Progress And Spirituality

Question: How Can I Make The Fastest...

Question: How can I make the fastest progress?

Sri Chinmoy: First pray for gratitude, Pray to the Supreme for gratitude and offer gratitude to the Supreme. This is the first lesson. There are millions of people on earth who are not praying and meditating, but you have been given the inspiration to pray to the Supreme. So naturally you are grateful.

In some cases the disciples feel that they are not sincere, that they are not pure. But this only hinders their progress. When you think of sincerity, think of it in such a way that your mind does not get a chance to bring forward your insincerity. When you repeat, "I want to be sincere, I want to be sincere," this does not mean that all the insincere actions that you did yesterday must come forward. Use the positive side, "I want to be sincere, I want to be sincere," and offer your sincerity to the Supreme. Don't consciously think of insincerity or cherish insincere thoughts. While you are praying for sincerity, if they come, well and good. You will offer them to the Supreme. Otherwise, your prayer for sincerity has to become one with the light, since prayer itself is light, and that light will enter into you in the form of sincerity. Prayer is like a magnet bringing light, and that light will illumine your insincerity. But consciously if you think of your impurity and insincerity, then purity and sincerity will never visit you. If they come, they will be totally lost. Your prayer for purity, your prayer for sincerity is enough. Your prayer is bringing down light and that light will enter into your obscure vital and illumine you.

Question: Guru, How Is It Possible To...

Question: Guru, how is it possible to tell whether you are ascending or descending when the movement takes place in such small steps?

Sri Chinmoy: Anybody can know whether he is ascending or descending. When you are descending, immediately your inner joy, your inner satisfaction goes away. You can fool others, but you can't fool yourself if you are sincere. You can try to fool yourself or deceive yourself by grasping some divine quality with your mind or your vital. But when your inner world becomes barren, you really fed miserable if you are sincere. If you don't feel miserable when your inner life is barren, that means that you are trying to convince yourself that nothing is wrong, when actually everything is wrong. Your house is totally burnt down, destroyed, but you say, "Oh no, my house is not burnt. This is not my house. My home is somewhere else." But you definitely know that it is destroyed. Or if you have one dollar and then you don't see it again, you know that you have lost it. How can you say that you have not lost it? It is just a dollar, but you know that it is gone.

Question: Guru, How Do We Get So...

Question: Guru, how do we get so fooled that we don't know exactly when we lose some divine qualities?

Sri Chinmoy: When you lose something, for a few days you feel a little sad. Then, afterwards, the thing that you lost does not come to your physical mind. You feel that you did not have that very thing or that the thing which you lost was not important.

In this world people are so clever in deceiving themselves. They achieve something today and they are satisfied. Then they lose that thing and still they are satisfied. We think this means that we are perfect. But here we have to know that it is not true. It means that we don't have aspiration, that we are like absolutely ordinary human beings. They say, "If you get something, well and good; if you don't get something, well and good." This is the attitude on the lowest plane, where there is no aspiration. When there is no aspiration, people lead a very ordinary life. If one day they get a morsel of food, they are satisfied; another day, if they don't get food, again they will accept this.

But spiritual people aspire to go high, higher, highest, and then they surrender to God's Will. If God feels that they should wait at one point for a few days before climbing up still higher, then they wait. But there is a great difference between these people and absolutely undivine people who are not aspiring at all. The undivine people are happy; but their happiness is the happiness of inconscience, where there is no light. Your happiness will come when you go up high, higher, highest and then surrender yourself to God's Will. When you surrender to God's Will, God Himself will take care of your life.

Just think of where you were six months ago, eight months ago, one year ago. Immediately you will see that you have lost the intense feeling that you had for the inner life when you first began. But the spiritual life should not be like that. You have to feel that every day means new hope, new life. The journey is eternal. Every day you have to feel that there is something new to achieve, something new to grow into. Every day, when morning dawns, feel that you have something new to accomplish. You are running and every day you are advancing one step ahead. You are always in the process of running in the inner life. Each day please feel that you have to cover one metre more.

Question: How Can I Regain The Spiritual...

Question: How can I regain the spiritual height that I once achieved?

Sri Chinmoy: You have to feel that what you have lost is really something worth having. If you have lost something and you feel, "Oh, that thing that I have lost is not worth anything," then you will never get it back. Some people are so clever. They try to be happy by forgetting about what they have lost. But that is no good. If you forget about what you have lost, then you will not try to regain it. Only by running for it will you get it again. Again, it is not good to feel miserable all the time because you have lost something. But you do have to feel that the thing you have lost is very valuable.

If just for twenty-four hours you are repentant, then you will not get it back. You will only say, "I have lost it, I have lost it, I have lost it." You have lost it, that is true; but what are you doing to gain it back? It is easy for me to say that I have lost ten thousand dollars. But by repeating, "I have lost ten thousand dollars," I am not going to get back one cent. I have to work hard again in order to make ten thousand dollars.

Now I have lost my inner wealth, which to me was very significant, very important, very valuable. That very thing I want to get back again. And how do I get it? It is through aspiration. I have to work hard. If I work hard, my work itself is my aspiration. If I again aspire then I will get back my inner wealth and reach my highest standard.

Question: Is Suffering Necessary For Spiritual Progress?...

Question: Is suffering necessary for spiritual progress?

Sri Chinmoy: According to my personal belief, according to my own realisation, suffering is not to be glorified. No! We suffer because we identify ourselves with ignorance. When we are in the vital world, we suffer. When we are in the emotional world, we suffer. When we do something wrong, we suffer. God is not imposing suffering on us; far from it. But if we have done something wrong and the Cosmic Law offers us suffering, then we have to feel that this is something that we need for our own progress. When we do something right, even then sometimes we suffer. The world does not understand us; the world finds it difficult to see the truth in us, and we suffer.

We have to know that we have come into the world to fulfil God's Will. If it is God's Will that we undergo suffering, then we shall have to accept it. But by praying to God and meditating on God, we can change His Will. If we do the right thing, if we act divinely, then He will minimise our suffering or He may eliminate it altogether.

If suffering comes, we have to face it; we have to accept it as an experience on our way. But we do not have to add to our suffering in order to make further progress. We do not have to glorify suffering in order to make higher progress. I don't have to cut off my arms or my nose in order to go to my Eternal Father. I don't have to prove to Him how much I have suffered in order to reach Him. He is my all-loving Father and I have to approach Him with all my love.

Why do we suffer? We suffer because we do not identify ourselves with our inner joy. There is abundant joy in our inner being, but we do not consciously or even unconsciously identify ourselves with the joy that we have within. Many times we consciously and deliberately identify ourselves with outer suffering. Then we are caught in the prison cell of suffering and we don't want to come out. At that time suffering enters into us and plays its role and we cherish it. Then we are helpless.

In the spiritual life, there are many undivine qualities that add to our suffering: fear, doubt, anxiety, worry, depression, jealousy and so forth. When we are a victim to doubt or fear, we suffer mercilessly. But for this suffering we ourselves are responsible. God has given us the necessary faith to know that He loves us and thinks of us and meditates on us. So why should we doubt either God or our own existence?

An aspirant has to feel that God is all the time thinking of us, whether we think of Him or not. But if we are not seekers, then we can never have that feeling. We will think that since we are not thinking of God, then naturally God is also not thinking of us. That is our realisation. But when we follow the spiritual life we come to know that God thinks of us infinitely more than we think of ourselves. Such being the case, we must not be victims to fear, doubt and anxiety, which all contribute to our suffering.

Our philosophy is this: from light we shall grow into more light, abundant light, infinite Light. From joy we shall grow into more joy, infinite Joy. We shall go ahead and not go backwards. We shall not stay in the dark room of suffering. We shall only move forward to the room that is light.

Question: How Can We Avoid Tension In...

Question: How can we avoid tension in our aspiration?

Sri Chinmoy: We can avoid tension in our aspiration if we know how to observe our life properly and wisely. On the one hand, we have to say that every moment is a golden opportunity. We have to feel that if we lose this moment, if we lose this golden opportunity, then we are going to lose everything in God's creation; there will be nothing left for us. We will be totally lost. That is why we won't waste any time. We have today, here and now, or nothing. We have to fight for the light immediately.

God-realisation is such a difficult thing. God-revelation is more difficult and God-manifestation is even more difficult. So the best thing is to be sincere and dedicated and to do everything unconditionally so that we can realise God. We have so many things to do. If we don't do the first thing first, then how shall we reveal God and manifest God?

But there is also another approach. We will do whatever we feel is best for our body, vital, mind, heart and soul. But at the same time we will keep in mind that Eternity is at our disposal. Our source is God, the Infinite, the Eternal. If God is eternal, then naturally we also are. Whatever God is, we also are. If God is dealing with Eternity, then we also have every right to deal with Eternity. If we are aware of our inner life, which is eternal, then there can be no tension. If we can't do something today, then we can do it tomorrow. Ours is not the eternal time of an idle fellow. We are seekers; we are praying, meditating and devoting our lives to God. We are doing our best. But we have to keep in mind that while we will do our very best, it is God who will fix the hour for us. This is the wise way to avoid tension. Every day we are doing our prayer and meditation, so now it is up to God to grant us realisation in His own way. Let God fix the hour for us. On our part, we shall do our very best every day.

Question: If Something Wrong Happens Or If...

Question: If something wrong happens or if I miss some good opportunity, I just pray for surrender, but I don't achieve it.

Sri Chinmoy: You have to feel that you are in a running race. When it is over, you will offer the result to the Supreme. But in your case, when you have lost or done poorly, you suffer and you curse the Supreme. Right before the action takes place, it is easy to offer the action to the Supreme. But afterwards, you blame Him to whom you offered your most soulful surrender.

Again, when we win the race, when the result is most satisfactory, very often the result does not go to the Supreme; it goes to our pride and vanity. We say, "Because of my personal effort, I have achieved this victory. I have worked very hard. That is why I deserve it." Outwardly we say that the result must go to the Supreme, but inwardly we don't offer it.

We have to keep the attitude of surrender and it has to be a living attitude in our life, whether we win or lose. We may fail hundreds of times, but we will keep offering our failure to the Supreme. We shall offer the result either in the form of failure or success with the same cheerfulness. It is a very difficult task and a long process; but this is the only way we can be really happy.

Question: Why Do We Still Experience Anger...

Question: Why do we still experience anger and irritation?

Sri Chinmoy: We are in the process of evolution and continually we are making progress. But perfection does not dawn overnight. Once upon a time, we know how many desires we had. If we become sincere to ourselves, then we know that previously our anger was of the quickest. We used to become furious when anything happened contrary to our volition. Now we don't experience that kind of animal anger. We may become angry when we see undivine things in ourselves or in others, but we are progressing. It may not be continuous progress, but it is continual progress. Slowly and steadily we are freeing ourselves from anger, from doubt and from other undivine qualities that obstruct our path. Just because we have these shortcomings today, we cannot say that these undivine forces will never leave us. Only we have to see whether these undivine forces are increasing or decreasing. We have to look back into the past and see how many hours a day we lived in ignorance and desire-life, and how many hours a day we now live in aspiration-life. If we do this, then we will definitely see that we are progressing.