AUM — Vol. 2, No. 2, 27 September 1966

AUM

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Man is Infinity's Heart.

Man is Eternity's Breath.

Man is Immortality's Life.

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IV. Who is fit for yoga?1

Who is fit for Yoga? You are fit for Yoga. He is fit for Yoga. I am fit for Yoga. All human beings without exception are fit for Yoga.

The spiritual fitness can be determined by our feeling of oneness, our desire for oneness. The tiniest drop has a right to feel the boundless ocean as its very own. Such is the case with the individual soul and the Universal Soul.

Where is God and where am I? God is on the third floor and I am on the first floor. I come up to the second floor. He comes down to the second floor. We meet. We both meet together. I do not forget to wash His feet with my tears of delight. Neither does He forget to place me in His heart of infinite Compassion.

Now what is Yoga? Yoga is self-conquest. Self-conquest is God-realisation. And he who practices Yoga does two things by one stroke: he simplifies his whole life and he gets a free access to the Divine.

In the field of Yoga we can never pretend. Our aspiration must ring true. Our whole life must ring true. Nothing is impossible for an ardent aspirant. A higher Power guides his steps. God's adamantine Will is his safest protection. No matter how long or how many times he blunders, he has every right to come back to his own spiritual home. His aspiration is a climbing flame. It has no smoke, it needs no fuel. It is the breath of his inner life. It leads him to the shores of the Golden Beyond. The aspirant, with the wings of his aspiration, soars into the Transcendental.

God is infinite and God is everywhere. To a genuine aspirant, this is more than a mere belief. It is the Reality without a second.

Now let us focus our attention on the spiritual life. It is a mistaken idea that the spiritual life is a life of austerity and a bed of thorns. No, never. We came from the Blissful. To the Blissful we shall return with the spontaneous joy of life. It seems difficult because we cater to our ego. It looks unnatural because we cherish our doubts.

The realisation of God is the goal of our life. It is also our noblest heritage. God is at once our Father and our Mother. As Father He observes, as Mother He creates. We shall never give up demanding of our Mother as a child does of his mother, so that we can win over our Mother's Love and Grace. How long can a mother go on unheeding her child's cry? Let us not forget that if there is anybody on earth on whom all human beings have a full claim, it is the Mother aspect of the Divine. She is the only strength of our dependence. She is also the only strength of our independence. As Her heart is the home of infinitude, so also is it eternally open to each individual.

We should now become acquainted with the eight significant strides that lead a seeker to his destination. The strides are Yama (self-control and moral abstinences), Niyama (strict observance of conduct and character), Asana (various body postures to help us enter into a higher consciousness), Pranayama (systematic breathing to hold a rein on the mind), Dharana (the fixation of our consciousness on God, joined by all parts of the body), Dhyana (meditation, the untiring express train speeding towards the Goal), and Samadhi (trance, the end of Nature's dance, the absolute fixation of our individual consciousness on the Transcendental Supreme).

Yoga is our union with Truth. There are three unfolding stages of this union. In the first stage, man has to feel that God needs him as much as he needs God. In the second stage, man has to feel that without him God does not exist even for a second. In the third and ultimate stage, man has to realise that he and God are not only eternally One, but Equal, all-pervading and all-fulfilling.

29 April 1966. The fourth class of the Spring series on Yoga was held at the home of Sri Chinmoy, 4826 New Utrecht Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y.↩

V. The strength of surrender2

The present-day world wants individuality. It demands freedom. But true individuality and freedom can breathe only in the Divine. Surrender is the key to open the door of the Divine. Surrender is the untiring breath of the soul.

Human individuality shouts in the dark. Earthly freedom cries out in the deserts of life. But absolute surrender universally sings of Divine Individuality and Freedom in the lap of the Supreme.

In surrender, we discover the spiritual power through which we can become not only the seers but the possessors of Truth. This Truth is the omnipotent Power. If we can surrender in absolute silence, we shall ourselves become the Reality of the Real, the Life of the Living, the Centre of True Love, Peace and Bliss. We shall become an incomparable blessing to ourselves.

A lovely child attracts my attention. I love him, for he conquers my heart. But do I ask anything from him in return? No. I love him because he is the object of love; he is lovable. In the same way I can and should love God, for He is the most lovable Being. Spontaneous love for the Divine is surrender, and this surrender is the greatest gift in life. The Divine in no time gives me infinitely more than I ask for.

Surrender is a spiritual miracle. It teaches me how to see God with my eyes closed, how to talk to Him with my mouth shut. Fear enters into my being only when I withdraw my surrender from the Absolute.

Surrender is an unfoldment. It is the unfoldment of our body, mind, and heart into the Sun of divine plenitude within us. To surrender to this inner Sun is the greatest triumph of life. The hound of failure cannot reach us while we are in that Sun. The Prince of Evil fails to touch us when we have realised and founded our oneness with that eternally life-giving Sun.

Surrender and wholeheartedness play together, eat together, and sleep together. Theirs is the crown of victory. Calculation and doubt play together, eat together, and sleep together. Theirs is the fate that is crushed to disappointment, doomed to failure.

India is the land of surrender. This surrender is not a blind submission, but rather the dedication of one's limited self to one's unbounded Self. There are a good many stories in the Mahabharata dealing with surrender. They all have great spiritual truth in them. Let me tell you a short, but most inspiring and revealing story. Draupadi was the queen of the Pandavas. She wept while the evil Duhshasana ruthlessly attempted to unrobe her. She was praying to the Lord to save her, yet she was holding her garments tight with her fists. Her surrender was not complete. Her prayer was not granted. Duhshasana continued his attempts to pull off the garments of the unfortunate queen. But now the moment came when Draupadi gave up the hold on her robes. She began to pray to the Lord with hands upraised: "O Lord of my heart, O Boatman of my life, may Thy will be fulfilled." Lo, the strength of her absolute surrender! God's silence broke. His Grace rained on Draupadi. As Duhshasana pulled off her sari, he found that it was endless. His pride had to kiss the dust. The more he pulled off, the more sari appeared!

God's all-fulfilling Grace descends only when man's unconditional surrender ascends.

Our surrender is a most precious thing. God alone deserves it. We can offer our surrender to another individual, but only for God's sake, for the sake of realising God. If that individual has reached his goal, he can help us in our spiritual journey. If we offer ourselves to someone to satisfy that person, then we have committed the Himalayan blunder. What we should do is to offer ourselves unreservedly to the Lord in him.

Every action of ours is to please God and not to gain applause. Our actions are too secret and sacred to display before others. They are meant for our own progress, achievement and realisation.

There is no limit to one's surrender. The more one surrenders, the more remains to be surrendered. God has given us capacity. According to our rapacity He demands of us manifestation. Manifestation beyond our capacity God has never demanded.

In man's complete and absolute surrender is his realisation, the realisation of the Self, the realisation of God the Infinite.

6 May 1966. The fifth class of the Spring series on Yoga was held at the home of Miss Elma Winter, 139 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn Heights, New York. Elma attended the classes devotedly and was the only member who never missed a session. Twice she offered her home for the use of the classes. Her generous offer of household furnishings, before her departure to Texas, was deeply appreciated and gratefully accepted by Sri Chinmoy. Directness and straightforwardness in thought and expression are the divine characteristics of this aspiring soul. Sri Chinmoy sends his deep love and blessings for the fulfilment of her new life in Texas.↩

Questions and answers

The following questions were asked on 13 August 1966, at the first session of the Summer series on Yoga, held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Virgil Gant, 467 Central Park West, New York City. The talks given at these classes will be published later.

Question: In order to come into closer contact with one's self, to know the mysteries of one's inner self, what is the correct procedure? I believe that meditation is where answers will be given about one's inner self. Is this correct?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes. In meditation and concentration. Both will help. If you want to know about your inner self and the inner mysteries of your life and the universal life, then you need meditation and concentration.

Question: Are there any set procedures one must follow in order to meditate correctly?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes. Each one has his own way of meditation. What actually happens in the individual is that sometimes he gets from within himself a kind of meditation. I mean the inner being comes forward and tells the individual to pray or meditate in this or that way, that this or that will help. Sometimes a spiritual figure comes along who can easily enter into the individual and know the ins and outs of the seeker's inner and outer life and know the growth and the development and the aspiration of the seeker. Then this spiritual teacher can tell him how to meditate and when to meditate. When you have a teacher, you are extremely lucky, especially if the teacher is a genuine one. If you don't have a teacher, but if you have a genuine aspiration, God within you will tell you the correct meditation. It is not possible for everyone in the world to have a spiritual teacher. It is well and good if one gets a teacher. If one does not get one, what will happen? We are all God's children. God does not want to deprive us of God-Realisation. God wants us to realise Him. So, if you get a teacher, well and good. If not, go deep within to discover your own meditation.

Question: I understand. But in order to find out whether I am reaching that for which I am seeking, if I am doing this correctly very often, with the inner self, I may not recognise it to be the true inner self. I do not know whether this is the inner voice or the outer voice and this is extremely confusing.

Sri Chinmoy: I fully understand. But if you get a teacher who is a realised soul, you can go to him for help and find out if what you are doing is correct. Or, if you do not get a spiritual teacher, what you could do... please go deep, deep within and see if you get a voice or a thought or an idea — just go deep into the voice or thought or idea — and see if that gives you a kind of inner joy or peace, where all questions end, where there is no question, no problem. When you get this kind of peace and inner joy, you can feel whether the voice that you have heard is correct and whether it is the inner voice and whether it will help you in your inner and spiritual life. Questioner: Thank you very much.

Question: Sir, when did you come upon the thought that there is an inner self within yourself? And after you discovered that you had an inner self, weren't you alarmed over the fact that you felt isolated from the rest of the world? And how did you make connections with other inner selves who were not aware that they had an inner self?

Sri Chinmoy: I have known intuitively, from my early childhood, that there is a deeper self within me. Each one of us has an inner self. Some are conscious of this inner self and some are not. Those who are conscious of this inner self are, according to us, spiritually developed. What they can do in order to have a synthesis between the outer world and the inner world, between the outer being and the inner being, is to have a burning flame of aspiration. This aspiration is based on self-sacrifice, outer and inner.

Suppose you have found your inner self and your inner life and the answers to the questions of your inner problems. But the person next-door is utterly unconscious of the inner life and the inner world. Now it will be extremely difficult for you to have a kind of understanding with her and vice-versa. She cannot come and enter into your consciousness. For her it is very difficult to enter into you. Now, in order to have a bridge between you two, what you can do during your meditation or concentration is this: you know the person well, quite well. First you go deep within, and from there you bring forward all your sweet and subtle and harmonious feelings. It is all from within you. You bring forward all these subtle and delightful feelings and then consciously, during your meditation, you throw them into her: into her mind, into her body, into her heart. Then you have created a bridge between you and her.

Within your inner world, you are secure. You feel that the inner world has given you enormous confidence to cope with the outer world. You can go to her and speak to her on the spiritual life, the inner life, the life that gives you true happiness. She can try it for herself. In this world, everyone is running after true happiness and satisfaction. If one is satisfied after achieving something, then next day, again dissatisfaction comes in. One wants something more. Today's satisfaction will not be tomorrow's satisfaction. It will be tomorrow's dissatisfaction.

So first within yourself, just like watering a plant every day, you feed your inner being by meditation. Then you come to the outer world with your creative manifestation to form a bridge between your inner achievements and the outer world, where your future fulfilment will take place.

To my dear students in Puerto Rico:4

O Children of the Supreme!

I bow to the Supreme within you.

Today my body completes thirty-five years of its earthly existence. You are entering into me with your hearts' joy and your souls' aspiration. I am placing your divine wealth at the Feet of the Supreme. I am also offering to the Supreme all that you have and all that you are.

A song without notes is no song. A song breathes because it has a Singer. The Singer is the Supreme.

A tree without branches is no tree. A tree lives because it has a Root. The Root is the Supreme.

O Flames of my Spirit's fire,

Fly into the Transcendental Beyond.

This message was sent to the AUM CENTRE, INC. on the occasion of Sri Chinmoy's birthday, 27 August 1966. This is the first time the name "Sri Chinmoy" was published in AUM magazine↩

Message5

Dear President, Vice-President, Counsellor, Legal Adviser, Secretary, Treasurer, Head of Public Relations, Head of Intellectual and Cultural Activities, Head of Selfless Service, and Members of the Aum Centre:

On this divinely significant day, let us offer our deepest gratitude to the Supreme. No human being is inaugurating the Centre. The Supreme is inaugurating the birth of His own child.

If you think of the Divine child, the Supreme will think of you. If you feed the child with your heart's aspiration, the Supreme will feed your body, mind, heart and soul through Eternity. If you become one with the child, you will see and feel that the Supreme has already become one with you.

On the evening of 20 September 1966, the AUM CENTRE, INC., under the direction of its President, Sudha, inaugurated its new quarters at Calle Mayo, numero 264, Santurce, Puerto Rico. Sri Chinmoy sent this taped-recorded message to the President, who played it for the assembled members during the inspired inaugural ceremony which she planned and conducted.↩

Question: Do you believe that in each incarnation the individual improves himself?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, because he is evolving consciously or unconsciously.

Question: Does the Law of Karma apply to everybody?

Sri Chinmoy: The Law of Karma applies to everyone and at the same time one can transcend it by one's meditation. The Law of Karma exists and yet can be transcended by realisation, oneness with God and by the power of spirituality.

Question: Will you please tell me something about meditation?

Sri Chinmoy: First you have to read a few spiritual books in which they teach the various ways to start meditation. Then you start. Soon you will see that reading books is not enough. You will see that you need a particular teacher. The teacher will know which kind of meditation will most suit your nature and soul. If you do not have a teacher, pray to God to reveal within you the kind of meditation you should adopt. Then, during a dream or in your silent mood, God will make you feel what you should do. Now you can begin your journey. When your meditation is correct, you will feel a kind of joy all over your body. But if you do not feel that joy, if, on the contrary, you feel a mental tension or disturbance, then you will know that that particular kind of meditation is not meant for you and is not advisable. When you get a kind of spontaneous inner joy, then the meditation you have adopted is correct.

Question: There are different ways of approaching God. If one person possesses three different kinds of qualities, will it affect his progress?

Sri Chinmoy: Instead of hindering, it helps. But the thing is that you have to give more importance to the particular path that inspires your being most. For example: the attitude of service, the attitude of devotion and the attitude of quest for knowledge, taken all together, will help you make a balanced progress. But at some point in your life, you have to find the one that inspires you most. Each soul has its own way of moving. Here on earth, we are inspired to progress according to our soul's propensity. If you accept all the paths, it is a great help; at the same time, you have to choose your own soul's way, the way that gives you the greatest fulfilment according to your deepest aspiration.

Question: There are seven planes of consciousness in the spiritual development. How can I determine which plane I belong to?

Sri Chinmoy: You can know which plane you belong to by throwing your outer mind into the sea of your aspiring heart, whose source is Consciousness. This Consciousness is the life-breath of all planes. The awareness of this Consciousness gives you the immediate recognition of your status — where you were, where you are now, and how far you still have to go.

After becoming aware of your plane, try to operate your daily activities from there. The easiest and most effective way of operating from that plane is to make your outer being a conscious and dedicated instrument of your inner vision and will.

In your case, let us suppose that you want to act from the intuitive mind, then once you have seen that plane and are conscious of it, you can try to remain there through your psychic aspiration and determined will. This is the real way to have mastery over a particular plane.

The Absolute

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No mind, no form, I only exist;

Now ceased all will and thought.

The final end of Nature's dance,

I am It whom I have sought.

A realm of Bliss bare, ultimate;

Beyond both knower and known;

A rest immense I enjoy at last;

I face the One alone.

I have crossed the secret ways of life,

I have become the Goal.

The Truth immutable is revealed;

I am the way, the God-Soul.

My spirit aware of all the heights,

I am mute in the core of the Sun.

I barter nothing with time and deeds;

My cosmic play is done. ```

Notes

Activities in Puerto Rico

On 12 August 1966, the AUM CENTRE, INC. of Santurce, Puerto Rico, was legally registered by its Board of Directors with the Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico. In this connection, Sri Chinmoy sends his special love and thanks to the Legal Adviser to the AUM CENTRE, INC., Senor Enrique Calderon Lassen, B.B.A., L.L.B., for his dedicated service in arranging for the incorporation of the organisation.

AUM — A monthly journal of spiritual philosophy and yoga6

"AUM" is a sacred Sanskrit mystic syllable which prefaces all Hindu prayers.The first issue of the journal AUM (Vol.1, No.1) deals with its full spiritual significance.

© Chinmoy Kumar Ghose 1966

AUM is a monthly journal devoted exclusively to the spiritual writings of Chinmoy Kumar Ghose. It will deal with the spiritual life and its problems from the point of view of Indian philosophy and yoga. AUM is intended to help aspirants of the West in their search for a true inner life by acquainting them with the realisations of a seeker of the Supreme.

Editor's introduction from the first edition.↩

From:Sri Chinmoy,AUM — Vol. 2, No. 2, 27 September 1966, Boro Park Printers -- Brooklyn, N. Y, 1966
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/aum_14