Interdependence, Not Independence

Question (asked by Sakhshat Flowers, a medical doctor): I was so happy about your New Year’s Message at the beginning of the year that I made it the message for my answering service for a while with music. I just wanted to ask you if you felt like that message was taking root, now that the year is pretty far along.

Sri Chinmoy: The message that I gave for the New Year is this:

“At the end of a very long and uncertain Ignorance-flooded Night-Road, the Beauty of a New Hope and the Ecstasy of a New Promise shall unmistakably blossom.”

My Doctor Flowers, a flower is full of beauty, full of fragrance. We like beautiful and fragrant flowers, but some people are so callous, they do not like flowers. If you value a flower, you enter into your heart-garden. The garden is there. But some people will not go to a garden. They are ready to go to a factory, a gymnasium or to other places.

We can say, “How is it that people do not like flowers? Such a beautiful thing!” Yes, a flower is a beautiful thing, beautiful for me, beautiful for you. Again, someone else will say, “Who cares for flowers?” They will care for something else. So you have to value something.

In my message, what I saw in the inner world, what others also saw, now people have to value. For that, they do not have to think of a flower. They only have to think of God. Early in the morning every human being for one solitary minute should pray to God, “Give us a better world.” There I am included, you are included.

But people do not do that. There are many people who, instead of saying, “Give us a better world; let us have peace,” they still have in their mind supremacy: “How will I become richer than my neighbour; how will I have a better car than my neighbour?” Always people are trying to compete.

Around the whole world, by competing and competing, people are only ruining themselves. Competition is not bad; you can compete with your-self. You know how many lies you told yesterday or ten days ago, so now try to tell fewer lies. Always by competing with myself, I can become a better person.

Everything that I am seeing in the inner world is happening. But outwardly it is not manifesting because people are not valuing it. The life that will give us joy and peace is prayer and meditation.

Children have to be taught. They are the future – not only the future, they are the inspiration. The parents may all be fossilised. But if the children are praying, one day the parents will say, “My children are praying,” and from the children they will get inspiration. When children so sincerely pray to God, they put the parents to shame. The parents ask them to pray, but then when the children pray, their prayers may be infinitely more sincere than the parents’ prayers. Then these parents again get joy and inspiration from their children.

The inner life, spiritual life, must come first, not the outer life. We say the inner and outer must go side by side, but we must do the first thing first. Inwardly, in the inner life, the heart is inside. The life-breath is inside. They are not on the top of my forehead.

If we feed the inner life, then all the things that spiritual Masters say and that I am saying, are true. But unfortunately, people are not paying any attention to the flower, the beauty and fragrance of the flower. They are caring for something else that will give them name and fame or make them feel they are superior.

Until we feel the supreme necessity of interdependence, this world will never become better. The European Union is giving me so much joy. Can you imagine? Twenty-five countries in Europe have joined – and gradually more will join. They believe in union, but there are so many countries that have no union.

What I saw in my message is absolutely true. A ripe mango is there, and I am absolutely sure that the mango will drop here at the foot of the tree. The mango is about to descend, but all of a sudden a hurricane takes place, and the mango is blown far away. Now you are sure, I am sure, everybody is sure that the mango will descend at the foot of the tree, but it does not descend because of a hostile attack.

What we saw is absolutely true about the future. Still we have not given up. We cannot say, “No, the mango is not going to drop at the foot of the tree.” Still there is hope. A fight is going on between the divine forces and the undivine forces. God alone knows which forces are divine, which forces are undivine. If I say you are undivine, you have every right to say I am undivine, so the best thing is to remain silent. I will not call you undivine. You will not call me undivine.

Only let us say ‘happiness’. I want happiness, but not by lording it over you. And if you say you want happiness, then all our prophecies that we are saying will come true. If you sincerely want happiness, if I sincerely want happiness – not by hook or by crook, but the happiness that will be permanent inside our hearts – then this interdependence will come into existence, not independence.

Independence can mean supremacy. One day supremacy will disappear from this world – it will become intimacy, it has to. This little planet, this poor planet – is God going to see the destruction of this planet? Never, never, never! When a little girl has a doll, she clothes it, and then she says nobody can touch it because they will ruin it. The little girl has such affection, sweetness and fondness for the doll! God has created human beings – we are all on this planet. I do not think God will see with His Eyes open that this world is going to be destroyed. It is impossible. He has Concern, He has Love for His own creation.

But again, God wants our service. He wants us to serve Him. You are a doctor. You know how many disciples go to you, and how sincerely you serve your Guru, the Supreme and your soul. How many doctors will serve like you? I am not flattering you. There are some doctors who will do this. Again, there are many doctors, if you go there five minutes after their office hours, you can knock and knock at the door, but they are not going to open it. They have gone home.

There is a joke, that a doctor’s office had a sign that it will be open until 4:00. Then a man was bitten by a dog. When he went to the doctor, the doctor said, “You cannot see that after 4:00 we are closed?” The man said, “But the dog didn’t know.”

I am sure that if somebody comes to your place late at night, your heart will open the door and give the needed treatment, whereas some other doctors will not. They will hear the knock, but they are not going to open the door. If divine qualities like concern, compassion and sympathy are available, then this world will only flower.

Coming back to your question, what I saw is absolutely true. But uncertainty still prevails. The world has to make progress. There shall come a time when it has reached a certain height. From there, there will be only certainty. This is going to happen, that is going to happen. Now we see sometimes an 80 per cent chance that it is going to happen. Then all of a sudden everything goes wrong. It is like the sun – we may be absolutely sure the whole day will be sunny, but alas, rain comes. Then there is rain, rain, rain, when all of a sudden, the sun bursts forth.

Prayers, prayers, prayers, prayers, prayers, prayers and prayers. God does not expect 10 hours’ meditation or 8 hours’ meditation. God knows that we do not have time for 8 or 10 hours of meditation, but perhaps he does expect 10 minutes a day – for 10 minutes we can pray. Among my disciples, there are some who may not meditate even for 10 minutes in the morning. I ask them to get up at 6:00, if possible, to meditate, and also to sing the Invocation, to bring down God’s Blessings. But how many do this?

Those who accept the spiritual life are called chosen children of God. If chosen children of God are not doing the needful, praying in the morning, then how can we expect people who have not accepted the spiritual life to get up in the morning and pray and meditate? If we are chosen to do something specific, and we are not doing the right thing, how do you expect that thing from others who do not believe in the spiritual life, who maybe do not believe in God or in world-progress?

We have a few thousand disciples. If every day all the disciples do the right thing, God will not turn a deaf ear to us. He will only be proud of us. So you pray, I pray, let us all pray. New Year’s Messages I give. They are not whimsical. They come from a very, very high source. Then sometimes the messages are not fulfilled. For that, we should also take some responsibility, some blame.