me to become.
Bodybuilders of the highest magnitude, weightlifters of the highest magnitude, Olympic heroes, are here to celebrate my weightlifting anniversary.
I know, I know, my Lord Supreme, what they are actually doing.
They are sharing their sincere love for Your infinite Compassion in me.
They are all seekers.
Some are conscious seekers, while others are going to be conscious seekers before long.
What do I learn from them?
I learn something most significant.
This lesson I have been learning from You since I was four, when I started praying and meditating with Your infinite Grace.
My Lord, You are the Infinite.
You become the finite, yet You do not lose Your Eternity, Infinity and Immortality.
The finite is also You.
Inside the heart of the finite, You play the role of the Infinite.
Here on earth, when the supreme authorities on bodybuilding and weightlifting come to see me and be part of our oneness-family, I feel that the Infinite and the finite, the big and the small, together can sing the song of oneness-peace-family and thus make You happy, offering You satisfaction in Your own Way.
My Lord, my Lord, my Lord, may my outer name and my inner name be gratitude, gratitude, gratitude — sleepless gratitude, breathless gratitude and deathless gratitude — my Lord, my Eternity's Lord, my Absolute Beloved Supreme.
Published in I Pray before I Lift, I Meditate while I Lift, I Offer my Gratitude-Cries and Gratitude-Smiles
June 26
Listen to the New York singers performing Welcome
Welcome, by Sri Chinmoy, is named an official welcoming song of the City of Albany, capital of New York State, by Mayor Erastus Corning, when it was played on the Carillon at City Hall.
Welcome will be performed to greet dignitaries and state officials visiting Albany. It is one of the Four Universals, four songs composed by Sri Chinmoy for special occasions: Welcome, Congratulation, Thank You, and Farewell.
Sri Chinmoy offers a Peace Concert in the Great Hall at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia.
Excerpts from a letter dated 24 April 1995 from His Excellency Mr. Paul J. Keating, Prime Minister of Australia, regarding the Peace Concert in Australia:
Your activities in inspiring a vision of peace are recognised around the world, as is your special contribution to the United Nations. It would be a privilege to have one of your Peace Concerts performed in Australia.
Peace Concert dedication by Sri Chinmoy:
Today’s Peace Concert I am soulfully offering to the all-illumining soul of the United Nations. Precisely fifty years ago the United Nations saw the light of day in San Francisco, California. The Charter of the United Nations was signed there. Many visionaries were present, but a beloved son of Australia, Dr. Evatt, was endowed with the vision supreme. His vision was clear; his vision was perfect. He wanted the young and the old alike to express their illumining values, to share the truth with the rest of the world. Many were not certain of the destination of the United Nations, but Dr. Evatt's vision was absolutely clear. He was certain that the boat of the United Nations would arrive at the destined goal at God's choice Hour. This world of ours would one day be flooded with peace. A oneness-world would definitely be established.
O Australia, O ancient land, you take a drop from the rest of the world, and in return you offer an ocean. You take a streak of light from the world, and you offer the sun. Your heart's magnanimity forever and forever remains unparalleled in the inner world of aspiration and in the outer world of dedication.
To you, to your heart, to your life and to your soul I bow and bow and bow.
Published in My prayerful salutations to the United Nations
June 25
WORLD CLASS ATHLETES HONOUR WEIGHTLIFTING GURU
JAMAICA, NY — Track and field star Carl Lewis (Sudhahota) was master of ceremonies.
Four-time Olympic gold medalist (discus) Al Oerter and bodybuilding champion Bill Pearl, five-time holder of the Mr. Universe title, were sitting in the front row, enthralled.
These were a few of the athletes attending an unusual celebration June 25-26 of the weightlifting achievements of spiritual Master Sri Chinmoy.
Applying the power of meditation to weightlifting, the 54-year-old spiritual teacher has astonished the sports world with his 240-pound one.arm lifts and 1,300-pound calf raises after only one year’s training. (By the end of July he was lifting 250 pounds with one arm and 1,500 pounds in the calf raise.) He weighs under 160 pounds.
During the two-day event, the visiting athletes took a tour of the Master’s art gallery ... played tennis with the spiritual teacher ... officiated at disciple weightlifting, pushup and headstand contests ... and listened to a medley of 50-odd songs Sri Chinmoy had composed to honour them. “In my whole career there are ... maybe three things that have stuck with me and moved me enough to remember over the years,” Pearl said afterwards.
“But here with Sri Chinmoy is by far the best ... This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
Jim Smith, Registrar of Records for the British Amateur Weight Lifters’ Association and masters champion in the two-handed standing press, also called it “an experience I will never forget for the rest of my days.”
Others attending the celebration of the first anniversary of Sri Chinmoy’s weightlifting included: Cliff Sawyer, President of the Physique Committee of the American Athletic Union and chairman of the Mr. America Committee.
Caption:
Sri Chinmoy with (top) Olympic gold medalists Al Oerter and Carl Lewis (Sudhahota) and (bottom) weightlifting champion Bill Pearl at celebration honouring the Master’s weightlifting anniversary.
Published in Anahata Nada, Volume 14, April-July 1986
June 25
Sri Chinmoy training on a treadmill at his home in New York.
1st Weightlifting Anniversary. Sri Chinmoy first meets with Bill Pearl, 5-time Mr. Universe;
June 25
Sri Chinmoy inaugurates ‘The Garland of Divinity’s Love’ flower store on Parsons Blvd. Jamaica, Queens, New York.
The Significance of a Flower
A talk by Sri Chinmoy
during the inauguration of The Garland of Divinity’s Love
AUM. AUM.
In the Name of the Supreme we are opening this flower shop: The Garland of Divinity’s Love, The Garland of Divinity’s Love, The Garland of Divinity’s Love.
The flower signifies beauty and purity. The flower signifies our awakened consciousness.
The flower talks. As we talk, the flower also talks. We talk to the flower with our eyes. And when we talk to the flower with our eyes, the beauty of the flower talks. There is a running conversation between our eyes and the beauty of the flower.
Then our nose talks. When our nose talks, it talks with the fragrance of the flower. The fragrance of the flower and the human nose talk in a most significant way.
Then there is a talk, a most significant talk, between our consciousness and the purity of the flower. The purity of the flower and the consciousness of our aspiring soul talk together.
The flower sings. As we sing, the flower sings. Early in the morning, when the florist touches the flower with his inspiration, the flower sings with its divine inspiration.
When the customer buys the flower, he buys it with his aspiration. He wants to offer this flower; he wants to use this flower for a special purpose. Inside the purpose looms large his aspiration. When, with his aspiration, the customer buys the flower, the flower sings.
When the customer fulfils his aspiration — that is to say, when the customer takes the flower home and offers it on the altar or gives it to the person it is meant for, whether it is for a special event or for something else most significant — when the purpose is fulfilled, again the flower sings. The flower is fulfilling its purpose.
The flower dances. Early in the morning, when the birds sing on the top of the tree, immediately the flower- consciousness dances with delight. Soon after, when the golden disc, the sun, peeps out, the flower dances once again with Immortality’s Light.
The sun is immortal. When its Immortality’s Light enters into the living breath of the flower, the flower starts dancing. Then, in the evening, when the sun wants to retire in the western sky, when the sun wants to take rest, the sun says to the flower, “My child, now I am resting. I want to offer you my infinite Peace. You also take rest and enjoy infinite Peace.” When infinite Peace enters into the flower, the flower again starts dancing with joy.
When we enter into the world, the flower welcomes us. At that time, when the flower welcomes the soul, the flower offers a divine surprise to the soul. The soul enters into the world and smells profuse fragrance. With the flower, Mother Earth offers her deepest, most sincere welcome to the soul that has entered into her arena. Then, when the individual has played his role on earth for fifty, sixty or seventy years, he has to retire. When his journey comes to an end, Mother Earth offers him her blessingful gratitude. At the beginning, when the child enters into the world, Mother Earth offers him her blessingful joy. When this child grows up, he becomes an adult, a mature man. Then he enters into dotage, old age. When he finishes his role on earth, Mother Earth again blesses him with a flower, this time with blessingful gratitude. The first time she gave blessingful joy, and this time she gives blessingful gratitude, because he has played his role on earth for Mother Earth, for the earth-consciousness.
We offer flowers to a spiritual Master. When we offer a flower to a spiritual Master with folded hands, and again when a spiritual Master accepts the flower with his folded hands, that means he is also offering. While accepting the flower, he is offering his love and joy. His love and joy he offers when he accepts with his folded hands. When we give with folded hands, we also offer our joy and love.
When we offer flowers to spiritual Masters, when we place the flowers at their feet, at that time we are offered compassion and concern. Concern and compassion we get when we place flowers at the feet of holy figures, spiritual Masters.
When we place flowers in front of the picture of our Guru, of our spiritual Master, of a great spiritual figure, at that time we get blessingful gratitude and blessingful pride, for we have the inner awareness to appreciate the spiritual as well as the physical. When we place a flower in front of the picture, at that time we are actually offering our aspiration to the spiritual aspect more than the physical aspect. In the physical of the Master is the Supreme. Again, in the picture also, the living Consciousness of the Supreme is there; but when we stand in front of the physical we get more joy, because the physical proximity makes us feel that we both belong to earth. One person is in the form of the spiritual Master, and the other person is in the form of the disciple.
When we are standing in front of a picture, it is the consciousness that is playing the major role. The Master’s outer limbs are not functioning, but his inner consciousness is functioning, so we are entering into his spiritual world. That means we are adoring, we are loving and we are worshipping the spiritual aspect. While living on earth, when we give importance to the spiritual aspect also, side by side with the physical consciousness, at that time we get blessingful gratitude and blessingful pride from the Master, from the Guru.
I really wish you to buy flowers from this place. Flowers always offer divine fragrance. You can buy flowers very often, if possible every day, for your shrine, for your house. A flower is God’s purest and brightest message. Please try to see all beauty in you, with you and around you in the lap of Mother Earth.
Published in Not Every Day, But Every Moment: illumining questions and answers, comments and talks
June 25
A Sri Chinmoy Peace Bridge connecting the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota is dedicated by the presidents of both city councils.
Sri Chinmoy is presented with the Peace Educator Award by Professor Lester Kurtz at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas.
Letters of Welcome
From Lester Kurtz
20 May 1998
Dear Sri Chinmoy:
On behalf of the Sociology Department and the Ad Hoc Committee on Peace and Conflict Studies, I am delighted to invite you to the University of Texas at Austin on 25 June 1998. We are looking forward to your sharing with us your vision of world peace and will present you with a “Peace Educator” award at that time to recognise your contributions.
Eliza Esquivel-Amin will be working with the Distinguished Speakers Committee to make arrangements for your visit and will be contacting you with further details. In the meantime, I assure you that many of the students, faculty and staff of the University of Texas are looking forward to meeting you when you visit our campus.
Most sincerely,
Lester Kurtz
Professor of Sociology and Asian Studiescc: Ronald Angel, Chair
Department of Sociology
From William S Livingston
27 May 1998
Dear Sri Chinmoy:
I am told that you have accepted an invitation to come to the University of Texas at Austin in June to speak to a group of students on your aspirations and your campaign towards world peace. May I say that many of us are looking forward to meeting you and to hearing your message. The students have invited me to introduce you that evening, which I shall be very pleased to do.
One of the great problems of our time is to extend adequate communications across national and cultural boundaries and to bring the diverse communities of the world together in a common concern for peace and progress. Thus it is with great pleasure that I join the student organisations and the faculty in welcoming you to our campus. It is the participation and visits of people such as you who enrich the experience of our students and provide the flavour and excitement of life in a great university.
I shall welcome you most warmly, and I’m looking forward to meeting you on the 25th.
Sincerely yours,
— William S Livingston
Published in Blessingful Invitations from the University-World
Introduction and Award Presentation
at the University of Texas at Austin
DR. WILLIAM LIVINGSTON (Senior Vice-President, the University of Texas at Austin): Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great, good fortune to be asked this evening to introduce our speaker, and I do so with pride and pleasure.
For a long time Sri Chinmoy has dedicated his life to the achievement of world peace and the fulfilment of the human spirit. He works towards these goals in a number of different ways. He is a poet, an author, an essayist, a speaker, a musician, an artist and, not least, an athlete. Nowadays he works out of New York, but his interests and his travels have taken him to many parts of the globe. He has inspired and encouraged people throughout the world by his activities and by the example of his own life.
The prizes and awards and commendations that he has received make it perfectly obvious that he has touched the lives of many people in many different places.
Texas is widely known as the home not only of individuality, but also of hospitality-a rough and ready culture in which men and women are prepared to stand alone, but in which they are also prepared to lend a hand to a neighbour. I think you will find this audience a congenial one, and one prepared to listen to your message with great interest.
This spring, the University adopted a new slogan or a theme called, "We're Texas." It was intended to enhance our sense of belonging here in Texas and to exemplify the culture of this part of the country. But as you see, the student body of this institution is marked by considerable diversity, both in its composition and in its interest and outlook. We tried to epitomise this slogan in our commencement programme in May by reproducing in it, in as many languages as possible, that slogan that had been adopted. It was thus presented to all the guests at the commencement. The intent was to reproduce it in all the languages represented by people in the student body. I can say to you it was not easy to render it, say, in the Cyrillic alphabet or to translate it into Bengali. But the point I make here is that we ran out of space in the programme before we ran out of languages to put it in. Accordingly, Sri Chinmoy, if you hope to reach out to many different peoples and cultures, I say to you that this is a good place in which to articulate your message.
One of the great problems of our time is, of course, to extend adequate communication across national and cultural boundaries, and to bring the varied communities of our world together in a common concern for peace and progress. Thus it is with great pleasure that I join these student organisations and this faculty in welcoming you to the University of Texas. It is the participation and the visits of people such as yourself that enrich the experience of our students and provide the yeast and flavour of life in a great university.
I welcome you, Sir, to this university and to this audience, and I am most pleased to present to this audience a man of rich experience and one who is deeply committed to an objective to which all of us may subscribe. Sri Chinmoy calls himself "a dreamer of world peace," but as I examine his biography and ponder his message, I have to say that he commits himself not merely to dreams but to actions and efforts. He is here tonight to share with us his dream and to enlist us in those efforts. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose.
DR. LESTER KURTZ (Professor of Sociology and Asian Studies, on behalf of the Department of Sociology and the Ad Hoc Committee on Peace and Conflict Studies): There is such a wonderful turnout for tonight's concert that I am really tempted to give a lecture, but I have this suspicion that you are not here to hear me. And so let me just say that it is a delight to be here to welcome Sri Chinmoy, to have all of you here. Let me simply read the plaque that I'm going to present to Sri Chinmoy.
Reads plaque: "The Department of Sociology and the Ad Hoc Committee on Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Texas at Austin are pleased to present Sri Chinmoy with the Peace Educator Award on the occasion of his visit to the University of Texas at Austin as a distinguished speaker and in recognition of his tireless commitment to world peace. Through his writings, paintings and musical compositions as well as through the global Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run, the International Peace-Blossom family and his worldwide Peace Concert programme, Sri Chinmoy has become a teacher of world peace to millions of people worldwide. Through eloquent words and actions, Sri Chinmoy has been striving to foster humanity's goal of goals: world peace. Austin, Texas, June 25, 1998."
Thank you.
SRI CHINMOY: I wish to offer my heartfelt gratitude to the many faculty, staff and students who have worked so hard for the success of this evening's programme. Highly esteemed Senior Vice-President Livingston, I am extremely grateful to you for your very kind and gracious introduction, as well as for the blessingful letter of welcome which you wrote to me last month. Your entire life has been consecrated to inspiring and encouraging your fellow professors and students at the University of Texas and worldwide. Therefore, I feel specially honoured and prayerfully moved by your soul-stirring words.
I would like to offer my heart's deepest appreciation to Professor Lester Kurtz, Professor of Sociology and Asian Studies and an enthusiastic pioneer of peace studies through the Ad Hoc Committee on Peace and Conflict Studies. Your tireless vision for a world of non-violence and peace has taken you to the four corners of the globe, including my homeland, India, and my heart is all gratitude to you for your kind invitation to your august University. I shall deeply treasure the "Peace Educator Award" which you have just bestowed upon my devoted head and aspiring heart.
May I also thank my student-friends of the Distinguished Speakers Committee for their wholehearted enthusiasm and support for my visit tonight.
Published in Blessingful Invitations from the University-World
June 25
Video by kedarvideo
Sri Chinmoy offers an evening (7:00 p.m.) Peace Concert with an organ recital to an audience of 3,000, at the Royal Albert Hall in London, UK.
Peace Concert Tribute
to Sudhahota Carl Lewis by Sri Chinmoy
at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas
During the Peace Concert, Sri Chinmoy requests Sudhahota Carl Lewis to be on the stage. Before singing a song in honour of Sudhahota, he offers the following remarks:
I am extremely happy and I am extremely proud to have here with us Carl Lewis, the champion of champions, the champion supreme in the world of athletics. He has won nine gold medals — nine! — in his outer life, in the field of athletics. Prayerfully, soulfully, gratefully and, at the same time, proudly, I wish to offer him nine million gold medals from my aspiration-heart and dedication-life for what he has done, not only for the improvement and betterment of athletics but also for his tearful heart for children and for all the suffering humanity.
Our world is making progress, fastest progress. Here is the proof: there was a time, when Carl was a little boy, when his idol supreme was the immortal Jesse Owens. And now in the world of athletics, by virtue of blessings from the immortal Jesse Owens, from Carl Lewis' father and from his mother, and from his well-wishers like me, he has far surpassed Jesse Owens in athletics.
In the inner world, I am not comparing him with gold medals. I am comparing him only with his own heart that he has given and is giving for the improvement of mankind. Many, many, many more summers he will see and I am sure Carl Lewis will do many, many good things to change the face and fate of humanity.
Published in The Inner Meaning of Sport
Listen to Sri Chinmoy playing the Wurlitzer organ
Sri Chinmoy offers a Peace Concert at the Riviera Theater in North Tonawanda, Buffalo, upper New York State. The highlight of the concert is Sri Chinmoy’s performance on a 1926 Wurlitzer band organ.
On the Bus to Buffalo
Sri Chinmoy expresses his gratitude
to the disciples who had enthusiastically sung many of his songs during the bus trip to Buffalo, New York
My heart-money from my soul-bank
All of you I thank and I thank
and I thank and I thank,
and I withdraw all my heart-money
from my soul-bank
to offer to you.
Published in The Temple and the Shrine
June 25
Spirituality as an Art
A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at (7:30 p.m.) at the University of Birmingham, England
Dear seekers, dear sisters and brothers, I wish to give a talk on spirituality as an art. Spirituality is not only an art, but a divine, illumining and fulfilling art. The work of a human artist very often expresses his individuality, his personality and his earthbound consciousness. The work of a divine artist expresses God the Beauty, God the Divinity and God the Reality. The human artist either surrenders to fate or revolts against fate. The divine artist accepts fate and finally transforms fate.
Art is creation; creation is art. Human art is often a forced creation. In ordinary human art the physical, vital, mind and heart are often forced to try to create something beautiful, lasting and immortal. But in spiritual art nothing is forced. In spiritual art the psychic being comes to the fore and tries to offer the inner art, which is already immortal. The psychic being inspires the body, vital, mind and heart to participate and cooperate in the creation of the work of art.
The great American philosopher Emerson said something most significant with regard to art. He said that in art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire. In spiritual art the same rule is applicable. But here we have to say also that the heart can never execute anything higher than the soul can inspire. In ordinary human art we often notice a yawning gulf between the heart’s loftiest inspiration and the hand’s limited capacity. But in spiritual art there is no yawning gulf between the soul’s capacity and the heart’s receptivity. The heart becomes a conscious instrument of the soul’s capacity and the soul’s capacity operates in and through the heart’s receptivity. The aspiring receptivity of the heart and the illumining capacity of the soul complement each other.
Each artist has a human artist and a divine artist within himself. The divine artist and the human artist play hide-and-seek within his creativity. When the human artist within him comes to the fore, the person exhibits his art with the hope of receiving appreciation and admiration. He wants the critics and admirers of art to extoll his art to the skies. But when the divine artist comes to the fore, the artist does not need or want appreciation; he wants only to elevate the earth-consciousness through his divine art, to energise and immortalise the earth-consciousness through his divine art.
Both spiritual art and ordinary human art deal with beauty. The human artist has come to feel and realise that the beauty in his art is skin-deep. But the divine artist has discovered something totally different. He has discovered that beauty is soul-deep. When one discovers soul-deep art, one is inspired to dive deeper. When he dives deeper, he discovers God the Art. God the Art is at once the revelation and the manifestation of the ever-transcending consciousness of the Eternal Now. Soul-deep art is constantly leading and guiding the terrestrial consciousness to the ever transcending Reality.
Spiritual art is divine discovery. It realises that the supreme discovery can be made only in and through spirituality. The supreme discovery is God-realisation. The ultimate aim of spiritual art is God-realisation. God-realisation comes only through hard work. Nothing lasting can be achieved overnight. It may take quite a few incarnations, quite a few centuries, before one sees God face to face or merges with the infinite Peace, Light and Bliss. In the ordinary human world we know how hard Hillary and Tenzing worked in order to climb Mount Everest. Spiritual art, the divine discovery, also means climbing up to the highest pinnacle. The motto of this august university is most significant: “Through hard work to the heights.” This motto is the universal message, the universal teaching, of all spiritual art.
It is said that one can simplify everything, that everything can be made easy. But if the supreme art, the art of God-realisation, could be made easy through money-power or some other power, then every day thousands or millions of human beings would be able to realise God the supreme Artist. But this is not true. For the art of God-realisation we need aspiration. This aspiration eventually will knock at God’s Door, and God will open the Door to the aspiration of each divine artist. If we want to discover the supreme art or the supreme Artist, we have to strengthen our friendship with two divine friends of ours: aspiration and patience. With aspiration and patience eventually we shall reach God’s transcendental Height.
Right in front of me is a harmonium. If I tried to draw or paint this harmonium, if I tried to offer all my artistic talent to reveal and manifest the essence of this harmonium, the divinity that I would offer to the world would be very limited and insignificant. But if I placed in front of me a picture of the Saviour Christ and tried to draw him, if with my utmost inner aspiration I used my artistic talents and capacities to try to reveal the quintessence of the Christ Consciousness, then if I succeeded in revealing just an iota of this Consciousness, my achievement would become a unique treasure of Mother Earth. If our painting reveals more of the potentiality of the soul and makes it easier for this potentiality to be assimilated, then we have brought to the fore the essence of all-pervading divinity.
There is a very common maxim that says: “Art for art’s sake.” But I wish to say that spiritual art cannot be just for art’s sake. Spiritual art can be only for God’s sake. When God-manifestation can take place in abundant measure, spiritual art is consciously, soulfully and devotedly playing its role. In human art there is a creative motive and a finished product. The cause is followed by the effect. In spiritual art there is no motive or cause; everything is spontaneous. The result, which is already there, is only waiting for God’s choice Hour to be manifested. In spiritual art the artist depends entirely on his soul’s awakening, his heart’s inner mounting cry, his mind’s conscious and constant search for the highest Truth, his vital’s dynamic approach to the ultimate Reality and his body’s unconditional service to divinity’s height.
In ordinary art very often the artist and the critic inside him go together. Each must play his respective role; otherwise, the artist will always think that his art is by far the best, and that it transcends all criticism. Each time an artist creates something, if the critic in him also plays a significant role, then the artist may attain a satisfactory standard. But again, if the critic constantly and mercilessly plays his role, then the artist may not survive: he may die through his own self-criticism.
When a spiritual seeker enters into the field of art, he does not criticise his art. He does not play the role of a critic; he plays the role only of a conscious, constant, awakened and unconditional instrument of his Inner Pilot, the supreme Artist. He is not the doer; he is only the conscious instrument of the doer within him. He feels that the supreme Artist within him is the supreme Inspirer, the supreme Revealer, the supreme Liberator and the supreme Fulfiller of the Consciousness divine that is going to be manifested through his art.
Here we are all seekers; we are all spiritual artists. Let us dive deep within and discover the supreme Artist within us, who is constantly supplying us with infinite inspiration and aspiration to reveal the supreme Light, Delight and Perfection through our spiritual art. Our spiritual art is Self-discovery. Self-discovery and God-discovery are one and the same. Today Self-discovery is our Goal. Tomorrow God-manifestation will be our Goal. Today let us dive deep within for God-realisation. Tomorrow we shall dive deeper for God-manifestation, which is the supreme, ever-transcending, eternal Art.
Published in My Rose Petals, part 3
