Part IV

FW 232. Sri Chinmoy answered this question at a special meditation for delegates on 1 October 1976 in Conference Room 14.

Question: How can you overcome feelings of resentment and anger that you feel when your superiors appear to be unfair?

Sri Chinmoy: When we work in a group, there are many individuals, many ideas, many thoughts and propensities working together. But we have to do our best to feel that all the individuals in the group, all the ideas and propensities, are part and parcel of our own existence. We have to feel that they are all limbs of our own body, and that all our limbs are working together.

We feel that our superiors do not understand us, do not value us, do not appreciate our sincere effort and dedication. By arguing with our superiors, by trying our utmost to convince them that they are wrong or that they have no feeling of oneness and sympathy with us, we cannot change their way of life. But if we take them as part and parcel of our own existence and feel that we belong to them and that they belong to us, then we can change them.

If we consider our superiors as human beings who are totally different from us, who are perfect strangers to our ideals, ideas and goals, then we shall never be able to get happiness from life. We have to consider our superiors as limbs, or as branches of the one reality-tree. Then, if we notice that one branch is not functioning well, we try to cure that particular branch with our inner love, inner concern, inner light. If today our arms are defective, or if any part of our existence-reality is suffering from a particular shortcoming, what do we do? We focus all our concentration on the defective part and show it all our concern, love, sweetness and affection. We try to muster the rest of our being and show all concern to the defective part. And we eventually cure the defective part.

By a mere wishful attitude we cannot bring this about. In order to do this most effectively, we have to pray and meditate in silence to the Author of all good. It is He alone who has the capacity to cure a defective limb, and He is more than willing to listen to our prayer for the transformation of our so-called “superiors”. So, it is only our inner prayer and meditation that can eventually and radically change their life. But before that happens, we can try to feel that they belong to us and we belong to them. We can feel that their misunderstanding, their lack of faith in us and lack of appreciation for what we do, is a fault, a defect, in our own existence-reality.

Again, we have to know that the appreciation of our so-called “superiors” is not of real importance. In the long run, in the plan of our evolution, it may be of no avail at all. If we get joy from our own service to the body and the soul of the United Nations, then only we are doing the right thing. What matters is not what our superiors are telling us, or what opinion of us they have. No, what is of paramount importance is how sincerely we are trying to serve the United Nations. When we work at the United Nations, we are trying to please the body and the soul of the United Nations, and not just our superiors. If we can please the Real in us, God, then we are also pleasing the same real Existence that is in our superiors. If we are only for the satisfaction of the Real in us and in all human beings, then our superiors are also included. So, automatically a day will come when the Real in us will change the minds and attitudes of our superiors. As a matter of fact, there is only one superior and that superior is our inner cry for perfection, more perfection, most perfection, continuous perfection in our own life, in each human life and in each creation of God. Our cry for perfection is the only superior reality in us and for us.