Month: July 2019

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Problems

Question: Would you speak to us about the reason for adversity and problems in our life?

Sri Chinmoy:  Adversity makes you dinamic. Adversity forces your eyes wide apart. Adversity teaches you the meaning of patience. Adversity endows you with faith in yourself. Adversity leads us inward to correct and perfect our march to life. prosperity leads us onward to illumine and imortalize our human bith.

In prosperity our inner strength remains static. In adversity our inner strength becomes dynamic.
None can deny the fact that every step of progress which the world has made has come from both the smiles of prosperity and the tears of adversity. Adversity, like poverty, is no sin. One merit of adversity none can deny: it helps us to be stronger within. The stronger we are within, the brighter we are without. “No suffering, no salvation,” so says the teacher Adversity to his student, man. “No soul’s delight, no salvation,” so says the teacher Prosperity to his student, man.
The world is strewn with difficulties. In a sense, it is full of thorns. But if you put on shoes you can walk on the thorns. What are these shoes made of? They are made of God’s Grace.

Problems do not indicate man’s incapacity. Problems do not indicate man’s inadequacy. Problems do not indicate man’s insufficiency. Problems indicate man’s conscious need for self-transcendence in the inner world, and his conscious need for self-perfection in the outer world.

You have a problem. He has a problem. She has a problem. Your problem is that the world does not touch your feet. His problem is that the world does not love him. Her problem is that she feels that she does not adequately help God in the world. To solve your problem, you have to conquer your pride. To solve his problem, he has to conquer his greed. To solve her problem, she has to conquer her self-styled and self-aggrandised desiring ego.

 Each problem is a force. But when we see the problem, we feel deep within us a greater force. And when we face the problem, we prove to the problem that we not only have the greatest force, but actually we are the greatest force on earth.

A problem increases when the heart hesitates and the mind calculates. A problem decreases when the heart braves the problem and the mind supports the heart. A problem diminishes when the mind uses its search-light and the heart uses its illumination-light.

Self-denial cannot solve any problem. Self-assertion cannot solve any problem. It is God-manifestation through self-existence that can solve all problems of the present and the future. Our sincere approach to a problem will eventually lead us to a satisfactory solution. Our sincere approach to God will carry our teeming problems in God’s Will-chariot into the infinite, eternal Smile.

If fear is our problem, then we have to feel that we are the chosen soldiers of God the Almighty. If doubt is our problem, then we have to feel that we have deep within us the Sea of God’s Light. If jealousy is our problem, then we have to feel that we are the oneness of God’s Light and Truth. If insecurity is our problem, then we have to feel that God is nothing and can be nothing other than constant and ceaseless assurance to us that He will claim us as His very own. If the body is the problem, our constant alertness and attention can solve this problem. If the vital is the problem, our soaring imagination can solve this problem. If the mind is the problem, our illumining inspiration can solve this problem. If the heart is the problem, our perfecting aspiration can solve this problem. If life is the problem, our fulfilling self-discovery can solve this problem.

 

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The Wisdom of Sri Chinmoy (247-248); Sri Chinmoy’s Cologne concert, 1984

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Saints

Troilanga Swami weighed over three hundred pounds. He lived in Benares and used to spend most of his time bathing in the water of the Ganges. Once he was walking along the street naked, when he passed a new magistrate who had just come to the area. The magistrate became furious and ordered a policeman to arrest the Master and lock him in a small room. The following morning the magistrate saw Troilanga Swami walking outside the room. “How did you come out?” he demanded.

Troilanga Swami answered, “It was so easy. I came out because I felt like coming out. During the night I emptied myself and now it is smelling; therefore, I thought it would be better for me to come out of the room. So I came out.”

This time the magistrate himself put the Master under lock and key, using a double lock. The following morning, the magistrate was working in his office when all of a sudden he saw Troilanga Swami in one corner of the office, smiling at him. The magistrate said, “How is it possible for you to be here?”

Troilanga Swami told him, “You should not disturb the innocent Hindu Yogis. They can do anything they want to. I am walking along the street naked, but I am not interested in any women. In the case of ordinary men, they are full of lust. They have all kinds of emotional problems, lower vital problems, sex problems. But I am not like that. Also, people who look at me see that my body is so heavy and odd. So who will be interested in me? I have renounced the whole world, and at the same time nobody is interested in me in an impure way. So why do you bother me? I am not creating temptation and I am not tempted by anyone. If you want to torture the Hindu Yogis, you will be embarrassed and at every moment you will fail, because we are far above human torture.”

Commentary: A truly God-realised person is he who has the capacity not to be affected by others and, at the same time, not to affect others. He protects himself from the rest of the world and he protects the world from himself. This miraculous achievement of his is due to the inseparable oneness of his body’s divinity with his soul’s supreme universality. The body enjoys the soul’s freedom. The soul enjoys the body’s acceptance of the soul’s reality.

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The Wisdom of Sri Chinmoy, Param Pita: Heart-Garden-Birds

 

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Yoga

Question: Recently I read about a person who was buried alive for eighteen days and then he was able to come back alive. Is there any relation between this sort of thing and what you are doing?

Sri Chinmoy: My teaching is not a kind of miracle-mongering. My business is to help the aspirant to reach God. When one wants to reach God, wants to realise God, I try to help the person. But by being buried underground for eighteen days or by performing other feats, I do not lead my students to God nor are the students helped in their spiritual search. What leads us to God is our aspiration, our inner, mounting cry. So I do not advocate this kind of miracle.

What I want from my students is this inner cry. A child cries for his mother’s love; a spiritual child needs and wants to have infinite love from God. And how can he get it? Only by reaching and realising God. My philosophy and spirituality are different from those who are meant only for displaying and teaching their supernatural capacities, their miracles.

Question: So what that person did has nothing to do with Yoga?

Sri Chinmoy: It has very little to do with true Yoga. Yoga means “union with God”. If somebody does miracles, he is not helping you directly or indirectly to realise God. At most we learn from him that there is no end to human capacity if one enters into the secret domains of the inherent powers of the cosmic realities.

I know of an amusing incident in connection with a fakir in India who used to perform this very feat you mention. He could remain buried for long-periods of time and often lay underground for as long as twenty-one days. Once it happened that when he was dug up from his long burial, the moment he regained consciousness, he looked around frantically for his girlfriend who was standing amidst his relatives, friends and admirers. Having found his paramour, he left the spot immediately with her.

Now did his unusual achievement help the audience in any way in their aspiration for God-Realisation? You tell me. By performing these miracles, we in no way inspire others to unite themselves with God, whereas in helping someone in his aspiration, his concentration and his meditation, we do help the person to realise God.

Question: If a person practices Yoga, what kind of life will be led in his daily activities?

Sri Chinmoy: In his daily activities he has to be, first of all, sincere, honest and pure. He has to have purity in his mind, in his body, in his speech and in his ideas. Anyone can practice sincerity, honesty and purity. Then if he really wants to practice Yoga, the deeper Yoga, each day for about fifteen minutes he must devote himself to his inner search, to his self-discovery. These fifteen minutes of meditation he has to learn from someone who can teach him. He needs a teacher for meditation, for his inner illumination. The individual has to know how sincere he is or how far he wants to go, how deeply he wants to accept Yoga. If he feels that he has to go up to the end of the road, that he wants to reach the goal, then he has to follow some strict, inner discipline and he has to meditate, concentrate and so forth. But if he wants to remain satisfied with obtaining a little peace, joy and light, then what I said at the beginning, in answering your question, applies here. Let him be perfectly sincere in all his activities.

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The Wisdom of Sri Chinmoy; I shall serve my God unconditional: Hiya Bhasha

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Will his next incarnation be different

Question: If one is a spiritual person, will his next incarnation be different from that of an ordinary person?

Sri Chinmoy: Certainly. If a soul is very spiritually advanced, it will not take an ordinary life, because it will have already gone through the ordinary life. Each incarnation is a steppingstone towards our ultimate God-realisation. When one has consciously aspired in his last incarnation, his future birth will hold more opportunities for his spiritual progress. Now if a seeker actually started his spiritual life in his past incarnation, if he was really sincere in his spiritual practices in his previous life, then naturally in this life he will start aspiring at a very young age. He will be born into a spiritual family where he will be encouraged to lead the spiritual life from his very birth, and he will start aspiring when he is ten or twelve or fourteen or sixteen. It may happen, however, that his circumstances are bad. Then even if he had started his spiritual life in his past incarnation, in this incarnation he will go slowly because he will not get help from his parents or from his environment. But it is not a risk; it is a journey. In the process of evolution the soul covers thousands of inner miles gaining different experiences, and it is these experiences that eventually give the soul its fullest realisation.

But if the person was a very great aspirant who was about to realise God, then he will almost definitely come into a very highly developed spiritual family and, from the very beginning, will be able to enter into the true spiritual life. Most of the real spiritual Masters enter into very highly developed spiritual families. God may send a spiritual Master into an unaspiring family, since He is not bound by any plan, but in most cases spiritual Masters come into spiritual families.

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The Wisdom of Sri Chinmoy; Oi je dure shuni nupur dhwani: Hiya Bhasha

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God has chosen

God has chosen the conditions under which you are living your present life. It is like a play. The stage is set and the curtain has been raised for you to perform your part and advance in the spiritual path. Your present conditions are the best possible ones for your advancement.

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Sri Chinmoy: Death and Reincarnation; Evening Stars Call Me: Sri Chinmoy plays flute