Interview - The jewel of humility³

NAC: God is everywhere, and so are his devotees. It is a great honour to meet you, we’ve heard a lot about you over the years. What does your work generally consist of?

Sri Chinmoy: My work is love and my work is service. I try to love mankind and I try to serve mankind according to the limited capacity that God has granted me. Only to love Him in aspiring mankind and to serve him in the service of mankind. This is my only work.

NAC: What shape does your activity take in that service?

Sri Chinmoy: We have about fifty centres all over the world and I visit all the centres and they keep inner contact with me. I have written over 250 books and my students follow my writings. I go to the United Nations twice a week where we hold meditations for the delegates and the members and the staff. We try to serve mankind in the Committee of Nations according to our inner capacity which I call my devoted soulful service. This is what I do. Everywhere I try to serve and whenever I get an opportunity to serve I feel my life on earth is worth living.

NAC: Do you relate to the politicians at the United Nations?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes and No. Not in their political capacity, but when they come to me as seekers. I myself, being a seeker, can talk to them on a spiritual level but not on a political level. Politics is not my forte, whereas I know a little bit of spirituality. So when the politicians come to me as seekers, I try to offer light to them.

NAC: Are there many politicians seeking actively?

Sri Chinmoy: That is a difficult question to answer. There are some politicians who do not want to disclose their names, but they do take my help, secretly. They don’t want to be exposed, they don’t want to attach themselves to the so-called religious or spiritual life, but they do come, and again when we have soulful meetings, they come and join us in the capacity of seekers and not in the capacity of politicians.

NAC: It is a very fine work. Do you have a space set up for you to do your work?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes.

NAC: Is it an official capacity that you have there?

Sri Chinmoy: Previously, I have been the spiritual director of the meditation group — it is official. It is an official group at the United Nations and also recently I have gotten the honour of being an honorary delegate. They call it NGO — Non-Governmental Office.

NAC: From the point of view of a lot of people, the world is a very cruel and negative place and their consciousness is not in a position to absorb the negativity. What can you say, or what service can we perform (we in the largest sense of the word), to help with that situation?

Sri Chinmoy: I fully agree with you. What we should do is to cultivate more soulful patience. Patience is the length of time. Right now the world is far from perfection. It is almost half animal world that we are living in. We quarrel, we fight, these are the tendencies of animal life. But again there is an inner cry in us to do something, to become something, to go into something that will give us abiding satisfaction. This inner cry is something that wants to transcend what we have now and what we are now. But, perfection does not come into existence overnight. It takes time.

So, what you need, what I need, what others need, is one thing — soulful patience. And we have to know that patience is not something weak, something that we are forced to surrender to the hard reality of life, No, it is inner wisdom. Our inner wisdom needs patience, length of time. The seed — as soon as we see a seed, we expect the seed to grow into a plant and become a tree — a huge banyan tree. But if you know that the seed takes time to germinate and gradually to become a plant, and a tree; if we see the vision of our patience, then one day we will see that Truth will grow into reality, will manifest reality. So what the entire world needs is soulful patience. Let the Truth grow in its own way.

NAC: When one is engaged in a way of life which is not satisfactory to the person and one feels the first tug to become seeking, (I am asking this question because a great many people who will be listening to this radio program and reading this interview will be in that position), one has the impulse to do something. The philosophy and the ideals and so on make some sense but we here in the West have the impulse to do something to make it happen. Is there anything practical, direct, that you can suggest for someone to do?

Sri Chinmoy: Now here I wish to say the best policy is to become something, then do something. First become — then give what you have. This is a Golden Rule. But again, if we have an inner pilot, suppose we have a master who is representing the inner pilot for us. In offering you are becoming. Self-giving is God becoming. Now, self-giving can be at any place at any standard of one’s whole life. You become the fruit, then you offer yourself for everybody to eat you as the most delicious fruit. You grow into the fruit yourself, you give. If that is the Will of God.

But we have to know whether we have free access to the inner pilot or not. If the inner pilot tells us ‘do this’ and in the process of doing, you are becoming. This is one theory. The other theory is that when you become something then you give. If you are not something what are you going to give. This is the general rule.

There is a special rule that when one is being guided by a higher force, and the higher force says ‘I need you as my instrument, or I have accepted you as my instrument, you please me’. As in the Gita, Krishna said in the last moment to Arjuna, ‘Surrender to me, I will do everything for you really and truly, I will do everything.’ But if Arjuna had to wait to become something then he would have had to offer to the world, and that would have been also one process. But Krishna did not want this. Shri Krishna said that he had only to become an instrument. If that is the case, then one has to listen to the dictates of one’s master who is representing God for him. This is free access to the inner pilot. Inner pilot is saying, ‘do this’, in the process of doing you become what I wanted you to become.

NAC: Most of our minds are so confused and our bodies so tense that We can't listen to the inner self, or even if we can there are so many conflicting voices that we don’t know which one is true. How can we cut through all that?

Sri Chinmoy: It is a most interesting question. Mind here creates tremendous problem for us. But only if you want to hear accurately the message, the voice of the inner pilot. Then you have to know one thing — as soon as we get the message we will see that this message is giving us inner joy, inner satisfaction. Then you see that as soon as you carry out the message, the message will bear fruit and this fruit will come in the form of success or failure. Mind will accept it as a success or as failure. But if you can take the result with the same cheerfulness if it is success, or failure, with the same amount of inner strength, inner courage, equanimity, then the message is coming from the soul, otherwise we will be extolled to the skies as soon as something heavy comes in the form of success and we will be doomed to disappointment if failure appears. So only from the result will you know whether we have gotten the real message. If it comes directly from the deep inmost reaches of our heart, from our soul, then the result will not be important; only the most important thing is our way of executing that message. And the result will come to us only in the form of success or failure. But if you can offer both success and failure as an experience which is building us to grow into the supreme reality, if you have that kind of feeling or conception for the message, that is coming forward, then you are getting the message from within, from the inner pilot.

NAC: Are you optimistic about the future of humanity?

Sri Chinmoy: 100% optimistic. Because I love God. God, I know will not allow us to ruin His creation. We are His creations, nobody likes to destroy his own creations. We are God’s children. We may do everything wrong, but out of his infinite bounty, he will give us eternal time to turn over a new leaf.

NAC: Do people look to you and bow to you as master?

Sri Chinmoy: They look to me and bow to the Supreme in me, I always tell them. Our Master is only the One God and the Master is inside me and inside you. When they bow to me I know who is getting it, it is the Supreme in me, and when I bow to you, I know who is getting it, the Supreme in you. Not to me, not to the body, not to Sri Chinmoy, but to the inner pilot of Sri Chinmoy, they bow, and I bow to the inner pilot of their own existence.

NAC: What shall we do with these characters who go around calling themselves ‘perfect masters’. How shall we talk to them?

Sri Chinmoy: I am the last person to say anything. I am not the right person to pronounce any judgement. Everybody knows what is good for them. I know what is good for myself, they know what is good for themselves. They are doing the right thing according to their inner light. We are trying to do the best thing according to our receptivity. We are all responsible for our own rooms. They are responsible for their rooms; I am responsible for my room; you are responsible for your room. You can come and see what I have in my room. I have no right to say what they have in their rooms.

NAC: How old are you, Sri Chinmoy?

Sri Chinmoy: I am just 44.

NAC: You appear in the Vancouver Airport as an ordinary middle-aged businessman in you summer suit. Why is that? Why are you not clad in your Indian robes and all that?

Sri Chinmoy: In my case I know who I am — a seeker. When I am holding a meeting, it is easier for the seekers to identify themselves with me when I wear Indian robes. If I am in need of a policeman, if I see a policeman wearing his uniform, then immediately I go to him, because he is the right person. So when I am holding meditations, I am the right person to be of dedicated service to offer spiritual light. But like a policeman, he doesn’t work 24 hours in that capacity. Inwardly he knows he is a policeman, I know I am a spiritual seeker, so here I don’t have to act as a spiritual teacher, spiritual Master. Whereas when I hold meetings at the United Nations, there I have to wear it because there I represent what I inwardly am.

NAC: I don't know if it's possible, but do you feel any sort of urge to create a song right now?

Sri Chinmoy: I can sing you a significant song, a song which has stood first out of hundreds of songs. “Oh my boatman, do carry me to the golden shores of the beyond.”

[Sri Chinmoy sings a beautiful song in Indian style and dialect_] I am extremely grateful to you for having given me the opportunity to be of service to the aspiring mankind through your own most exemplary practise, spiritual discipline. _NAC: Thank you. God Bless you.