Part XII: Toronto Centre

Question: Why does God want messengers to guide us?

Sri Chinmoy: This is a very significant question. There are two ways to answer this question and I will tell you both ways. Suppose you feel that you don't need any messenger — then God Himself has to come and work for you. Now, we appreciate the sunlight; we feel how beautiful it is. But if we go near the sun, we will be burnt to ashes because it is so powerful.

Similarly, we are now appreciating God. But when God comes in His luminous form before an unaspiring or unprepared person, that person will be dazzled and instead of getting illumination and liberation, he will be totally destroyed because his being is not prepared. Even when ordinary spiritual beings, divine angels or guiding deities come, people are dazzled; they cannot bear the brilliance of the light.

Then, suppose you have seen a child, and you say, "Oh, he is the most beautiful child." But when God stands in front of you in human form, He is infinitely more beautiful than any child you have ever seen, and you wonder, "How can I be like Him?" When you try to answer this question, you will think, "Oh, He is so beautiful, I can never be like Him; it is impossible. He is extremely beautiful. He is so beautiful, so powerful, I cannot be like Him," immediately you become discouraged because you feel it is impossible for you to be so beautiful, so luminous, so powerful.

Now if we happen to have someone as our Master, some spiritual person to serve as God's messenger, our life immediately tries to understand the Truth and we can think of God easily, we can pray to God easily, we can realise God easily. Let me tell you why.

Although you are a human being and I am a human being and we both speak the English language, while English is your mother tongue, I did not learn the language well and sometimes it is difficult for you to understand me because my Indian accent disturbs you. But immediately I can feel, "Oh, she knows English better than I do, but I can also learn to speak like her, because she is also a human being." Now you will also be able to say, "Chinmoy is my Master, but he is also like me, eating and drinking, sleeping, walking and running with me. If Chinmoy has realised God and if he has this Peace, Light and Bliss, then naturally, I can also get it. Almost everything that he does, I am able to do. There is only one thing I cannot do: I cannot show the boundless Peace, Light and Bliss as he does. Let me try this also."

Then, you know that I got it by prayer, by meditation, by concentration. So you will also start praying, concentrating and meditating. The result of my meditation is my realisation, so you will correctly feel that if you meditate like me, one day you will also realise God. But if you think of God directly, His Soul is so vast that it will be incomprehensible; you do not know His beginning and you do not know His end.

Now you can easily know my beginning. If you ask my mother she will say that I was born in 1931. And when I talk to you, you understand me well. There are many things I know that you know. Yet one thing you don't know is called God-realisation; you have to learn it from me.

So again, you will be singing a Japanese song today. Since you can sing the song, I can tell myself, "She knows the Japanese national anthem. Then how is it that I cannot sing it? I can do many things, but this particular thing I do not know, so let me learn from her. Then I will be able to do it."

Yesterday your mother did this wonderful exposition of Japanese flowers, Ikebana. There are quite a few things you learn from your mother. While you were making a mistake she was telling you, "No, it is not correct." In the same way, while you are meditating, if you are not doing well, I can tell you, "No, you are not doing well but you can rest assured that what I am doing today, you will also be able to do some day."

Now I am coming to a serious point. What does a messenger actually mean? What is the purpose of a messenger? Suppose you have to carry something very heavy. If you can't carry it, you take the help of a messenger boy — someone other than yourself. You can't do it, so he will do it for you.

But God's messengers are not like that. God's messengers are like His limbs, His hands, His eyes, His nose, His feet, everything. It is through them that He works. Here, the messenger and God are totally one. Give an ordinary messenger boy a dollar and he will do his work; but you don't have any identification with him, for he is a totally different being. But God's messengers are totally different. If the messenger is a real messenger of God, then he has identified himself with God first, he has become one with God's Consciousness, and God is using him as His conscious Eyes, conscious Brain, conscious Heart and conscious Soul.

Now, when I ask you to come to me, immediately you come. You take a step forward, then you come to me. Your legs, hands and head will all move. Here, the messenger is God's movement.

If I just say your name, although you understand it is you, you may remain standing there. But if I ask you to come to me, immediately you will take steps, you will make a movement to come to me. In God's case also, when we think of His messenger, it is His immediate movement that we see. God's Truth is all-pervading, but He is quiet. When He wants to be dynamic, He has to act through His messengers. His messengers are to God as our feet, our limbs, are to us. Movement signifies the messenger; he who brings the message from God is bringing to us His dynamic movement. So here is the necessity of a human messenger: he is God's movement. He brings God's Light in a dynamic way. Otherwise God will remain static and beyond our reach.