Sri Chinmoy extracts, part 4

To perfect our human life, by far the greatest necessity is our soul's delight. When we live in the physical, the teeming clouds of desire are natural, necessary and inevitable. When we live in the soul, the ever-mounting flames of aspiration are natural, necessary and inevitable.

When we live in the soul, we spontaneously cultivate God. His Peace, Bliss and Power become ours, absolutely ours. We grow into our spiritual perfection. This perfection is at once our divine heritage in a human body and our unearthly birthright on earthly soil.

The human in us must live under the sheltering wings of the soul. The divine in us must fly and fly into the Beyond with the flying wings of the soul. The human in us must eventually need transformation. The divine in us must eventually need manifestation.

We expect everything from God. It is supremely good and perfectly reasonable, for who else can fulfil us, both in Heaven and on earth? God is our Face within: God is our Smile without.

O my body, you are a gift of the Supreme. Potentiality inexhaustible you have, deep within you. To misunderstand you means to misunderstand the chosen instrument of God.

You want not, you must not, you cannot conquer the length and breadth of the world with your physical strength. Offer your growing heart to the hearts far and near. Offer your glowing soul to the souls around, below, above. Then alone you become the conqueror and possessor of God's entire universe.

O my body, invoke your soul always for you to lead. Invoke! Never shall the monotony of the uneventful life plague you. With lightning speed yours shall be the ceaseless march....upward to the highest, inward to the inmost, forward to the fartherest.

O my heart, I am divinely proud of you. You do not have the shameful and shameless disease - worry! Never do you drink the deadly venom - doubt! Nothing can be simpler than your pure longings. Nothing can be more spontaneous than your glowing feelings. Nothing can be more fulfilling than your selfless love. Nothing has a more immediate access to the Supreme than your inmost cry.

O my heart, your Heavenly day within an earthly day is for God-realisation. Your immortalising minute within a fleeting minute is for God-embodiment. Your revealing second within a vanishing second is for God-manifestation.

A human being has many divine qualities. But there has never been another unparalleled divine quality like man's self-sacrifice, nor can there there ever be. God's own soulful Message to humanity in all walks of life is self-sacrifice. The brightest self-sacrifice can easily ease and diminish the darkest trials and stresses of human life.

He who is all sacrifice can never go through life as a failure. His is the perpetual victory. His is the spontaneous inner joy. What is to be sacrificed? One's life-breath. How to sacrifice? With the feeling on universal oneness.

The important thing is not to use the mind when age is descending upon you. Only use the heart. Just say, "At this point I have to blossom in this way; at that time I had to blossom in a different way. A few years from now I will have to blossom in a totally different way." Each moment has its own most significant beauty. When the time comes, when your life-flower is fully blossomed, then it will be able to give much more joy and fragrance to mankind.

I try to be integral — physically, vitally, mentally, psychically and spiritually. I feel that we should do everything together. That is why I do so many different things. God gave us the body, vital, mind and heart. Each one is part of our existence. We try to bring the best out of them for manifestation. Whatever is good inside the body should be brought forward for its manifestation, whatever is good inside the mind and so on.

Everything that inspires a human being to be a better citizen of the world is good and divine. As a poet, if I can write inspirational poems, then definitely they will serve humanity's aspiration. As an artist, if I can draw something beautiful and soulful, then again it serves and inspires mankind. As a singer and composer, it is the same. No matter what I do, if there is aspiration behind it, then that aspiration enters into mankind as inspiration. When I am composing or performing or doing anything else, the capacity of my aspiration will eventually enter into human beings as inspiration, and they will derive much benefit from it.

The things that I am doing are not my sole monopoly. Everybody can try them and everybody, if they are sincere and dedicated, will reach their goal. When I do weightlifting, I pray and meditate. When I compose songs, I pray and meditate. It is the prayer and meditation in each and every activity of mine that is helping me and others. But this aspiration-life is for all. Everybody wants to succeed. Everybody wants to achieve personal goals in his inner life or his outer life. Everybody wants to be a better person, to make progress, to go beyond. And the best and fastest way to do these things is to use prayer and meditation along with the outer things that are required to achieve the goal.

Everyone needs victory. An animal needs victory. A human being needs victory. The gods need victory. But what the true victory is, this we have to learn. There are two kinds of victory. One is transient, transitory, like a mound of sand. The other is eternal, everlasting. When we gain victory by force, this victory does not last. But when we gain victory as the result of our soul's oneness with the Supreme and our soul's delight, this victory lasts for good.

Real joy means immediate expansion. If we experience pure joy, immediately our heart will expand. We will really spread our wings, and we will feel that we are flying in the divine freedom-sky. The entire length and breadth of the world becomes ours, not for us to rule over, but as an expansion of our consciousness. We become reality and vastness.

Life itself is light, but we do not know how to look at life in the right way. The moment we look at life, we think that it is something transitory, giving us an experience of frustration. We feel it is like a dream. But if we look at life from a different angle, we will feel that it is part of the eternal Life.

Success makes us feel that we have the capacity to do everything. Progress makes us feel that we are not the doers. Progress makes us feel that there is an unseen force deep within us that encourages and inspires our progress, and that inside this progress is our constant progress. This unseen force is the doer; God is the Doer. This is what we learn from progress.

What we need is inner happiness. When you are inwardly happy, then you see that you are really making progress. Again, from inner happiness you can get outer happiness also. When outer happiness comes due to inner achievement, inner progress, then that outer happiness is real happiness.

What is transcendence? Transcendence is a never-ending process, a dynamic reality. We want to transcend precisely because we need satisfaction within and satisfaction without. Our world has two realities, which we use in order to transcend ourselves: ignorance-night and wisdom-light. Ignorance-night we conquer. Wisdom-light we inwardly are. When we become fully aware of the wisdom-light within us, we transcend the reality which we already are and we grow into a higher reality.

"Deep within us there is eternal silence, peace and poise. When we are absolutely calm and quiet, we see that the inner life offers us its own energy. Our human mind may not understand this energy, because it does not originate in the mind, but our heart receives this energy from the soul."

" With your aspiration, your prayer, your meditation, your dedication and your oneness with God’s Will you have to ask God to forgive you for all your mistakes, conscious and unconscious. You have to ask Him to illumine your unconscious mistakes so that you will become aware of them and not make them again... "

" If we do not forgive, it is like placing a heavy load on our shoulders. If I have done something wrong and I do not try to forgive or illumine myself, my mistake will only gain added importance in my life..."

The best thing is every day, before you go to sleep, to pray to the Supreme to forgive you for the things that you have done wrong. This is not the Christian philosophy that says we are all sinners. No, I am only speaking of the conscious or unconscious mistakes that you make in your daily life. You have to ask the Supreme to forgive you for these mistakes and to illumine your mistakes. Real forgiveness, illumination and purification always go together.

continued...