Flame-Waves, part 9

Part I: Questions and answers on religion

Question: Why is there religion and what role should it play in our lives?

Question: What is the goal of religion?

Question: What is the original significance of religion?

Question: The family has always been seen as the centre of both the religious and the social formation of most religions. Can you explain the sacred and divine purpose that the family is supposed to have?

Question: Can religion help mankind to achieve a world of true brotherhood and love?

Question: How can religion overcome a narrow outlook and develop a real acceptance of all other religions as true and necessary?

Question: What does God like best about religions?

Question: What is the difference between religion and spirituality?

Question: Why should one give his time to God in the first place?

Question: When the follower of one religion meditates on the ideals of his religion, will this produce the same results as when the follower of another religion meditates on the ideals of that religion?

Question: What are the major obstacles to praying meaningfully?

Question: Why don't religions love and respect each other more?

Question: If each religion claims to teach the truth, which religion is the most true?

Question: If one has great faith in one's own religion, how should he view other religions and those who follow other religions?

Question: Is a mutual understanding and respect possible between the different religions of the world?

Question: Can one be extremely devoted to a religious figure such as Jesus or Buddha and to a living spiritual teacher as well, or is it better just to follow one teacher?

Question: How can we as individuals encourage a world-wide recognition of the basic unity of all major religions?

Part II

Question: What is the difference between Yoga, Zen and Hinduism?

Let us think of Hinduism as an eternal religion, or we can take it as a form of self-discipline that will one day allow us to feel boundless joy, boundless peace, boundless love. When we think of Buddhism, immediately the compassion-aspect of reality comes forward into our mind. The world needs compassion badly. I show compassion to you, you show compassion to me and with our mutual compassion we live on earth. When I am in need of your compassion, you show me compassion; when you are in need of my compassion, I show you compassion. In this way we exist together. If we don’t show compassion to humanity, then we don’t exist.

When we come to Zen, what we need is awareness. We have to be fully, consciously and constantly aware of what we are doing, what we are seeing, what we are growing into. Zen requires constant, conscious awareness. If we are meditating, we are aware of it; if we are eating, we are aware of it; if we are talking to our friend, we are aware of it.

When we come to Yoga, we sing the song of oneness. Yoga is a Sanskrit word that means oneness. Yoga says that if we establish our oneness with something or someone, with an incident or an experience, then we get everything. If I am one with you, then I know what is happening inside your heart, inside your mind. If I am one with somebody else, them immediately I have a free access to him and I know what is happening in him. And if I can establish my oneness with an incident or experience, then I become part and parcel of that incident or experience in life.

At the highest point in Zen there is something called satori or illumination. If once you are illumined, then there is nothing and no one on earth with which or with whom you cannot establish your oneness. Before illumination there is darkness on one side and light on the other side. This side of the sea is darkness, the other side is light and you are in between. But if you go and take shelter in illumination, then your own inner effulgence envelops and encompasses the whole world.

Before illumination takes place, you are in ignorance and you feel that the world is in ignorance. But once illumination takes place, which is called satori in Zen, you become one with the Vision of the Absolute. At that time, you live in silence-life, you live in sound-life, but everywhere is illumination and you grow into this illumination. Once you are illumined, you are freed from the meshes of ignorance. For millennia you lived in ignorance, but once illumination has taken place, then there is no ignorance in you at all. This room is dark, but then an electrician brings in some light. For days and months and years this room has remained unlit, unillumined, dark, but then the electrician comes and the room is illumined. So the greatest gift of Zen is illumination: the highest illumination, all-illumining illumination, all-fulfilling illumination.

Yoga’s greatest contribution is not only illumination, but also perfection in our constant oneness with what God has offered to us, what God is going to give us and what God Himself is. If somebody is suffering, then Yoga becomes totally, inseparably one with that sufferer. If somebody is in the seventh heaven of delight, then Yoga becomes one with him in the seventh heaven of delight. Illumination, on the other hand, is a process, a regular process in which we come out from ignorance-night and enter into wisdom-light. Once we grow into wisdom-light, then we are totally freed from bondage, from limitation, from imperfection, from so-called death.

Question: Does this mean that Zen and Yoga have different goals?

I touch water and immediately I get the consciousness of water. I touch a wall and immediately I get the consciousness of the wall. Again, if I touch the feet of a saint, then immediately I get the consciousness of the saint. This is Yoga: oneness, oneness, oneness. But you don’t have to touch anything. Just through identification you can get the consciousness of the person who is a saint, the person who has illumination. In the Zen process, you get what the saint has by concentrating on what you want. The process in Yoga is to identify oneself with the goal. But the goal that you reach by concentrating in Zen and the goal that I reach by identifying myself with someone is the same.

There is a very good Zen teacher in Rochester named Philip Kapleau. He is a friend of mine and a great authority on Zen. He wrote a book called The Three Pillars of Zen. If you are interested, you can learn from him. Again, if you feel like coming to our meditations on Tuesdays and Fridays here, you can see what we get from our meditation. If you can come and join us, I assure you that you will feel something.

Question: Is there no sense of strong discipline in Yoga?

The child feels that the father is everything for him and a day will come when he will be able to claim everything the father has. Even now he claims it. Since he is a child, he may squander his father’s money, so his father is not giving it to him. But when he is mature, since he has established his oneness with his father, he will be able to get his father’s property and utilise it properly.

In the Yoga process, you just feel that God is yours, that He loves you and you love Him. You feel your oneness with the Almighty. And if you feel your oneness with the Almighty, He is bound to give you what He has and what He is.

Part III

Question: How can we stay in the heart when we are doing tasks which involve the mind?

If we feel that we have many levels of being then naturally we will be tempted, we will be inspired to use all these when we feel it is necessary. But if we can make ourselves feel that what we have and what we are is the aspiring heart, then the consciousness of the heart will come to the fore and inundate the whole body from top to bottom, from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head. If I repeat, “I am the heart, I am the heart,” then we will only have the heart’s consciousness no matter what we do. Then the problem of the mind’s involvement in our activities will not arise. For we are not using the mind as such; we are using only the thing that we claim to be our own, our very own, and that is the heart.

Question: What are the major qualities of the United Nations soul?

Question: What do the delegates and ambassadors who are participating in the General Assembly offer to the United Nations spiritually?

But all the diplomats and delegates have something spiritual to offer. They have come, first of all, to serve their country, their nation. Their nation is not one person but thousands and millions of people. They represent their nation, so millions of people are inside them, speaking through them to the world at large. So the message that the ambassador of a nation gives is something that the nation wants the whole world to hear. It is the nation’s collective freedom or collective contribution to mankind that the ambassador is offering. Therefore, we must realise there is something deep or meaningful inside him, something fruitful inside him. This very thing, on the outer plane, may not bear fruit all at once. But just because it does not bear fruit immediately, we cannot say that the nation does not have a good motive or that the individual who represents the nation has a bad intention.

Question: What should our attitude be towards working at the United Nations?

If we have so-called enemies, then we will all the time harbour evil thoughts towards our enemies. When we feel that we have enemies around us we actually forget our own goal. We think only of our enemies — how to conquer them, how to annihilate them. This becomes our goal. Then what kind of progress are we going to make?

So the best attitude is to always think of the goal. The goal is always found in self-giving. The more we can give soulfully, the sooner we shall get satisfaction in what we are doing or what we are growing into. Each individual knows how to offer some things to the world at large. Each individual knows how to offer something to his body, vital, mind, heart and soul. Only we have to do it.

We create thoughts, ideas and ideals. Let us say that a thought has entered into our mind. Immediately if we want to nourish that thought, we can put a good feeling into the thought. And that feeling comes from the heart itself. If we do not nourish the thought with our heart’s psychic feelings, the thought remains powerless, it remains unfulfilled. Here we are talking about attitudes on the mental plane. But the real divinity, or the real essence of anything divine, lies only inside the heart. So anything that we see in the form of creation or anything that we create ourselves must be nourished by the feelings of the heart.

At every moment we can be attacked by negative thoughts, assailed by undivine thoughts. Again, at every moment with our inner will we can create good thoughts, loving thoughts, illumining thoughts, fulfilling thoughts. These thoughts can only function properly when we have an inner feeling from the heart.

The feelings of the heart we can increase only by self-giving. Right now we use the term “self-giving” precisely because we have not sufficiently cultivated or developed the capacity that makes us feel that we are of the one and for the many. We have not yet discovered our universal oneness. But once we have discovered our oneness with the rest of the world, then it is not self-giving; it is only the fulfilment of our own inner awakening. When my hand does some thing for my leg or vice versa, they do not take it as self-giving. Hand and leg are part and parcel of one reality; they are one reality.

Unfortunately, at the present state of our evolution, our limited vision has not granted us the capacity to feel everyone as our own. So let us start with the idea of self-giving. We shall give what we have and what we are; we shall give our good thoughts.

Part IV

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

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.

Part V

Question: Sri Chinmoy, how do you view the problems of the world and how do you think these problems can be solved?

Problems are everywhere. Each country has hundreds of problems. Each individual has hundreds of problems. But problems can be solved, should be solved and must be solved by individuals first, for it is the individual mind, or brain, or capacity that rules each country. If each individual sees that he has hundreds of problems of his own, then he will dive deep into his own problems. When he dives deep into his own problems, he sees and feels that there is only one problem, and that problem is lack of oneness.

Very often we notice this lack of oneness, inseparable oneness, even in our own individual being. We identify ourselves with a particular part or limb of our body more than we identify ourselves with the rest of the body. If somebody says that our eyes are beautiful, then we focus all our attention on our eyes and feel that we don’t need anything else. We neglect our arms, our feet, our nose, our head, and we forget that God has also made them members of our physical existence. Only the eyes have become part and parcel of our existence, and we consciously and deliberately ignore the existence of other things in our day-to-day life. At this time we have to know that we have lost our sweet, inseparable oneness with the arms, legs and the rest of our body. We do not consciously establish our soulful and fruitful oneness with all the limbs of our physical body proper.

The world is composed of many, many countries. If an individual can become inseparably one with the inner cry of his own nation, then he is bound to feel that his nation is nothing but a tree. If I belong to a country, then I should feel that my nation-tree has countless branches, which are the other countries. And if you belong to a country, then you can also feel that your country is the tree and the rest of the countries are all branches.

A tree without branches is no tree at all. When we see that there are quite a few branches, we appreciate the tree. And if we see that the tree is bearing flowers and fruits, we deeply appreciate it. So, from the human point of view, we can solve our problems by thinking that we are trees and that others are the branches. If we can feel this way, and if others also can feel exactly the same way — that they are the trees and we are the branches — then there will be a feeling of inseparable oneness. This is the human way that we can solve world problems.

But the divine way is to feel God’s entire creation as our very own and to feel our oneness with the Will of the Supreme. I come from India; you come from some other part of the world. But everything is in God’s creation and God is both creation and manifestation. He is Silence and He is also sound. Silence we see in His Vision-Reality and sound we see in His manifestation-Reality on earth. So, from the spiritual point of view, from the divine point of view, if we want to solve the problems of the world, then there is only one way. That way is to pray and meditate for our conscious oneness with the Will of the Absolute Supreme. On very rare occasions, the Will of the Supreme is being executed through us even though we are not consciously praying and meditating. But if we consciously pray and consciously meditate, then without fail God’s Will will be executed in and through us.

Prayer and meditation are nothing short of our constant communion, or conversation, with God. When we pray, at that time we talk to God; and when we meditate, God talks to us. Two persons are here: God and us. When it is our turn, we have to pray and offer our soulful cry. What we want from God is Peace, Light and Bliss. And when God meditates on us, we just listen. He has a Message for us. He wants to give us the Message. And also, He will tell us how we can share His Message with the rest of the world.

So, prayer and meditation can solve all the world problems. If we can become soulfully and constantly one with God’s Will, then we can make no mistakes. It is because of our mistakes that we create problems for ourselves. And what is the mistake that we have already made, and from which we are constantly suffering? Our only mistake is that we have made friends with ignorance. We are swimming in the sea of ignorance. But we can change our friendship. God is there to help us and guide us. We can make Wisdom-Light our friend, our only friend. Then we will be able to swim in the sea of Wisdom-Light instead of swimming in the sea of ignorance-night.

Part VI

A supreme honour

Question: What is the seeker's responsibility at the United Nations?

Question: Some nations accept the United Nations as their own. Other nations would even deny the United Nations. What are the differences in the soul-growth of the nations that have not yet become one with the United Nations?

Unfortunately, there are some nations that find it difficult to accept the United Nations, that even go to the length of denying the United Nations. I wish to say, from my own experience and point of view, that these nations are not awakened. Either they are not awakened, or they have consciously and deliberately taken the side of ignorance-reality. Just like an individual human being, each nation has a physical personality or reality, a vital personality, a mental personality and so on. At times it is very difficult to say whether a nation is not accepting the United Nations existence because its soul is not awakened, or whether it is because the physical-reality, vital-reality or mental-reality of that particular nation is not sufficiently awakened. If those are not awakened, then the nation as such will not want to help or serve the United Nations or be illumined or guided by the United Nations. In most of the cases, I can see that it is the undisciplined vital, the uncontrolled mind and the unaspiring physical-reality that do not allow the nations to see the reality, the divinity, the sincere willingness of the United Nations to be of service to mankind.

Again, there are some nations which neither deny nor accept the United Nations. They do something else; they try to remain neutral. From the inner point of view, neutrality is not good. Let us say that two persons are at daggers drawn, two persons have different opinions, and one is right and one is wrong. If we know who is right and who is wrong, and in spite of knowing, if we remain silent, that means that some weakness on our part is preventing us from taking the side of the right. We don’t say that one side is all ignorance and the other side is all wisdom-light. No, only there is lesser light and higher light, lesser truth and higher truth. One side can have an iota more of light than the other side. If we remain silent, automatically we weaken the possibilities and potentialities of the side that has more light. The one that embodies more light should be encouraged and inspired so that he reaches the destination-goal. There he will be flooded with the light of the goal, and then he can come back to the unillumined who are still struggling, still wallowing in ignorance. So, it is always good to take the side which has greater light, abundant light. It is very easy to deny the sun. At night we can deny it, but in a few hours’ time the sun comes out. Even while facing the sun we can deny its existence, but the sun does exist. What in us denies it? It is the ignorance in us that denies. But our inner sun immediately responds to the outer sun. Similarly, we can deny our oneness with the supreme Reality, but it does exist.

I am sure that most of you have read India’s Bible, the Bhagavad Gita. There was a conflict between darkness and light, or we can say between lesser light and greater light, which eventually ended in the battle of Kurukshetra. Lord Krishna said outwardly, “I am not taking any side,” because he represented God, and for God everybody is equal. But in the very depths of his heart, he did take the side of the righteous Pandavas. To the other side, the Kauravas, he gave his own army, and he was only a charioteer for the Pandava side. But twice there were occasions when he came out of the chariot to fight against the unaspiring forces. Again, there were one or two among the unaspiring forces who were really aspiring. They knew who Sri Krishna was, but they were morality-bound to fight on the Kaurava side. They were brought up by the undivine forces; they were fed and nourished by the undivine forces, like Vishma. That is why they did not surrender fully to the light of Lord Krishna.

So here also, if some nations are in touch with undivine nations, if they get some help financially or otherwise, then they are caught. They do not want to voice forth their sincere opinions with regard to the United Nations. But we feel that it is always better to take the side of the nation that has more light and that is willing to reach its destination. We should not try to discourage the other nations in any way. But if we feel that the nations that are not aspiring so sincerely or deeply will be sad if we take sides, and if we stop encouraging the one that is promising, illumining and fulfilling, then we are standing in the way of world perfection in general and of our own aspiration. So, being seekers we should always try to take the side of those nations that are trying to unite other nations and that are crying and aspiring for more illumination and perfection here on earth. And we should always try to convince the nations to take the side of the nations that represent or embody more illumining and fulfilling light. All those who deny the truth, all those who do not want to see the truth, should be given a chance to see and realise the truth in their own time. Right now only those who want the truth and need the truth desperately should be given the first and foremost chance to come to the fore and be inundated with Truth and Light and Delight. Let us not remain neutral; let us be all for those who desperately cry for and need Light, Truth, Beauty and Delight.

It is very difficult to determine the soul growth of the nations which have not yet become one with the United Nations. In their case, the soul has not come to the fore. Right now the physical part, the vital part, the mental part of these nations are not allowing the soul to come to the fore. When the soul is covered by layer after layer of the vital-reality, the mental-reality or the physical-reality, then it is not possible to determine the growth because the soul remains in seed form. Only when the soul comes to the fore, only when the soul germinates like a seed germinating into a tiny plant, a sapling and finally a huge banyan tree, only then does it radiate an iota of light all around. If the soul does not have the capacity or the opportunity to come to the fore and radiate even an infinitesimal amount of light, then it is impossible to determine the soul-growth. But we can safely say that there shall come a time when the soul will be able to come to the fore, for creation is meant for perfection. Nothing on earth, nothing in God’s creation, will remain imperfect. Eventually, everything has to see the face of perfection, for that is what God wants from us and that is what God eternally is. Therefore, the soul will come to the fore and at that time it will be quite possible to determine the growth of the nations that are not yet one with the United Nations.

Here we are all seekers of the Absolute Truth. We should soulfully pray and meditate for the nations that are still wanting in light so that they can also see the all-loving Beauty and all-fulfilling Duty that the United Nations has. Again, we have to know that the goal that we have been seeing in the United Nations is not the ultimate goal. Right now we are only thinking of union, of a world filled with union reality. But union is not the ultimate thing. There should be something else: oneness. The United Nations is dealing with unity right now. We are trying to establish unity on the physical plane, vital plane, mental plane and psychic plane. But then we have to go one step ahead to oneness. Oneness-reality we have to achieve by virtue of our sincere prayer and our sincere dedication to the body-reality and the soul-reality of the United Nations.

Question: Can you describe the stage of evolution of the United Nations soul?

The human way is the way that our physical mind understands the evolution of the soul of the United Nations. Right now, when we assess something, when we try to determine something, we use our physical mind, our earthbound mind. But the human mind, the earthbound mind, cannot see the soul of the United Nations. If the physical mind tries to see the evolution of the soul of the United Nations, then it sees it as a seed that is quite uncertain of future growth. It feels that the seed may not germinate at all; there will be no plant, not to speak of a tree. This is how our physical mind regards the evolution of the soul of the United Nations.

Then there is the divine way. The divine way is the way of the heart, which identifies itself with the soul of the United Nations according to its loving capacity. On the strength of its identification with the soul of the United Nations, the heart sees and feels clearly the actual growth, evolution, progress and success of the soul of the United Nations. When the heart observes or feels the evolution of the soul of the United Nations, it sees a tree, a powerful tree. This tree is the soul-tree of peace, harmony, light and delight. And it sees that there are countless human beings consciously or unconsciously seated at the foot of this tree. These human beings who are seated at the foot of this tree have an iota of aspiration in the inmost recesses of their hearts. If they consciously try to become one with the soul of the United Nations on the strength of their most sincere prayer and most sincere meditation, then the soul of the United Nations cheerfully, unreservedly and unconditionally shares with them its wealth, which is universal love, universal light and universal delight.

From God’s point of view, from the highest, absolute point of view, the United Nations embodies the seed that the mind observes; it embodies the tree that the heart feels; and also it embodies the fruit. From the highest point of view, this tree of peace, light, bliss and harmony has already started bearing fruit, the fruit of oneness, universal oneness. This fruit some God-lovers have already seen and felt. Let us use the term “Truth-lovers”, since there are many people who do not consciously admit the fact that God exists. But for them, Truth exists. We know perfectly well that God and Truth are identical, inseparable; they are like the obverse and reverse of the same coin. But if someone likes the idea of Truth as the only reality, as the ultimate Goal, let him remain with his realisation. Your realisation that God is the only Reality is exactly the same.

Question: What does the outer world need in order to accept the real significance of the United Nations?

Question: There seems to be a movement towards a mental realisation where countries are starting to work with parapsychology and mind control. Is this a step towards the heart or away from the heart?

Question: How can we help people in the undeveloped countries?

Question: How do we best deal with people who are actively opposed to the United Nations?

Question: How can we work with dynamism and confidence at the United Nations?

Question: What is the best way to serve the United Nations: through meditation or action?

Question: How can both staff members and delegates of member nations understand that spirituality is a true base to build their goals upon?

Question: Is it best to try to bring new seekers to our United Nations meditations, or just let them discover it on their own?

Question: How has the consciousness of the United Nations affected America as a country?

Question: How can one best serve the ideal of the United Nations when not working at the United Nations?

Question: How can we instil a spiritual feeling in the work that we do, so that it will be conveyed to the people we work for?

Question: Is the United Nations destined to obtain spiritual power as well as political power?

Question: Are the people who work at the United Nations especially chosen to work at the United Nations by some higher force?

Question: How can we consecrate our lives to the soul of the United Nations?

Question: How can we best inspire the people we work with?

Question: How can we meditate on the soul of the United Nations?

Question: How can the strong and developed countries offer their guidance to the less developed countries without incurring resentment?

Question: What is the main problem or quality in the countries of the world which keeps them from acting according to the ideals of the United Nations?

Question: How can I work with true spontaneity and sincerity at the United Nations?

Question: What is the best way to bring a divine consciousness to everyday activities at the United Nations?

Question: How can the delegates and representatives at the United Nations best convey the ideal of the United Nations to their people in their countries?

Editor's preface to the first edition

Sri Chinmoy Meditation at the United Nations

> WE BELIEVE...