AUM — Vol. 3, No. 7,8, Feb. — 27 Mar. 1968

Joy unlimited1

My imagination tells me that the unlimited joy can be seen. My inspiration tells me that the unlimited joy can be felt. My realisation tells me that the unlimited joy can be seen, felt, possessed and realised. Something more it says, "I can grow into the unlimited joy."

When I think of God, my mind gets Joy. When I pray to God, my heart feels Joy. When I meditate on God, my soul becomes all Joy.

God has given me the body, mind, heart and soul. It is I who have to use them with a view to achieving an everlasting Joy. God has given me the body. I shall have to use it to serve Him in the world of manifestation. God has given me the mind. I shall have to use it to think of Him in the world of determination, Will. God has given me the heart. I shall have to use it to love Him in the world of self-sacrifice. God has given me the soul. I shall have to use it to feel my identity with Him in the world of self-revelation.

I shall have to have Joy of my own. Unless and until I have it, I can never totally become one with others' Joy. There is considerable truth in what Shakespeare wrote, "O how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!"

Yesterday I was compelled to accept the belief that human life is strewn with difficulties and sufferings. But today I am given the opportunity, the golden opportunity to release that old thought of mine. I can accept this belief instead, that I inherit my life from God's Life of Bliss and my existence on earth is the ever-renewing and ever-unfolding expression of God the Blissful.

If I have just one aim and if that aim is to be myself, then I am bound to discover Joy, true Joy, eternal Joy in my inner march towards my Goal.

I think not old thoughts. I live not in old consciousness. I grow with new thoughts and flow with a new consciousness to reveal my life of imagination, inspiration, aspiration and realisation.

What to do? Stop thinking.

Why to do? To see the Supreme.

How to do? By running, flying and diving.

When to do? The moment you desire to grow into the Supreme's Dream.

Needless to say that you must realise the value of time if you want to have the unlimited Joy in you, with you and around you.

To kill time is to see the face of failure more and more.

To use time is to open heart's wide door even more.

To value time is to live in God's own Core.

To quarrel with time is to forget the Golden Shore.

To go beyond time is to become God's Transcendental Lore.

You are happy because you know that the world loves you. Someone else is happy because he feels that he loves the world. I am happy because I have discovered the truth that the world is love and my God is the only Lover.


AUM 282. This talk was given at the Westchester-Bronx, N. Y. Branch of the Y.M.C.A. on 27 March 1968, where Sri Chinmoy was invited to speak at a luncheon held by the Lions Club of the Bronx.

Blossoms of the heart —- God is my personal experience

God is my personal experience. In Him is my life's confidence. With me is His assurance in life and death and beyond time and space. I live for God. I live to serve Him with my heart's surrender and with my soul's joy. He lives for me. He lives to present me with His all-transcending Vision, to transform my existence into His heavenly Reality. When I look up into the skies, He is unchangeable. When I look into the world, He is all changing. Backward I look, He is veiled. Forward I look, He is revealed. When I look within, He is never new. When I look without, He is never old.

What do we get from the inner life?2

What do we get from the inner life? We get simplicity, sincerity, integrity, purity, humility and divinity. He who has all these divine qualities will, without fail, have a life of joy, peace, freedom and fulfilment. And he who does not have these divine qualities will unmistakably have a life of tears, turmoil, bondage and frustration.

What else do we get from the inner life? We get a growing, flowing and energising consciousness to illumine and perfect our thoughts and feelings and to accomplish our aims. We can also grow into active and effective participants in God's cosmic experience.

To live an inner life is to become fully conscious of God's existence. To become fully conscious of God's existence is to love humanity's breath with a boundless heart.

If we need a golden opportunity to see God's Face, the inner life is ready to grant it. If we need a faultless assurance that we are God's chosen children, the inner life is eager to give it.

When I truly live the inner life, I can dare to say, "God is mine." Doubt and fear will forever forget my name, form and address. I dare to say, "I am God's." The journey Supreme and the Goal Transcendental will forever be mine.

God with His light awakens my love. God with His Bliss intensifies my devotion. God with His Blessings immortalises my surrender. With my love I discover God. With my devotion I feed God. With my surrender I fulfil God.

My surrendering soul's journey begins with God's concern. My craving life's journey begins with God's Compassion. At the end of my soul's journey, I shall see God the way He wanted me to see Him. At the end of my life's journey, I shall see God the way I wanted to see Him.

Life is for man. Man is of life. Life is man's necessity. Man is life's ability.

I have two I's, the small and the big. The small "I" is the ego which is still unnoticed, while the big "I" is the Self, which is still unknown. I shall notice the unnoticed to learn the Truth. I shall know the unknown to become the Truth.

It is in our inner life that we come to learn that the soul is noble. It embodies the Truth. The heart is noble. It realises the Truth. The mind is noble. It expresses the Truth. The vital is noble. It admires the Truth. The body is noble. It serves the Truth.


AUM 284. Sri Chinmoy gave this talk on Sunday morning 31 March 1968, at a Y.M.C.A. Breakfast Fellowship Meeting held at the William Sloane House, 356 West 34th Street, New York City.

Blossoms of the heart —- When I discover God

When I discover God in Himself, I see the living, growing and glowing God. When I discover God in me, I see the starving, sleeping and crying God. When I discover God in Himself, He is the Eternal Wonder. When I discover God in me, He is the Eternal Mystery.

I discover God's infinite Power and cry out: "Give me your infinite Power." God says: "It is yours."

God discovers my limitless weakness and cries out: "Give Me your limitless weakness." I say: "No, my wealth, absolutely mine."

God fails. I win. God fails to illumine me. I win to destroy me.

The spiritual life3

True, the spiritual life is an inner life. But this inner life does not and cannot reject the outer life. The outer life is a prey to ignorance; it lives in ignorance, but it does not know what ignorance actually is until it offers itself to the light of the inner life to be inspired, guided and perfected by it.

What is ignorance? It is the breath of limitation. Limitation is the breath of death. Ignorance breaks open the door of our consciousness. It touches, soils and finally blights our consciousness. Consciousness is now forced to change its name. Its new name is ego. Ego is blind self-assertion. This self-assertion is founded on stark bondage and not on freedom. To say nothing of heavenly freedom, the ego sorely lacks even earthly freedom. Ego wants to devour the world. Alas, it is not aware of the fact that its own life has been already devoured by its own impurity, obscurity and futility.

The spiritual life is the natural life of our soul. It is also the life of boundless Eternity. Where is God? He is both in our outer life. In our inner life He is. He breathes and He embodies His Transcendental Divinity. In our outer life He grows, He reveals and He manifests His absolute Reality.

Each human being has to realise his ideal in the world of manifestation. There is no escape. When an aspirant lives in his highest ideal — realisation, liberation, divinisation — his life becomes God's peerless pride and God's brightest smile.

Sri Ramakrishna says, "There are three different paths to reach the ideal: the path of I, the path of Thou and the path of Thou and I. According to the first, all that is, has been, or ever will be, is I myself. In other words, I am, I was and I shall be, to all eternity. According to the second, Thou art, O Lord and all is Thine. And according to the third, Thou art the Lord and I am Thy servant or Thy son. In the perfection of any of these three, God is realised."

One may not believe in God. But he has to believe in something, either here on earth or there in Heaven. Let him go deep within and in no time, he will realise that his very belief in something is another name for God. One may not believe in the existence of the soul. One wants proof of the soul's existence. Here, Emerson's clear and direct reply is, "The desire to seek for the proof of the existence of the soul is the strongest proof itself."

To come back to our spiritual life. The spiritual life does not abide in the world of dreams. On the contrary, it is the outer life that is dreaming in the world of ignorant and unconscious sleep. The inner life is always awake. It denies dreams. It affirms Reality within and without.

Again, just as there are people who do not believe in God, in the existence of the soul, so also are there people who do not believe in miracles. They disclaim all supernatural powers. But I tell them that one day they themselves will neither be able to deny miracles nor will they be able to free themselves from becoming the true and genuine miracle makers. When they start walking along the inner path, the path of spirituality, they will realise that impossibility is a mere word, utterly meaningless. They will display the great miracle in realising the Infinite in the finite and manifesting the Infinite in and through the Finite.


AUM 286. This address is the third of the extemporaneous talks given by Sri Chinmoy in 1968 to organisations in the New York area. "The spiritual life" was given on 24 April 1968 at the Crescent Place Reformed Church (Presbyterian), 46 Crescent Place, Yonkers, N.Y. at the kind invitation of the Reverend Ralph Jallouk.

Blossoms of the heart —- I sought and he caught

I sought God's guidance.

He caught my fear.

I sought God's Wisdom-Light.

He caught my Ignorance-night.

I sought God's all-illuming Truth.

He caught my all-spreading Falsehood.

I sought God to own Him.

He caught me to give Himself.

I sought God because without Him I can do nothing.

He caught me because without me He wants to do nothing.

I sought God.

I am now fulfilled.

God caught me.

He is now revealed.

God's visiting hours4

When I see my God in reason, He is Justice.

When I see my God in faith, He is Protection.

When I see my God in love, He is Compassion.

When I see my God in will, He is Vision.

When I see my God in joy, He is Perfection.

When I see my God in truth, He is Fulfilment.

My breath invokes God throbbingly, my soul silently, my heart lovingly, my mind hesitantly, my vital unconsciously and my body fearfully.

There are two choice hours for my God to visit me.

Once when my soulful life is without haste; the other when my life's mounting flame is without rest.

AUM 288. (Bholanath, Mr. Clyde Weinman, recited "God's Visiting Hours" most soulfully on 13 April 1968, Sri Chinmoy's fourth anniversary in the West).

Questions and answers —- Guru in Puerto Rico

AUM 289-293. These questions were put to Sri Chinmoy on 12 July 1967 during one of the question periods held at the Aum Centre, Santurce, Puerto Rico where Guru spent six weeks last summer.

Question: Sometimes in my meditations, I come to think about the feeling of Eternity, you know. I come to feel that human beings have lived forever and will live forever. This feeling, instead of causing me pleasure and a good sensation, on the contrary causes me great anguish and pain. I feel then that I am all alone, that I am living a life of my own, different from everything. I feel that I have no world left, that by the power of my mind, I have destroyed the world and am alone by myself. This thought causes me a great deal of pain and I have wanted to mention this state of mind. I want to know if I am taking a wrong path.

Sri Chinmoy: When, in your meditation, you feel that you are lonely, alone, it is not actually the loneliness of the human being. At that time you get a glimpse of the SOLE. This Sole pervades all. We call it Brahman, the One without a second. When you feel that you are lonely, it is the sense of your unconscious oneness with the Absolute Oneness. But when the physical, the vital and the mind are not transformed to a considerable degree, they are afraid of this superloneliness. It is not actually loneliness, as I have said, it is the sense of the Oneness. You see the Reality: you are One pervading everything.

Now, what is actually happening in your meditation is that at times your aspiration, before it reaches its goal or before it finds its abode in the Goal, ceases. Your heart's mounting flames rises upward, but there are a few stops and breaks. If there were a gradual and continuous flight and if it were uninterrupted, then you would not feel the loneliness at the lower levels of your consciousness. Please try to keep your aspiration uninterrupted at all times. The inner runner must complete his race divine.

The infinite Eternity and the eternity that you are speaking of is in the motto of our Aum Centres: "Man is Infinity's Heart, Man is Eternity's Breath, Man is Immortality's Life.” The breath Eternity possesses is man. Most of us have had countless lives and some of us will have countless more. In your case, it is the divine realisation or the spiritual realisation that you need. One can attain the achievements of twenty incarnations in one lifetime provided one takes to spirituality in all sincerity and dedication and listens to one's spiritual guide most devotedly. Since you have the intense aspiration, you are accomplishing it successfully. That is why the spiritual masters say, "Take to the spiritual life and enter into the divine. This divine is your own infinite self. The sooner you start your journey, the better for you."

When you live the spiritual life, you live in Eternity. This Eternity does not present itself as a problem, but as an inspiration, encouragement, aspiration and illumination. It is Eternity that is constantly carrying us into the immortal Self and that immortal Self is our real Self.

Question: I have been reading the minor Upanishads and I want to ask you something about them. If they are "minor", why are they so profound in the script and in the meaning?

Sri Chinmoy: I believe that we are living in the world of economy! If we say that the 'minor' Upanishads are profound, then you will agree, I hope, with those that feel that the 'major' Upanishads are more profound.

The thing is... in India, many great scholars accept sixteen or eighteen Upanishads as authentic and original. Some accept only twelve which they take as 'major' and others accept only eight; the rest they consider 'minor'. These people feel that not all but some of the Upanishads are momentous in their depths and in their embodiment of Truth. But you yourself will be the best judge. You kindly read the major ones first. According to me, the most significant ones are: Katha, Isha, Kena, Prashna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Chandogya, Brihadaranyaka, Svetasvatara and Kaivalya.

I am sure, Gauri, that you know that there are only 108 Upanishads! If you have the time, patience, inspiration and aspiration to study all the 108 Upanishads, then it is simply wonderful. But do not come and tell me that some of the later Upanishads are not only insignificant, but a mere repetition of the former significant ones. To be frank with you, I have just studied sixteen. They have given me what I sought and at the same time, what they stand for: lofty aspiration and mystical revelations.

Question: Another question about the Upanishads: why was the King of Death, Yama, not there when Nachiketa arrived?

Sri Chinmoy: So you are carrying us into the lore of the Katha Upanishad! Wonderful. That was not the fault of the King of Death. If I come to your house without making a previous appointment or without your knowledge and do not find you at home. I can't blame you, can I? Nachiketa's father, Vajasravasa, said, "Thee I give to Death." But the King of Death did not say, "O Nachiketa, I am waiting for thee, for thee alone."

Question: When the soul is going to re-incarnate, is it forced to do so or does the soul have the privilege of making this decision?

Sri Chinmoy: When the soul leaves the body, it gradually goes back to its own region, after leaving the physical, vital and mental and psychic sheaths. Nobody can compel the soul to re-incarnate, save the Supreme. The Supreme has the power to compel the soul to re-incarnate, but He does not do it. The Supreme does not compel anybody to do anything. The soul has an inner urge to fulfil the Divine here on earth. Some souls want to take rest for a few years, say ten, twenty, forty or sixty years, while others who are not developed and are full of earthly desires and want to fulfil their countless unfulfilled desires, come back to the physical world sooner. To be sure, they are not going to fulfil anything spiritual here on earth. They just come back to the world of manifestation to fulfil their countless human desires.

The soul, as I have already said, is not compelled, but if a soul wants to descend, before doing so, it investigates the family, the environment, the circumstances and a few other things. Before actually entering into the family, the soul has to have an interview with the Supreme. Then the Supreme either approves of the soul's decision or He may merely tolerate it. There is a great difference between approval and tolerance. I am sure you know this.

Then there are some souls who have had enough of earthly experiences, that is to say, sufferings and frustrations. These particular souls usually take the oath of Nirvana. They do not come down again. They remain in the Void. But there are aspiring souls who will not accept any defeat. They will come down to have the Divine Victory in spite of their repeated defeats. These souls will come and go until the Divine Victory has been fully established on earth. Truly you are one of these divine warriors.

Something more I wish to add. The soul is not compelled. The human father says to his son, "You are my son. You have to listen to me." But the Supreme Father does not do that. It is only the ignorant human being who commands. The higher we go, the clearer it becomes to us. Normally the Supreme puts into our consciousness what he actually wants us to do in order to fulfil Himself in us and through us in infinite ways. Compulsion is only in this world, not in the higher worlds. Earlier I said something about the inner urge, it is the inner urge that compels the soul to re-incarnate and not any outer force. My Father, the Infinite, is the most compassionate Being here on earth as well as in heaven. It is my bounden duty to fulfil Him here on earth, there in heaven. Finally I must realise that by fulfilling Him, I am fulfilling myself unmistakably, totally, divinely and supremely.

Question: I wish to ask something further, regarding Sudha's question. Religion has told us that we have come from the Spirit and we go back to the Spirit at the end of our present incarnation. Now if we go back to our Father, then what is the use of re-incarnation, realisation and so forth?

Sri Chinmoy: There are many religions on earth that do believe in re-incarnation. Re-incarnation is an undeniable fact. Now let me explain to you briefly what we mean by re-incarnation. You play a game, but you cannot play it forever. You cannot play it twenty-four hours at a stretch. You have to rest from time to time. Similarly in the process of evolution through a long series of re-incarnations, we are trying to complete the game. This divine game that we are all playing is called the Lila. We cannot complete the game in its fulness during one span of life. Also we are not playing the game in a divine way. We have not reached the Goal. Our Goal is still a far cry. Now if you want to embody your Father's infinite consciousness on earth and want to reveal and manifest your Father, whom you think is in heaven, then you have to play His divine game of re-incarnation. There is no other way. When we go to Him after each lifetime, it is only for a rest.

AUM

Man is Infinity’s Heart.

Man is Eternity’s Breath.

Man is Immortality’s Life.

From:Sri Chinmoy,AUM — Vol. 3, No. 7,8, Feb. — 27 Mar. 1968, AUM Publishings -- San Juan, P.R., 1968
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