God gave us this inner peace the moment our soul entered into the world. But what happens? Once we have entered into the world, our conscious mind pays more importance to the outer world of temptation; the result is that temptation takes us to its dearest child, frustration. It is there that we lose all our inner peace. If there were no interference from temptation in our lives, then we would have peace.
This temptation covers everything, and inside this temptation is fear, worry, doubt and other negative forces. And the worst, the mightiest force that temptation cherishes inside us is attachment. When we are attached we are lost, but when we are devoted we are fulfilled. When we focus our attention on something bright, pure, divine, this is devotion. We are devoted to the divine qualities within us and around us. But attachment is something else. We are attached to the body, to the finite. When we are attached, we take things part by part, little by little, and there we remain. We are attached to an infinitesimal portion of something. The very cry of our attachment starts with an absolutely minute particle. Then naturally it tries to grow. Today I am attached to one thing, tomorrow I am attached to two things or many things. But when we are devoted, we are devoted to the infinite Light, infinite Peace; everything is in infinite measure. It is like a flood. We enter into the flood to lose our very existence in the flood of Light, the flood of Reality, the flood of Plenitude.
Now we are saying that we need peace in the outer world; hence we have to invent outer peace. Now, how can we invent outer peace? Even in the material world in order to invent something we need some substance. When a scientist invents something, his mind, his brain, his inner capacity all come to the fore. Here we see the necessity of everything that the man has or embodies in order to invent something. But in the case of peace the same person needs only one instrument: inner peace. If this inner peace is not brought to the fore, then the man can never have peace in the outer life. If the inner peace does not come to the fore and make the outer circumstances peaceful, the peace that we may see in the outer life will be like a counterfeit coin. Friendship, amity and harmony in society will not have an abiding substance if the inner peace is wanting. Everything will last indefinitely if we can use inner peace as our most powerful instrument to guide the outer life, the world that we see around us.
How can we have this inner peace? We can have it just by crying, crying for inner peace, Now, how can we cry for the inner peace? It is not easy to cry sincerely. How can we cry sincerely? We can cry by looking at our own image. If we cannot perceive our face without a mirror, we must stand in front of a mirror and see how helpless, how hopeless we are. We will see that millions of thoughts come and float right on our face. Now at this point, we must not be depressed. What we have to do is feel, "Is this my face? Is this my lot? Is this what I actually look like? I want to change my face, my fate; but how? By feeling tremendous inner confidence that I am God's child. Until now, I have allowed myself to be eaten away by ignorance. Now I will not allow anything or anybody to devour me. I will only allow God to devour me. Let Him eat me up." When we can have that kind of offering or feeling in our life, that we are ready to be eaten by God, piece by piece, each drop of blood, then we will see that a cry automatically comes. When we are ready to give, there comes a cry: "God, take me; what I have and what I am, take me. What I have is absolute ignorance, within and without. What I am right now is Your infinite Consolation and Your infinite Compassion and my very limited determination. The only thing I have is a bundle of ignorance on my shoulders." If we can offer everything at the Feet of God, then God enters into us with His Infinity. When we see Infinity entering into us, it is the cry of fulfilment that we see within and without.
So, let us cry. Let us feel at every moment the crying need for something that we do not have, that we do not know how to embody. In the inner world we have everything: Peace, Light, Bliss, God. But in the outer world we are lacking these very things. If we can pay more attention to the inner world, naturally the presiding deities of the inner world will be more pleased with us. Then, they will tell us to use them, they will be at our disposal. If we are really devoted to the inner life, spiritual life, we must sincerely and soulfully invoke the inner guidance, the inmost Pilot, the Supreme. We have every right to invoke His Light, His Peace, His Bliss; and He, with His deepest Joy and Concern will fulfil our aspiration. He is eager, He is crying twenty-four hours a day at every moment to please us. But we are not trying to be pleased. Even if we feel that it is not enough, let us now try to be pleased with the thing that He offers us; whatever He gives let us take with utmost gratitude.From:Sri Chinmoy,The height of silence and the might of sound, Agni Press, 1974
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