Sri Chinmoy's spirituality
We will never limit ourselves
If we can feel
That there is Somebody deep within us
To inspire us, to guide us,
To mould us, to shape us
And to take us
To an ever-transcending reality.
Sri Chinmoy: Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees (14769); Sri Chinmoy plays flute
In the beginning
An unconditional life
Is a battleground.
But eventually
An unconditional life
Becomes a playground.
Sri Chinmoy: Flower-Flames (133); My last World You Will Hear: Sri Chinmoy plays flute
To climb up the mango tree is realisation. To climb down again with the mangoes and distributethem to those who do not have them is revelation. And after the ditribution, to make them feel that this mango is Nectar and Immortality, and that it is from each human being’s Immortality that the earth-consciousness will eventually be divinised and fully immortalized – this is manifestation.
Sri Chinmoy: The Oneness of the Eastern heart and tehe Western mind; Sri Chinmoy plays flute
We can make satisfactory, conscious and fulfilling progress only by smiling— smiling at the world, smiling at our reality, smiling at Heaven. Each time we smile at any particular reality, if it is a divine reality, our smile immediately increases our capacity and, if it is something undivine, then our smile weakens or destroys its undivine possibilities and potentialities.
Sri Chinmoy: The Oneness of the Eastern heart and tehe Western mind; My Heart-River flows: Sri Chinmoy plays flute
God has shown me
Obstacle-thorns
Only to make me long for
Progress-roses.
Sri Chinmoy: Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants (24657); Tomar-Kripal: Mountain Silence együttes énekli
There is great joy in achieving something, doing something and becoming something. If we can do the most difficult things, naturally we achieve the most, offer the most and become the most. The easiest thing on earth is to become jealous of somebody, to feel insecure or depressed, to become proud or undivine. These things anybody can do. But to see God inside someone else is a most difficult thing. The easiest thing everybody can do and almost everybody does it, but the most difficult thing — how many people are doing it or have done it? How many people have realised God since the beginning of creation?
You are wise enough, all of you, to know the value of God-realisation, the most difficult thing to do. That is why you are here. To realise God is like completing the 400-metre dash, whereas to act undivinely or to harbour undivine qualities is like running one metre. The moment you start your journey, you reach your goal. But if you continue running in the 400-metre dash, then immediately one metre goes away, then two, then three, four, five and so on, until you reach your goal. On your way, you leave behind the one metre which was your jealousy. You leave behind the second metre, which perhaps was your insecurity. You leave behind the third metre which was perhaps your pride and vanity; and so on. The moment you reach your goal and become one with the goal, all the metres that you covered on your way are far behind you.
The problem with many seekers is that although they have started their journey, they do not feel the necessity of reaching the goal. They are just taking a morning walk and enjoying fresh air. Only if you feel the necessity of arriving at the goal will you be constantly and dynamically on the move. The goal is four hundred metres away, but after covering one metre, if you feel afraid that you will not reach the goal, if you feel that the goal is quite far away and you decide to give up, then you have to start again from the very beginning. Next week or next year when you want to run again, you have to start back where you began.
In the spiritual life also, if you stop your journey for a sizeable length of time because of jealousy, insecurity or any other undivine reason, you are lost. In the ordinary life, when you stop at a particular place, very often you stay there for a few months or even for a few years. But in the spiritual life it is not like that. If you have made considerable progress in the spiritual life, ignorance becomes terribly afraid of losing you. Then if you stop, ignorance pulls you so hard that you go back farther than your original starting point.
But shall we surrender to ignorance? No! Because of our wisdom, we want God, only God; we want Light, only Light. If we can increase our love of God, then we can easily overcome the ignorance-power that is attacking us.
Now, how can you maintain your love for God? Every morning you have to feel that you are a most beautiful flower in God’s Heart-Garden. And who is the Gardener? It is God Himself. As the Creator, He Himself creates you as a flower; and again, as the Gardener, He breathes in the beauty and smells the fragrance of His creation. Then He gets tremendous joy.
Sri Chinmoy: The divine hero; Nath, Nath, Nath: Mountain Silence
Question: Do you believe in reincarnation? Who were you before and who will you be in your next life? Can a spiritual man decipher the mysteries of life?
Sri Chinmoy: I do believe in reincarnation. In one lifetime it is impossible to reach the Highest and manifest the Highest. In each successive incarnation we try to make more progress. We are like a plant that is growing up high, higher, highest. One day we will be a huge tree with countless leaves, most fragrant flowers and delicious fruits. But this cannot happen overnight.
God has created us. The very purpose of creation is the manifestation and fulfilment of God’s Vision here on earth in and through each individual soul. God will never allow any person to remain unfulfilled. But in one lifetime we cannot accomplish everything. Even on the earthly, material plane we cannot fulfil all our desires. At the age of seventy we may see that some of our desires from our early childhood have not yet been fulfilled. Similarly, on the spiritual plane, we cannot fulfil all our aspirations in the short span of one life. We must come back again and again to make inner progress and eventually transform God’s transcendental Dream into fruitful Reality.
In my immediate past incarnation I was a spiritual Master in India with just a handful of extremely soulful and devoted disciples. In that incarnation, I lived in circumstances of extreme simplicity, perhaps I should even say austerity. Although I offered my inner goodwill to the world, my role in that lifetime was not to work in the world but to concentrate on my own spiritual progress and that of a few excellent disciples. Both God’s Justice and Compassion are needed for the transformation of earth’s consciousness. In my immediate past incarnation, God used His Justice-Light for me, in me and through me more than He used His Compassion-Height. In this incarnation it is absolutely the reverse. Right now it is God’s Compassion that is playing a greater role in inspiring, uplifting, illumining and fulfilling countless God-seekers through me.
With regard to future lives, my Beloved Supreme, out of His infinite Bounty, has repeatedly told me that this incarnation of mine marks the unmistakable end of my earth-pilgrimage. In the future I will continue to love, serve and please my Lord Supreme in His own Way from the inner and higher worlds.
A spiritual man cannot necessarily decipher the mysteries of life. Only the highest spiritual giants can and do decipher the mysteries of life. Then it is the bounden duty of these spiritual giants to share their wisdom and light with the spiritually hungry and thirsty humanity.
Sri Chinmoy: World destruction. Never, impossible!; Jiban Debata: Sri Chinmoy’s Cologne Concert 1984
Why should it be God’s Will for us to quarrel and fight and kill each other? This is not God’s Will, it is our will, and He is just tolerating us.
Sri Chinmoy: The illumination of life-clouds part 1.; Sri Chinmoy plays flute
Mere acceptance of the spiritual life
Is not enough.
You must avail yourself
Of each golden opportunity,
And throw your heart and soul
Into your progress-life.
Sri Chinmoy: Ten Thousand Flower-Flames (7439); Oi je dureshuni nupur dhwani: Hiya Bhasha
Without peace we do not and cannot live like true human beings. We desperately need peace-peace within, peace without. So how is itt hat we do not have peace, wich is so important in our life? We do not have peace because of our hunger for posession. We want to possess the world. But is there anything on earth which we can claim as our own, very own? We can consider something to be our possession only when we have the last word about it, only if whatever we say goes. But even the members of our own reality-existence — our body, vital and mind — don’t listen to us and are not within our control. Instead, they try to control us.
We want our body to be active, but our body wants to wallow in the pleasures of lethargy. We want our vital to be dynamic, but instead our vital becomes aggressive and tries to destroy others. We want our mind to be inundated with faith, but instead our mind always doubts and suspects. It is inundated with doubt at every moment. It not only doubts others, but it also doubts its own capacities, its own achievements, its own realities, its own realisations. This moment the mind will say that you are a very good person. The next moment the same mind will say that you are very bad. The following moment the mind will wonder, “Am I right in doubting that person?” First we say that someone is nice; next we say that that same person is bad. Then we start doubting our mind’s capacities. Once we start doubting the reality and the authenticity of our mind, destruction starts. When we doubt someone else, we may not gain or lose anything very significant. But when we start doubting ourselves, then our reality-life comes to an end.
If we can’t control our own body, our own vital or our own mind, then how do we dare to claim these as our own? Even if we say that they are our possessions, we see that death will eventually come to snatch them away. The things that we cannot keep permanently, we cannot claim as our own possessions. So how can we renounce them? The very idea of renunciation is ridiculous because we do not have anything to renounce. If we dive deep within, we see that we are veritable beggars. How can a beggar renounce anything?
So possession brings frustration, and renunciation is fruitless. What, then, can give us peace of mind? Only acceptance of God’s Will can give us true peace of mind. By accepting God’s Will as our own, very own, we can get peace. Then only can our life be fruitful. In God’s Eye there is no such thing as possession and renunciation. In God’s Eye there is only one thing: acceptance — acceptance of God’s Will. In our heart, in our life, there is only one ultimate prayer, the prayer that the Saviour Christ has taught us: “Let Thy Will be done.” Millions of prayers have been written from time immemorial, but no prayer can equal this one: “Let Thy Will be done.” When we accept God’s Will as our own, at every moment peace looms large in our life of wisdom, in our life of aspiration and in our life of dedication.
How can we know something is God’s Will? When something is God’s Will, we will feel a kind of inner joy or satisfaction even before we start doing it. While working, we will also get joy. Finally, we feel that we will be equally happy if our action is fruitful or fruitless. In the ordinary life we are happy only when success dawns. Only when we see victory at the end of our journey are we happy and delighted. But if we can have the same kind of happiness, joy and satisfaction whether we succeed or fail, and if we can cheerfully offer the result of our actions at the Feet of our Beloved Supreme, then only can we know that what we have done is God’s Will. Otherwise, when there is success, we feel that what we did was God’s Will, and when there is failure, we say that what we did was the will of a hostile force. Or when we succeed we say it is because of our personal effort, our will, and when we fail we say it is because God does not care for us.
We can blame God at our sweet will. We can misunderstand Him at our sweet will. When we fail, we can blame God, and when we succeed, we can try to get the glory for ourselves. But if we are sincere seekers, and if we want real abiding happiness, then we shall do the things that we feel are good and right, and the results we shall offer to the Supreme. Success and failure are two experiences. These two experiences we have to unify, and whichever experience we get at the end of our endeavour, we have to offer to the Supreme with tremendous joy. If we can place the result at the Feet of our Beloved Supreme soulfully, cheerfully, unreservedly and unconditionally, then without fail we will have true peace of mind. At that time peace of mind will come and knock at our life’s door. We will not have to wait for peace of mind; it will be waiting for us.
To have peace in abundant measure, we have to surrender our earth-bound will to the Heaven-free Will of our Beloved Supreme. We have to cheerfully, soulfully, devotedly, unreservedly and unconditionally surrender our limited human reality to the universal or transcendental Reality. This surrender is not like the surrender of a slave to his master. This surrender is based on the wisdom-light that recognises a difference between our own highest height and our own lowest depth. Right now, even as seekers, we often embody the lowest depth of consciousness, whereas the highest height of Consciousness is represented by our Beloved Supreme. Both the highest and the lowest belong to us. When we surrender our will to the Will of the Supreme, we offer our lowest part to our highest part, for the Supreme is none other than our own highest Self.
We are like a tiny drop, and the Supreme, our Source, is like the vast ocean. When the drop enters into the ocean, it loses its limited individuality and personality and becomes the ocean itself. Again, it does not actually lose anything; it only increases its existence-light unimaginably. Similarly, if we maintain our own individuality and personality, we will always be assailed by fear, doubt and other negative and destructive qualities. But when we enter into the Source, which is all light and delight, at that time we acquire all the divine qualities and capacities of the Source. In this way, when we surrender our lowest self, which we now represent or embody, to our highest Self, we get peace of mind and our entire being is inundated with joy, light and delight.
Right now fear, doubt, anxiety, tension and disharmony are reigning supreme. But there shall come a time when this world of ours will be flooded with peace. Who is going to bring about that radical change? It will be you: you and your sisters and brothers, who are an extension of your reality-existence. It will be you and your oneness-heart, which is spread throughout the length and breadth of the world.
Sri Chinmoy: Inner and outer peace; Sri Chinmoy plays piano (Philadelphia Civic Center, Nov. 14, 1989)
Sunlit path 