What is a miracle?

What is a miracle? A miracle is an unusual incident. A miracle is either an illumining or an exciting experience. A miracle is either a happy smile or an unhappy cry of nature.

I am a seeker. I am a God-lover. I pray and meditate every day. That means I have chosen God to be my eternal Pilot, and God has chosen me to be eternally His own. That means I am part and parcel of divinity. Such being the case, how is it possible for me to become jealous? How is it possible for me to become insecure? How is it possible for me to become impure? To become jealous, insecure or impure — is this not an unhappy miracle, a deplorable miracle, that I perform every day?

I am an insignificant human being. For years and years I have cherished my friendship with teeming doubts. But now I have a new friend: a blossoming faith. For me to transform my life of doubt into a life of faith — is this not a miracle, a happy miracle?

Desire-life was my favourite reality. But now aspiration-life has become my favourite reality, my only reality. Is this not a miracle?

I am not even six feet tall. Yet I am praying to the Absolute Supreme to reach His infinite Height, which is far beyond even my imagination's flight. For me to long to grow into that Height — is this not a miracle?

I am mortal. My thoughts, my deeds, my experiences — everything that I have and everything that I am — represent mortality. Yet despite everything that I have and everything that I am, I am longing for Immortality. Is this not a miracle?

If I enter into friendship with ignorance, if I become a friend of jealousy, meanness, insecurity and impurity, then I must feel that I am performing deplorable miracles day in and day out.

Again, when I feel one with humanity, when I think of vastness, luminosity, oneness and God-Satisfaction in God's own Way, then at that time also I am performing miracles, supreme miracles.

It is up to me whether to play the role of an ignorant weakling or an all-knowing God-man, whether to perform deplorable miracles or divine miracles.

If I unreservedly and unconditionally love my Beloved Supreme, if I soulfully cry to realise Him, then there can be no greater miracle. As an unaspiring human being, I care for humanity's appreciation and admiration. But if I change my desire-life into aspiration-life and cry only for God — to please Him in His own Way, to manifest Him in His own Way sleeplessly — then in God's Eye I am the supremely chosen miracle-performer.

Sri Chinmoy, Aurora-Flora, Agni Press, 1982