Question: Guru, Would You Please Say Something...

Question: Guru, would you please say something about this meditation of yours from Food for the Soul: "I tell the truth. The world is hurt. I tell a lie, God is hurt. What am I to do? Silence. I must live in silence and become the smiling breath of silence. Lo, the world loves me and God blesses me."

Sri Chinmoy: In our day-to-day life when we tell the truth the world is not ready to hear it. The world immediately is hurt. If we flatter people, they like it. They don't deserve our flattery, but they like to hear it. Whenever they don't deserve something and we give it, they are pleased with us.

When I tell a lie, naturally God will be hurt. So I must live in silence and become the smiling breath of silence. Lo, the world loves me and God blesses me. If we really live in silence, in purest silence, then automatically love, purity and inner joy grow within us. Silence does not remain alone. In silence there is joy; there is a kind of inner delight and inner assurance. So when we are in highest silence, the people around us will automatically get the divine qualities that are enveloped by silence. At that time the world will deeply appreciate us.

We may think that by remaining silent we are simply not antagonising anybody. But our very silence, if it is divine silence, emanates inner divinity. And this inner divinity enters into those who are around us. Then they will really love us, for unconsciously they will feel something beneficial coming from us. They may not actually know what we are offering them, but they will feel that we are giving them something solid, something soulful, something significant which they need. At that time they will deeply appreciate our offering.

God will immediately bless us if He can turn our existence into a sea of silence. And if we can free ourselves from this world of turmoil, worries and hesitation, then God will again bless us. In the sea of silence grows our true divine life. The divine life can grow in each individual only if he can have silence within and silence without. This silence is not the silence of a dead person. It will act most dynamically, most powerfully, but not in an aggressive way. It will act with the soul's power. While we are acting, inwardly we remain calm and poised. Again, while we are silent, we are running very, very fast, even though there may be no outer movement or outer gesture. Everything is done in the inner world, the soul's world, where silence is most dynamic and most fulfilling. When we have that kind of silence, naturally God will bless us, because we have discovered the Truth and we are living the Truth.

Question: How do we begin to develop sincerity?

Sri Chinmoy: One can develop true sincerity provided one starts his journey with soulful gratitude. Say that a seeker has come to attend one of our Centre meetings. His parents have not come with him, his relatives may be watching television, his acquaintances perhaps have gone to a bar or a cocktail party. He could have also done the same things that his family or acquaintances have done, but he did something different. He came to a spiritual gathering. Who has inspired him to do the needful? Someone from within him. If it was left to him alone, perhaps he would have gone the same way as his friends, relatives and acquaintances. But he knows that there is a higher Power that brought him to this place for meditation. He should come with a gratitude-heart because already he has achieved something. When he comes with a gratitude-heart, he has already established some sincerity. Gratitude is a reality, and gratitude always embodies sincerity. So a sincere heart and a gratitude-life must go together.

Question: How can a person feel a longing for God and, at the same time, have patience? It seems like a contradiction.

Sri Chinmoy: It is not a contradiction at all. To have a sincere longing does not mean that one cannot have patience. A kindergarten student sees that his brother has got a Master's degree, whereas he is still studying in kindergarten. He has a sincere longing for a Master's degree, but he knows that time is a factor; it will take him twenty years to get that degree. But if he does not pay any attention to his studies now, then he will not pass his examination. Then how will he go on to high school and university? Right now he is the seed. Gradually the seed will germinate and become a tiny plant. Finally it will become a huge banyan tree. Does the seed think that by some miracle-power it will turn into a banyan tree overnight? No, it is absurd. There has to be an evolutionary process of gradual development. We have to progress gradually. If we lose our patience, then we lose our inspiration and aspiration and we will never reach our destined goal.

Everything that we want to accomplish, we have to do on the strength of our sincerity. If we are students, we have to study. If we are seekers, we have to pray and meditate. Sincerity is of paramount importance. If the child knows at the very start of his life that he wants to get his Master's degree, he will become sincere. Then he has to remain sincere all his life. Even after he has reached his goal, he has to be sincere in distributing the light that he has received from his goal.

If we are sincere and patient at every moment, then we will have real satisfaction in our achievement. When the child goes to primary school and high school, he will get satisfaction from his constant progress. Our present satisfaction may not be the ultimate satisfaction, but just because we have got some satisfaction on the strength of our sincere cry, we can rest assured that the ultimate satisfaction is bound to grow and evolve in us. Sincerity and patience must go together. We start our journey with sincerity and then sincerity and patience together continue the journey. If they are separated, then satisfaction can never be achieved by the seeker. Through gradual progress he reaches his goal. When he covers one step, he has to feel that that is his goal. Then tomorrow he will cover another step. But if he wants to reach the ultimate goal all at once, it is impossible. Whenever we are sincere, we are bound to get some satisfaction. This satisfaction may be limited but, at the same time, it is most precious. Then from the limited satisfaction he will grow into boundless satisfaction.

Question: Is there anything we can do to maintain the inspiration we have at the beginning of the year? Usually by March, I've just given up hope on my New Year's resolution.

Sri Chinmoy: Instead of one resolution, you can have twelve projects. This is the month of January. In January, feel that you will accomplish one project, not by hook or by crook, but with your best vigilance, your best aspiration. Then at the end of the month, if you do not succeed, forget about it totally. Feel that that month did not exist in your life. If you think, "Since in January I have failed, there is no hope of my succeeding in the month of February," then you will be totally lost. If you fail in January, feel that the month of January does not exist on your calendar. This is not deception; this is called wisdom. Anything that does not allow you to run the fastest on the way to the goal is your enemy. Again, if you succeed, then you can be wise and say, "I won the case in the month of January. Now I must also win in the month of February.

Many years ago, my boss wrote something that I could not believe. Now, over the years, I have come to understand it. He wrote, "Neutrality is very bad. If you are neutral, then you are my enemy." I said, "How can it be?" He said, "When you are not wholeheartedly taking either my side or the other person's side, but you are taking fifty per cent of each side, then you are my half-enemy." So neutrality we have to take as our real enemy. When a new month starts, anything positive from the old month we shall keep; anything negative we shall discard. We shall not be neutral. We shall be one hundred per cent for one cause, one goal.

But you have to know that neutrality is not indifference. Most of the disciples remain indifferent. This is very, very bad. Real detachment, spiritual detachment, is transcendence. When we have that kind of detachment, we are independent, we are above the turmoil of this world. At that time, natures dance cannot affect us. We transcend the happenings of the world.

Question: Is it proper to answer a question with silence, or when we are asked a question are we obliged to tell the truth?

Sri Chinmoy: Here we have to know the real truth. Suppose two young boys have quarreled and now they are fighting. They start by using their fists and, finally, they take out their knives. Then, one of them feels that he is the weaker of the two and runs away while the other one chases after him. You are meditating at the foot of a tree and you see the victim go hide in a cave. The other one says to you, "Did you see him? Where has he gone? I want to kill him!" You know the truth. Are you ready to say, "Yes, he is hiding there in the cave"? If you tell the truth, then what will this boy do? He will immediately go to kill the other one. This kind of truth is nothing but stupidity. At that time, you have to remain silent. You won't say anything. You know the truth, but that truth will be more damaging than the actual problem. So at that time you have to remain silent.

In this world we have to know immediately whether our truth is going to fulfil God's Vision and God's Reality on earth. It is very good to tell the truth, but we have to know the immediate result of the truth. If we tell the truth and someone is killed, in God's Eye we will be the culprit along with the person who does the actual killing.

I always say, "Tell the truth, but remain in a soulful consciousness. Then you will know what God wants from you. " If we remain in our ordinary consciousness, then we always try to derive joy or pleasure from truth in our own way. But we can run into great difficulty if we try to utilise the truth for our own sake. But if we use the truth for God's sake, then immediately God will give us the wisdom to know when to open our mouth and when to keep our mouth shut. Truth is good, but in this limited world we have to see the ultimate Truth the way the Divine, the Supreme, wants us to see, realise and become the truth.