Sri Chinmoy answers, part 26

Part I

The Christmas trip²

Here you are getting a rare opportunity — for two months you can see your Master for hours and hours and hours every day. And your Master also gets the golden opportunity to be of supreme service to you because he is directly in front of your face, in front of your outer existence. So it is a great opportunity both for the Master and for the disciples — an opportunity for the disciples to receive and for the Master to give. With your physical, earthly eyes you can see that I am doing everything for you and you also are doing everything for me. You are doing everything for my happiness and I am doing everything for your happiness.

Again, there are people on the trip who are right now doing other activities. They are absolutely doing the right thing because they are happy. Their innocent happiness is making me happy. Their happiness is not coming from their pleasure-life. The happiness of the pleasure-life is destruction. But anything that makes you soulfully happy, prayerfully happy, is your progress, and your progress is my progress.

Our Beloved Supreme has given the opportunity for me to be available for so many hours for you all. I used to see my Master four times a year for three or four seconds each time — not more. Here, in our case, this opportunity is given to both the Master and the disciples. Do not waste, do not misuse this opportunity. Do not miss this opportunity — do not, do not.

Some of you make such progress in these two months that, even if during the entire year you do not make any progress, there is no harm. It is like depositing a very large amount of money in the bank. Even if you do not earn any more money, you can withdraw from the bank because you have deposited such a large amount of money. Some of you make such progress that, even if for the rest of the year you do not make any progress, you can just think of the happiness that you gave me and the happiness that I gave you.

You can think of the progress that you made by singing soulfully for hours and hours and hours. My philosophy, my spirituality, my yoga can never, never be separated from my songs or from my writings. They are part and parcel of my own divinity, my own reality. Everything comes from a very deep source, and this source is all divine.

To come back to the point, some of you make unimaginable progress during the Christmas trip. This is why I beg and beg people to come, especially those who have money-power. But some of my disciples have other things to do. For only one week or ten days they will come, because they have other appointments and engagements.

Right from the beginning, spirituality is a matter of faith — how much faith you have in me and how much faith I have in you. When faith dwindles or disappears, or when the faith-boat sinks, everything goes wrong. It was faith that brought you to me, to our path. Your faith told you that I had realised God. And my faith in you gave me the message that I would make you a fit instrument to realise God. Your faith was that I had realised God and I would be able to take you to God. That burning faith should remain with you from the very day that I accepted you throughout your entire life, to your last breath.

Happiness, happiness, happiness! Happiness is progress. There is no other way to make the fastest progress. If you do not make inner progress, it is not like running a marathon. If you have covered seven miles in the marathon, you can wait for fifteen minutes or half an hour and then again you can continue. But the spirituality-race is never like that. Once you start, if you stop at a particular place, a magnetic pull will bring you down to the starting point — not only to the starting point, but much lower, because some divine forces become so disgusted. They say, “Why did you not complete the race? Why did you not go to the destination?” It is all because you have another destination. Then again you have to start, far below the original starting point because you deliberately lost your opportunity.

I am begging all of you who have money-power never to miss the Christmas trip. To those who do not have money-power, what can I say? Either you can borrow or during the year you can work very, very hard for extra hours to pay for the trip or to pay back what you have borrowed. Then there are those for whom money-power is no problem, but their mind-attraction is somewhere else. Their mind is roaming somewhere where they think they will get more joy, which is in the pleasure-life. What can I tell them?

I want happiness for all of you who have come here for the Christmas trip, and happiness also for those who did not come or could not come. There are all kinds of happiness. You have to know which happiness you really want in order to make progress. Vital pleasure we do not call happiness. Destruction begins the day we start enjoying our pleasure-life, for pleasure-life is nothing but feeding the unaspiring vital.

Again, there are some people who are really poor. I really and truly sympathise with them. But my inner being says that if somebody really wants to come, then throughout the year he can work very hard and he can make it even for a short time.

When you come for the Christmas trip, please feel that it is a golden opportunity to make the fastest progress. And if you want to continue making progress when you go back to your respective Centres, you can. Your faith will tell you, “My Master has not only infinite concern but constant concern for my progress, for my happiness, for my fulness.” Again, your happiness makes me strong, stronger, strongest, and my happiness also should make you strong, stronger, strongest.

Part II

Question: Guru, could you please tell me what is standing in the way of my reaching my goal?

We can say that something is standing in our way if it is preventing us from running the fastest, let us say. Otherwise, in life, every day, every hour, something can stand in our way. The morning can start with frustration if you cannot get up on time to meditate. Then that frustration is standing in your way. Again, if you feel that some people do not think highly of you, if you think of someone and feel that that person is criticising you, finding fault with you, and if you are paying attention to that criticism, then you are standing in your own way. Before we do anything, we can pray to the Supreme that nothing should stand in our way. Early in the morning you can pray to the Supreme, “Now I am praying to You, please do not allow anything to stand in my way. I want to run the fastest, I want to run the fastest!”

Again, every day, every hour, every minute, even every second, a thought may come and enter into you either to govern your life or to take you away from your own happiness. In your case, on the practical plane, in the previous two places on our vacation you were very, very happy. Your whole being was absolutely extolled to the skies. But this particular place has not made you happy, or something inner is bothering you. Either it is frustration, or you are expecting something more from your life than you have. You have all the answers. But the easiest and most effective way to encounter all the problems in our life is to have an adamantine will in our outer life and also to have a cheerful and constant surrender to God’s Will.

Now, you may say, “I do not know what God’s Will is.” You do not have to know what God’s Will is. Before God-realisation, nobody knows what God’s Will is. Sometimes we brag and say that this is God’s Will and that is not God’s Will. But how do we know? Sometimes our mind or our heart will tell us, “This is God’s Will because I am doing something for humanity.” It may be a very good thing that you are doing, but who knows? Perhaps what your mind or your heart is telling you may not be the right thing at that particular time. Perhaps at God’s choice Hour, after two months or three months or a year, it will be the right time for you to execute that action. All the time, the only thing to do is to pray to God to let you know what God’s Will is. To know God’s Will, you have to pray and pray and pray, and at the same time continue doing what your heart makes you feel is the right thing to do. Anything that gives innocent joy and happiness also creates progress. If you are happy with your life, nothing can stand against you. Your volcanic will-power will not allow anything to stand in your way.

Again, if we are unhappy, everything can disturb us and destroy our inner poise. Right now it is raining. If we had the intention of going out on the last day in this place to do last-minute shopping, then we will find fault with nature. But before we find fault with nature, if we use our prayer-life, our meditation-life and our life of oneness with the rain, then we will say, “Oh, this is the golden opportunity for me to learn a few songs, or to learn a few poems by heart.” Or we can feel, “Nature is very pleasing now, so this is the golden chance for me to enter into my highest.” So, things that stand in our way can be surmounted with our wisdom. The rain can prevent us from going outside; that is the advantage the rain has. But we can say, “I have so many more advantages! I can read spiritual books, I can pray and meditate, I can learn songs, I can do so many things!” So, anything that stands in our way can be surmounted if we use our heart’s wisdom-light.

In your case, you have to know, of all the things I mentioned a few minutes ago, which one is predominant, which one is standing in your way. But again, I must say, we do not have to go that way, to see where our enemy is. Shall I look this side and that side to see my enemy? Shall I look to see if my enemy is in front of me or behind me or beside me? No! I have no time to look at anybody. My goal is ahead of me. If anything stands in front of me, then with my adamantine will-power either I shall illumine it or I shall destroy it. But when we destroy something, this destruction-power does not last, whereas when we illumine something, the illumination lasts for a long, long time.

Let us say that this moment you have conquered one evil thought. The next moment it may come back. It may even come back again after four or five minutes. But once you illumine the undivine, uncomely thought, it does not remain any more a negative force. That illumined thought helps you. It becomes part and parcel of your positive life, your life of illumination. When we destroy a thought, we actually do not fully destroy it. It comes back again after five days or five months. But when we illumine it, it takes our side. Because it has received illumination, it does not remain in darkness. In the tug-of-war, it comes and takes our side, the side of light. Illumination is like that. That is why our highest philosophy says, “Do not destroy anything; illumine it.” If we illumine someone, then that person will become one more added soldier in our troop.

Then comes the question of imperfection in one’s own life and in others’ lives. All the time we cannot focus our attention on our chosen subject or object, or on the Supreme. If we look around, sometimes, in spite of our best intention, the mind acts like a monkey. It goes this side and that side. Only by prayer and meditation can we tame the mind. Again, sometimes we have to enter into the inner world to do the needful. Some people have the philosophy, “Mind your own business.” I always say, “Mind your own business” is not for spiritual people. I will mind my own business in the sense that, if I am doing something wrong, if something is standing in my way, then I will tell my Inner Pilot, the Supreme, or my Guru. And if I see that somebody else is doing something wrong, at that time I will not say that he should mind his own business and it is not my problem, that only his realisation will be delayed, his perfection will remain a far cry. No!

As you are responsible for your own inner perfection, if you see that somebody else is doing something wrong, your own thought, your own idea can stand in your way. Again, you may think that somebody else is standing in your way — your friend, a member of our spiritual family or even an acquaintance. If you see or hear or even if you inwardly feel that something is wrong, even if you have not seen or heard something wrong in that person’s life, at that time you have to pray to the Supreme to illumine your thoughts, your ideas, your formulated feelings.

For a seeker, there will always be something standing in his or her way. But again, there comes a time when we arrive at the sunlit path. That is also true! The sunlit path does exist, but to come to the sunlit path is not a matter of a second or a minute or a few years. You have been on the path for over thirty years. Thirty years is nothing, nothing when it comes to walking or marching or running or sprinting along the sunlit path. The sunlit path is ahead of us, but to start our journey on the sunlit path may take time. It may take many years.

Again, everything depends on our intensity. Sincerity we can have, willingness we can have, readiness we can have, even willingness we can have; but then, along with those things, we need intensity, intensity. How desperately, how sleeplessly, how breathlessly do we want to arrive at our goal? Readiness can be lukewarm, willingness can be lukewarm — everything, even eagerness, can be lukewarm. But if we have intensity, then there is a burning cry inside our heart, absolutely a burning cry that says, “I must arrive at my goal as soon as possible, sooner than the soonest!” At that time we feel that the car is going one hundred miles per hour, the roads are quite good and our life is safe. Or we can think of a plane. It is going eight hundred, nine hundred or one thousand miles an hour or more, God knows; but we feel quite safe inside it.

In your life, always try to see which way you can run the fastest. Always run the fastest, run the fastest, run the fastest! If you see that there is an obstacle on one way, then immediately give up that way and go another way, another way. We always say there are many roads that lead to Rome, so we have to choose. Let us say that you have chosen one road, but now, unfortunately, you feel that that road is not quite satisfactory to you. Then choose another road, another road, another road! There will be a road that will definitely take you to your destination, without fail.

Now, nothing specific is standing in your way, in your personal life; but our philosophy is progress. Progress means “increase, increase, increase!” Your happiness you have to increase — not by hook or by crook, but by all means, inner and outer. Anything that increases your happiness, you must do. Happiness also has its own degree. There is a little happiness, abundant happiness, infinite happiness. You know how happy you are today, let us say. Tomorrow, by virtue of your will-power, if you can increase your happiness, then you will see that there is nothing formidable standing against you on your way. The day after tomorrow, again increase your happiness. When there is happiness, even if there is an obstacle, that obstacle does not remain as powerful as we thought. Happiness immediately unnerves or weakens the opposition party that is standing in our way.

Question: In the outer life, when you have a goal, you can imagine it. But in the inner life, sometimes it is hard to imagine what the goal is. Sometimes I look at you and say that you are my goal, but then I see that you have all kinds of problems and physical suffering.

Everything starts with faith and continues with faith. If you see that outwardly I am an invalid, how will you think of me as someone who will give you indomitable life-energy? If that were the case, all the spiritual Masters would have been failures. Think of Sri Aurobindo. Think of Ramana Maharshi. Think of Sri Ramakrishna. All of them suffered from physical ailments. Now let us think of the Saviour Christ. When people think of him, when people look at his picture or at the crucifix, they are only seeing what he was inside. He was an Avatar, absolutely, so we remember only what he was in the inner world.

Think of yourself. When you have had a good meditation, are you the same person as you are when you are in your ordinary consciousness? When you are in an ordinary consciousness, you feel that you are most common. But when you have a very high meditation, you feel totally different. You feel that your mind is as vast as the sky and your heart is larger than the Pacific Ocean. You feel peace, Infinity’s peace. At that time outwardly you are still five feet four inches tall, but in the inner world, your height is limitless. When you are in an ordinary consciousness, you are subject to wrong forces, uncomely forces, but when you are in your highest consciousness, you see that these thoughts are silly monkeys near you or you see that you are far, far beyond, where there is nothing — no monkeys, no donkeys, nothing to disturb your poise.

When somebody realises the Highest, he becomes one with the Highest. Then again, there comes a time when he feels he is the Highest. It is not like Muhammad Ali saying “I am the greatest” or Julius Caesar saying “I came, I saw, I conquered.” Here it is a different attitude: “I came, I loved, I became.” I came into one particular family. There my parents and the other members of my family were my dearest ones. Gradually, gradually my consciousness expanded and the whole world became my responsibility, my concern.

The outer appearance of a spiritual Master can be very, very deceptive. If you try to judge the Master from his outer life, you will be totally lost. Only try to see what he is doing in his inner life. In the outer life you see that I cannot walk. But if, by God’s Grace, you could enter for even five seconds into my inner life, you would see how many serious matters I am dealing with. In one minute perhaps you would see that somebody is dying and I am there; somebody else has got serious problems of the worst type and I am there; something else and something else.

The physical is very limited; the physical has to be limited. Again, inside the physical sometimes God wants to do some things. How many spiritual Masters can lift up hundreds of pounds on the physical plane? In no way am I bragging; I am saying you have to look beyond the physical. Beyond the physical is the spiritual Master’s real consciousness.

A spiritual Master or a saint may be eating the same food as others eat. But while he is eating, he feels that God Himself is eating in and through him. There is a famous Indian story about the sage Durvasa. Durvasa saw that Draupadi was feeding Lord Krishna and immediately he felt that the Highest was being fed in and through Lord Krishna. The higher the divinity you can see in your Master, the quicker will be your progress. Outwardly if you see my suffering, my pain, that I cannot solve my own problems, that I have so many defects in my body, you will ask yourself how I can be of any service to you. It is true that outwardly I cannot be of any service to you. But again, if you have faith in yourself, in your own spiritual life, your faith will tell you that inwardly I am dealing with the entire universe. My body is nothing, nothing, nothing — a silly bag of dust in comparison to my soul’s reality, which is universal and transcendental. So wise people will always go beyond the physical. Beyond the physical is the universal, the transcendental, the ultimate.

Do not think of what I am in my outer life or even what I am doing in my outer life. After God-realisation, everything is regulated, everything is manifested according to God’s Will. God’s Will is operating in and through me at every moment. That you have to believe. That your soul once made you feel. That is why you joined the path, why you are still on the path — not to see my outer body, not to feel my pain. Yes, you can identify yourself with my pain. If you identify yourself with my pain, you will see that my pain is not due to my karma. My pain only represents my love for humanity. I love humanity, and I have to prove that I really care for humanity.

Question: After we have been on the path for many years, all the things that we have to do for our spiritual progress start to become just routine. How can we regain the same intensity that we had when we were new disciples and we thought that we could reach the goal very quickly?

Always in the beginning there is tremendous joy, inner energy, because we are entering into a new field. When we come into the spiritual life, we have sincerity, eagerness, intensity — everything that is necessary to make the fastest progress. Is there any disciple who entered into the spiritual life and said, “Now I do not have to conquer my insecurity, my jealousy, my impurity, my undivine qualities”? Only to conquer our imperfections everybody joined the path. Again, most of you, if not all, have lost that intensity. Insecurity, jealousy, impurity, negativity — all the things that you wanted to conquer twenty or twenty-five years ago — now you feel that they cannot be conquered. Then what is happening? Since you feel they cannot be conquered, you allow yourself to be conquered by them.

To come back to your question, nothing is boring if we have the right attitude. Every day if we pray to God, God gives us new inspiration. Every day the sunlight appears. If we have inner will-power, we will see the beauty, the purity, the divinity — everything that is normal and natural — inside the sunlight. In the same way, every day you are meditating, every day you are taking exercise, every day you are running and doing so many other spiritual things. The mind will always make everything old, fossilised. For the mind, after one month or one year everything becomes uninspiring because the mind believes in age, while the heart does not. If you can remain in the heart, if you can feel always that you are a seven-year-old child, as I have been begging all of you to do, you are bound to feel at every moment new inspiration, new light, new hope, new promise. For a seven-year-old child every second is a new opportunity and a new happiness.

The other day when I was answering someone else’s question, I said that every day she has to feel that she has taken new birth. The answer to your question is the same. Every day think that you were born only today. Never think that you are forty-five or forty-seven years old. Now my mind is telling me that I am sixty-eight — I am ancient! But if the heart is our reality, then the heart will say that we are seven years old, and if wisdom is our reality, then wisdom will say that just today we were born. Every day presents itself to us as a new opportunity if we can think of every day as a new beginning, a new birth.

If you enter into a gymnasium to take exercise, the mind will say, “You have been doing this for years and years!” The mind is telling you a reality that is true on the outer plane. Again, the same mind is so eager to discourage you: “You are doing the same stupid thing. For years you have been dying for a seventeen-inch bicep and still you are struggling with fourteen inches!” But the heart will say, “No. Just today I have started.” Then tomorrow when you come, you will have the inner promise that you will make yourself stronger and stronger.

Take every day as a new day. Do not take it as a continuation. If you think of your spiritual life as a continuation, then the mind will say, “Oh my God! Twenty-five years I have been on the path, and I have made no progress!” But you have used the mind in a wrong way. You have allowed the mind to exercise its supreme authority. Use the heart. The heart is ever-new, ever-blossoming. The heart will say, “No, I am blossoming petal by petal. I am an ever-blossoming flower, a most beautiful flower.”

If you can remain in the heart, you will never even think of the fact that you have been on the path for twenty-five or thirty years. But if you are in the mind, then after ten years your mind will again cry for newness: “Oh, there is so much discipline. I have to get up at six o’clock every morning. I do not have any freedom. I cannot move around as I wish.” But that very thing — the outer freedom — you wanted to surrender. That is why you entered into the spiritual life. Spirituality means inner freedom. The inner freedom you get when you identify yourself with something vast. God’s Will is vaster than the vastest. On the strength of your prayer and meditation you are trying to identify yourself with God’s Will. God’s Will is infinite, like the ocean. When you look at the ocean, you see huge waves. If you are using your heart to look at it, even with your ordinary naked eyes you will see that it is ever-new. But if you are using the mind, you will say, “Oh, it is the same thing — the same kind of waves.”

Never use the mind. After one day, the mind will make everything seem old, ancient. The mind will take away your joy because the mind will make you see everything, every day, in the same way. But the heart will make you see everything in a new way, a better way. It will bring new joy and new satisfaction into your life.

Most of the disciples who have been on the path for over twenty years have descended. Why? Because they are using the mind that says, “It is boring. Every day it is the same thing. There is nothing new.” But instead, use the heart of a child or feel that just today, early in the morning, you were born — a new cry you embody. You are crying, crying, crying, but your parents are smiling and smiling. Each time we offer our heart’s cry, we can see the Smile of God, of our own highest Divinity. Here the aspiring reality is crying and the descending Divinity is smiling.

Do not use the mind. If you use the mind, you cannot conquer your problems. The mind only creates problems. The mind has never solved any problem. The mind thinks that today it has solved a particular problem, but tomorrow another problem will arise that will be infinitely more difficult to deal with. The problems of the mind never end — never, never! The heart sees only one problem: has my love of God increased? Has my devotion to God increased? Has my surrender to God increased? Only three words the heart knows: love, devotion and surrender — how much I love God, how much I am devoting myself to God, how much I am prepared to surrender my existence to God. If the mind uses the words ‘love, devotion and surrender’, it absolutely ruins everything. The mind takes the beautiful heart-flower and starts tearing off all the petals one by one. But when we use the heart, immediately the heart-flower that we see is only blossoming and blossoming.

Take every day as a new beginning. A new beginning will always have a new hope, a new dawn. We have been here on the Christmas trip now for some time. Already some people are thinking, “Oh my God! I have been here for twenty days. Now everything is boring!” Some people were extremely happy for the first ten or twelve days. Now their happiness is going away. They are not doing the right thing. They should feel that instead of today being the 23rd of December, that it is the 4th of December — the first day of our trip.

Always if the mind is creating problems, challenge the mind with your wisdom. Discard the mind that says, “I have been here now for eighteen days. Now my enthusiasm is waning.” Use the heart that says, “No. I came here on the 4th of December, so now it is still the 4th for me.” You are not fooling yourself. You are only illumining the mind. You know that there is something called ever-increasing happiness. You are trying to become that ever-increasing happiness on the strength of your oneness with God’s Will. Every day is a new beginning. When there is a new beginning, there is new hope, there is new promise. But if you count the days, then you will be miserable. After a month you will be desperate to go back home. There you will see that more frustration awaits you.

Always, after a few days we change our goal. But if we choose our goal with the mind, then even when that goal arrives, we do not get happiness. If the heart chooses a goal, then like a flower, that goal is constantly blossoming, blossoming, blossoming, no matter whether you are here in Brazil or in Africa or somewhere else. If we are spiritual people, we have to feel that our real existence is the heart. Others can exercise their mind and make it vaster than the vastest. But no matter how vast the mind is intellectually, philosophically or in any way, if the mind does not enter into the heart, it is absolutely impossible to get happiness. Someone can be the world’s greatest pandit, but where is happiness? Immediately he will feel that if somebody else has said something, that somebody else has more wisdom. Then he becomes miserable.

If you use your mind to look at your body, immediately you will say, “Oh my God! I thought I was the most beautiful person. Now I see that somebody else is infinitely more beautiful!” Your pride is smashed. But if you use the oneness-heart, first you will see and then you will feel that you are that person with boundless beauty, that there is no difference between you and that person. You will see and feel that you are the only beauty. When we use the mind to see anything, the mind immediately makes a comparison and then we become miserable. The mind will say, “I thought that I was the greatest scholar” or “I thought that I was the most intelligent.” Then somebody with more knowledge or more intelligence comes and we have to touch the dust of his feet.

The aspiring heart is a stranger to imperfections. The aspiring heart is only increasing its beauty, its light and its power. When we look at anything, the mind makes a comparison but the aspiring heart only feels oneness. Again, this oneness can be fed only by newness. Every day we have to not only think of newness but also become newness. Then only we will be satisfied. Where does newness come from? From Eternity’s Home.

All those who have been on the spiritual path for a long time are suffering from the same disease — “it is boring, boring, boring.” Do not keep a link between yesterday and today or even from one moment to the next. If you keep a link, you will be miserable. Yesterday you had such a miserable day. Today you are carrying the same dead elephant again. No, feel that yesterday did not exist for you. Feel that the only thing that exists is here and now, the Eternal Now. Then nothing can be boring.

Every day feel that you have taken new birth. If you feel that you are an infant, only a few hours old, then you are bound to feel that there is somebody who will take care of you. The mind always says that we have to take care of ourselves. But the heart says, “No, my father is there, my mother is there. They have infinite affection, infinite compassion, infinite fondness for me. They will take care of me.” This is so true. God is both our Father and our Mother. God is only for those who feel that they are true children. Others think that they are grown up, that now they can enjoy their freedom. Little children are happy because they listen to their parents. If their parents say, “Do not go there. That is fire,” then immediately they do not go. But when somebody is seventeen, eighteen or twenty and his parents say, “Do not go there. That is fire,” he will think, “It is not fire. Let me go there and see. I am sure it is nothing.” Then he touches it and burns himself. When a little child sees fire, he remembers, “Mother said, ‘This is fire. Do not go there.’” Then the child comes back. The little child’s obedience saves and illumines him, while the older child will challenge his parents’ wisdom. As soon as disobedience comes into life, destruction follows. Obedience is all safety. The obedient child is in the heart of his parents.

The spiritual life is always the life of inner obedience. From within, from your prayer and meditation, you will get the inner message, “This is good; this is not.” The things that you feel are good, always do. Obedience, obedience, obedience. The day we lose our obedience, that very day is our spiritual death. Physically we die at a particular time, but spiritually we die when we exercise the power of our mind, which is disobedience. By nature the mind wants to find a new way, its own way — which is all darkness. The heart feels that there is somebody who has already found the way, our father, our mother, our spiritual Master or God.

The spiritual life is not boring, no matter how many years you follow it. It is only a question of how you utilise the spiritual life. I always say that with a knife you can stab someone or you can cut fruits and share them. Every day you have to take as a new beginning in Eternity’s Now. Each day embodies new hope and new promise. Never think of how many years you have been on the path or of how much progress you have made. Again, those who are still on the spiritual path often do not value what they have. When their parents are alive, often the children do not pay any attention to them. Then when the parents pass behind the curtain of Eternity, the children say, “Oh my God! What we have lost!” When we have something, we do not value it. When we lose it, then we value it. If you leave the spiritual life tomorrow and if your soul or your inner cry comes to the fore, immediately you will see what you have lost.

Question: What kind of smile does God give when we ask Him for instant God-realisation?

Question: Could you say something about the ancient people in India called the Dravidians?

One theory says that India has everything; we are self-sufficient. In India they say, Ja nai bharate, ta nai tribhuvane. It means that whatever is not found in India is not to be found elsewhere. The other theory is that India cannot be complete unless it embodies Australian consciousness, African consciousness, Chinese consciousness and American consciousness. On the one hand, you can say, “I am complete; I am self-sufficient. I have a home. I have my food. I have a car, this and that.” On the other hand, you can feel that you are sufficient in your inner existence only if you have embodied the consciousness of the entire world. So at one moment Indians will say that this ancient culture that we had was self-sufficient — that they did not have to get things from outside — while others say that they came from outside and they made us very great.

Now some will say, “Our ancestors were primitive. They worshipped animals and all kinds of things.” Others will say, “No, they were wise. They saw divinity inside animals.” Each person may have a different opinion. Some say the Vedic seers were silly. When a cloud or a flight of birds was passing by, they worshipped it. If they saw a little flower or a leaf, they worshipped it. Any object they were ready to worship. Others say, “No, they saw divinity inside each flower, inside each leaf.”

I always say we have to value both God the Creator and God the creation. But usually once people realise God, they do not go out to be under a tree or in front of the ocean or on top of a mountain. They get inspiration and aspiration wherever they are. Buddha sat under the Boddhi tree. Sri Ramakrishna had five trees where he meditated. The whole world was there for him to see, but he did not go away from there. Sri Aurobindo reached his highest inside a room. They all said that God the Creator and God the creation are one, but in practice, they did not even go out to see God’s creation. So some people feel that they are sufficient with what they have, while others feel that they are sufficient only when they see the whole world.

We have to offer our appreciation to the ancient people. If you do not appreciate your grandparents, then where did your own achievements come from? Let us say that my grandfather wrote one poem. Perhaps my physical father wrote thirty poems. Now I have written thousands of poems. I can laugh at them and say, “Oh my God! I have written thousands of poems. Look at my father — he wrote only thirty poems, and his father wrote only one. Perhaps before him nobody wrote anything.” But perhaps the one poem that my grandfather wrote came from the Highest, from God. Because poetry was in my family, now I have written thousands of poems. Like that, the Vedic seers had spiritual power and occult power. But now spiritual figures are descending to earth whose spiritual power and light will be infinitely greater than that of the Vedic seers.

I rendered Sri Aurobindo’s Bengali story Kshamar Adarsha (The Ideal of Forgiveness) into English iambic pentameter. There you can see how much power they had. In the last few lines, Sri Aurobindo says these spiritual figures are coming and the capacity of the previous ones will pale into nothingness.[fn:: SCA 888,6. The lines referred to:

Over our Ind imperishably shall lean.

Before the souls to come with Light new-born;

On the one hand, we have received inspiration and aspiration from the past. That is why we are going forward. If we do not adore and admire those who have gone before us just because we have expanded our light, our consciousness, and in the process we have far surpassed them, then we are so ungrateful. If you do not first get a drop, how will you get the ocean? You can say that the achievements of our ancestors were only like a drop. But because of their one drop, we have now been able to get two drops, three drops, four drops, five drops. Then, in the course of time, we can become the ocean. If someone did not write one poem, how could I have written thousands of poems? The ancients we have to take in that light. We have to give them due value. The father may be illiterate, but the father’s will-power, money-power and heart-power may send his son to school. Then the son may become a great scholar. So the past and the future have to be united.

Sri Aurobindo had two theories. At times he said that the spiritual development of the past has to be honoured. At other times, he said that we do not belong to the past dawns; we belong to the future. Outwardly these two appear to be contradictory. On the one hand, he said that we have to give due value to our ancestors. If there had been no seed under the ground, then suddenly how could there be a tree? Again, he said that we do not belong to the past dawns; we belong to the golden future.

True, the past has given us inspiration and aspiration. That is why we are going forward. On the other hand, if we think of the past, either we think, “Once upon a time I was so good, so great; now I am nobody,” or “At that time I was useless, so how can I go forward?” Whichever way we think of the past, it will be a waste of time because we will feel miserable. The best thing is not to think of the past. Has the past given you the Highest? No. The best thing is to say to the past, “I am grateful to you for whatever you have given me, but let us part here. I want to go forward. Infinity’s Light is beckoning me.”

We have to see what we can assimilate at our present development of consciousness. The spiritual light of the past we do want to assimilate. But if we are stuck in the past, even with all its glories, we will not be able to go forward. And if we think of our past failures or defeats, then again we will not be going forward.

Every day we have to think, “I was born just today. I am only two hours old.” If I feel that I am two hours old, then I will feel that I have my parents, I have my dear ones, I have my relatives who will take care of me. Our parents represent a higher force that is guiding us. Otherwise, always we think that we are doing everything, that we are responsible. That is not the case. A higher force is working in and through us. Only if we are aware of that higher force can we create receptivity so that higher force can work in and through us most effectively.

Each individual should think that today is the very first day of his life. Then hope comes from everywhere. Promise comes from everywhere. If you think, “I am sixty-eight years old; sixty-eight summers and sixty-eight winters I have seen,” then all your hope will disappear. If you can convince yourself that just today you were born, then for you everything will be new. Every person will be new. Every thought will be new. Every incident will be new. Then you can make the fastest progress.

Part III

Question: Is there any good quality in gossip?

We have to be so careful at every moment. We have to act like a real miser. We have to protect our inner wealth — aspiration, dedication, love, devotion and surrender — the way a miser does not spend money lavishly. A miser feels that if he goes to a market and buys something, then his precious money-power will go away. Here also, when we enjoy gossip, we are getting momentary pleasure, and we think that we are not losing anything. But it is not true. We may feel that we are enjoying gossip at the expense of others. Someone else has done something bad and we are spreading the wild news. We feel that it will not affect us at all. But everything has a magnetic force. Not only good things, but bad things also have a magnetic force, like a contagious disease. The forces that made the other person do something wrong are like mosquitoes. Today they came and bit some people. Tomorrow, when they see that you are enjoying gossip about those people who were bitten, they will come and bite you. Then you will become a victim to gossip. After enjoying a few minutes of gossip-pleasure, you will mix with serious destruction.

Gossip is only helpful in a negative way. When people are enjoying it, they have to feel that they are lowering their consciousness. If something helps us in a positive way, we will go forward. But if anything stands in our way, we can also say it is a great help. We have an Indian cosmic god named Shani. He exists, but we do not want to approach him. To every other cosmic god we pray, “Please, come and bless me.” But to him we pray, “Please, do not be near me.” Why? Because his is the way of renunciation. Who wants renunciation? Will ordinary, unaspiring people renounce their earthly pleasures or attachments? Shani grants renunciation, but we misunderstand his boon. That is why most people pray to him, “Please, do not come near me.” All the gods we invoke to come and bless us, but not this one.

Question: Your physical mother in this incarnation comes to see you quite often from the soul's world. Do your mothers from other incarnations ever come to you?

Question: Has she always been your mother, or has she been related to you in other ways?

Question: Could you speak about ways to cultivate intensity when you want to conquer obstacles to reach a goal?

The second way is to enter into your highest meditation. When you reach your absolutely highest meditation, just for two or three seconds utter the word ‘intensity’ with utmost will-power. When you utter the word ‘intensity’, like a bullet, intensity will enter into you. Not only will it enter into you, but it will also go out of you. Then this intensity will act like a miracle in your life. But ordinary meditation will not do. It has to be your own highest meditation.

Question: When we are giving meditation classes, how can we make it clear to new seekers why there is no mixing of boys and girls on a true spiritual path?

In the spiritual life, the mixing of boys and girls, the lower vital, emotional life is as useless as India’s bullock cart. You will take one step, and then you will be filled with uncertainty. You will feel that there is no goal for you. The slower you go in anything, the more uncertainty assails you. The goal remains a far cry. But the faster you go, the more you feel that the goal is right there, only one metre away.

Spirituality without consciousness is nothing but a joke. We have to know at what point consciousness goes up and at what point consciousness goes down. If a boy starts mixing with a girl, his consciousness will become lower than the lowest. He will become a victim to all the lower vital forces. Even if you do not mix physically, the mind is all the time operating. Already you are a victim in the mental world. Are you a fool? Spirituality is not meant for foolish people. One Master said he was ready to be on top of the snow-capped Himalayas, he was ready to be in the Sahara Desert, he was ready to be under the ocean, but he was not ready to mix with fools. If we want to practise spirituality in the purest sense of the term, then we must not be foolish. The goal is not fixed. Today’s goal is tomorrow’s starting point, and today’s goal is still far away. With greatest difficulty, after ten years or twenty years I may reach my goal. Then a new beginning starts. Will I ever reach my first goal if I deliberately put a solid wall in front of me?

Question: Sometimes if I have a wrong feeling, I have trouble offering it to you. I sometimes keep things inside instead of offering them to you.

Question: Sometimes when I am trying to approach important people, there is a wall of resistance. Is there anything we can do inwardly to remove these obstacles?

Then, when you approach important people, you have to fully prepare yourself inwardly. You have to be armed with aspiration. Prayer and meditation are of paramount importance before you approach someone. In the inner world you have to create a bridge between yourself and the person you are going to approach. You have to feel that you are going to him and he is coming to you.

Question: If we are the object of gossip, how can we not be affected and remain in a high consciousness?

Question: After we pray and offer it to you, is there anything we can do on the outer plane to create more harmony in a situation where we are in charge of something when there has been gossip or criticism?

Question: It seems that as life goes on, responsibilities multiply. Is there a point where a job, a house and all the other things become a burden on our aspiration?

If you think of responsibility as a heavy burden on your shoulders, you will be miserable. You will say, “Others are better off. They do not have any responsibility, but they get the same smile from Guru. They do nothing, nothing. I am going to another city to lead a Centre and doing so many things that prevent me from being in Guru’s physical presence. Then he is smiling at others in exactly the same way.” These kinds of thoughts will torture you.

If you take responsibility as opportunity, you will say, “I am so lucky to have this opportunity. Who cares what others are doing? They are not qualified in this field. That is why Guru is sending me to this place and that place. If he has confidence in me, then I should also develop confidence that I can please him in his own way.” Every time a new responsibility comes, take it as a golden opportunity. When you say ‘golden opportunity’, then you are bound to get joy. Opportunity carries a sweeter than the sweetest feeling, whereas responsibility can carry a bitter feeling.

Question: I wanted to see beauty in myself because that is what my soul's name is. I felt like my soul told me, "If you want to see me, then you have to see beauty and goodness in other people." Is that a legitimate experience of my soul?

Question: Before I do anything, I always weigh the pros and cons. Is this a bad habit?