Transformation And Perfection Of The Body

Question: How Can We Use The Senses...

Question: How can we use the senses properly?

Sri Chinmoy: The proper fulfilment of the senses will come only from God. The body has the senses, but the body is not the owner; the real owner is God. If we can consciously go to the owner, then the owner will tell us how to utilise His possessions properly.

The senses are instruments, God’s instruments. God originally entrusted us with these instruments, but we consciously chose not to ask God how to utilise these senses. Instead of asking God how to use the senses that He had given us, we asked the wrong teacher, ignorance. Or rather, before we actually asked ignorance to teach us, he I came running to us to offer his wisdom. Since we gladly listened to him, we are now paying the penalty.

We could use our eyes, for example, to see the divine beauty in humanity and in all of God’s creation. We could see the divine Light everywhere. But instead, what do we do with our eyes? We use our eyes either to possess the world or to reject it. When we see something that pleases us, immediately we try to possess it. And when we see something that displeases us, we try to reject it. The universe is all Light, but we do not see it. If we had taken the lesson from God on how to use the eyes, nose, ears and other sense organs, He would have given us proper instruction.

There is always time to receive instruction from God: better late than never. Each aspirant can consciously and devotedly pray to God to instruct him from within on how to use the senses. God will be most happy and proud to teach us. But we do not have to ask God about each sense individually. We need only approach God with sincere aspiration, and inside our aspiration He will see what we are crying for.

Question: Could You Say Something About Self-Control...

Question: Could you say something about self-control in the body?

Sri Chinmoy: In the spiritual life self-control is most important, significant and fruitful. No self-control, no self-realisation! Self-control is the most difficult concept to practise. If one wants to have self-control, one has to surrender oneself to the Source. This Source is Light; this Source is God.

A child wants to have many things—many useless, harmful things. But the mother knows that if she gives the child these things, he will be ruined. And just because mother and child are one, the mother will also be ruined. So the mother does not fulfil the child’s countless unlit, destructive desires. Similarly, the body is a child. If you fulfil all its desires and demands, in the long run your life will be ruined.

Why does the body not listen to us when we try to control it? The answer is very simple. Our body does not listen to us because we do not listen to our soul. If we will listen to our soul, the body also will listen to us.

Question: How Can I Conquer My Physical...

Question: How can I conquer my physical desires?

Sri Chinmoy: First of all, we have to know whether desire really fulfils us or not. We think that when our desires are fulfilled we shall be happy. Before we actually desire, we have the fruit of the desire in our mind; that is to say, we feel that the desire will bring us satisfaction or fulfilment. But since we have launched into the spiritual life, we will feel with our inner being that desire can neither satisfy nor fulfil us. Once we feel this we can easily avoid desire or turn our life to other things.

When we are in the ordinary world, we see the fulfilment of desire as taking the form of satisfaction; that is why we get some hope of happiness in trying to fulfil our desires. But if we observe the life of desire from the spiritual point of view, we will see that in the first chapter there is no light, in the last chapter there is no light, and in the chapters in between there is no light. The light of desire is darkness from beginning to end. Darkness means absence of divine satisfaction. There is no satisfaction either in the birth of desire or in its fulfilment. Desire and aspiration are two worlds. For a non-aspirant, desire is the all-important thing on earth. For a seeker, aspiration is the all-important thing on earth. An ordinary, unaspiring person does not consciously have the capacity to go beyond the boundaries of pleasure. But he who wallows in the mire of desire eventually feels that inside the mire is frustration, and inside frustration is destruction. He eventually realises that when he lives in the realm of the physical and material desire, he is caught in the jaws of a devouring tiger. But the sincere seeker begins his journey with aspiration; the middle of his journey is aspiration and the end of his journey is also aspiration. Inside aspiration, from the very beginning, there is divine satisfaction. The moment one aspires, one feels true satisfaction, because aspiration has the capacity to identify itself consciously and soulfully with the farthest corners of the globe, with the deepest and inmost Being and with the highest transcendental Self. If one feels the real necessity of aspiration, one will see that no desire—whether physical, vital or mental—can knock at his heart’s door. Instead, Peace, Light, Delight and other divine qualities will freely abide there.

As you know, the sun rises in the East. If you face the sun early in the morning when you meditate, your concentration and meditation will be directed to the East. If you are running toward the sun, you will not be able to see other directions properly. But if you are running East while looking toward the West, you will lose speed and stumble. So if you see that the goal is in one direction, you have to focus your attention in that direction and run in that direction. Always, at every moment, you have to aim at your goal. If your goal is God-realisation, if your goal is liberation, then you should not look behind you or around you, but only run toward the Light.

How can you conquer your physical desires? Do not think of physical desires; think of your aspiration. Try to be a runner, and try all the time to surpass and go beyond all that is bothering you and standing in your way. Be a real runner so that ignorance, limitations, imperfection will all drop far behind you in the race.

Aspiration-cry is the only answer. I have written an aphorism which says:

When I think, I sink.

When I choose, I lose.

When I cry, I fly.

When I think of the entire world, of worldly problems, I sink. When I choose, when I make my own decisions, I really lose, because it is God who should make all decisions in and through me. But when I cry from the inmost recesses of my being, immediately I get inner strength, inner power, the inner urge and inner capacity in infinite measure to fly in the firmament of Light and Delight.

Question: What Is The Highest Kind Of...

Question: What is the highest kind of purity I can aspire to?

Sri Chinmoy: The highest kind of purity is purity in the physical, that is to say, the lower physical, the emotional vital. The region below the navel has to be purified totally. Human beings have purity to some extent in the heart; in the mind there is very little. In the vital, purity is mixed up with impurity; there dynamism and aggression work together. So whenever you feel aggression, it is impurity, and when you feel divine dynamism, it is purity. Below the vital is the physical. There, due to inertia and sloth, darkness reigns supreme. Where there is darkness, impurity is bound to play its role.

You have to aspire for purity in the gross physical. How can you do it? It is through constant prayer and your constant inner cry for Light. Light and darkness cannot stay together. Impossible! Just as fear and courage cannot go together, similarly purity and impurity cannot stay together.

Question: Does Your Philosophy Say That The...

Question: Does your philosophy say that the body always has to be an obstacle in the communication with God and can never be a part of our self-offering to God?

Sri Chinmoy: No, the body need not always be an obstacle, a hindrance to God-realisation. The body is unconscious right now, true. But it need not always be so. An infant is unconscious, but that does not mean that he will not grow into childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Let us regard the body as an unconscious child. The child will grow through the inner nourishment it gets from the soul on the strength of our aspiration. When a child goes to school, he gets knowledge. He also gains inner wisdom day by day. Similarly, when we pray, concentrate and meditate, we are invoking Light inside us, and this Light tries to permeate our whole outer existence.

You are absolutely right when you say that the body is a hindrance. It is a hindrance for a long time, until the Light of the soul comes forward and takes charge of the body. But if you say that the body will constantly and eternally stand against the soul, then you are making a mistake. If the body were to stand permanently against the soul’s possibilities, then nobody would be able to realise God. For God-realisation takes place only on this planet, only on earth.

In the beginning it is absolutely true that the body stands against the soul’s progress. But there comes a time when the soul comes to the fore and compels the body to become its faithful, perfect instrument. This achievement represents the victory of both the body and the soul. When the soul consciously makes the body feel what it should do, and when the body is willing to listen to the dictates of the soul, then the body and the soul run together. At that time, realisation, revelation and manifestation become inevitable. When we are advanced, when we are nearing our Goal, we see that the physical consciousness is totally merged in the psychic consciousness, and we see the body in its transformed luminosity. The soul and the body become part and parcel of the one Truth, and that Truth is God the infinite.

There is a piano and there is a pianist. Both are equally needed to produce music. If there is no instrument, how can the player play? And again, if there is no player, the piano cannot function. Similarly, the soul needs the body in order to fulfil its highest mission. And the body needs the soul to give purpose to its existence, to realise the Highest.

Question: How Can One Divinise The Human...

Question: How can one divinise the human body?

Sri Chinmoy: There are two methods to divinise and transform the body. One is through constant aspiration, the physical aspiring along with the soul. The other is through evolution. After going back to the soul’s region and returning to earth many times, the soul will gradually reach a stage at which it will be able to act here on earth the way the Supreme wants. At that time, it will be in a position to transform the body from within.