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God is transcending Himself at every moment. Our part in God’s cosmic Game is to know that we need perfection and then to strive for perfection — the ultimate perfection which is always transcending itself. If we feel insecure because we have not reached our goal and because we are still imperfect, then that kind of insecurity is helpful. We are imperfect and we know it, but we are in no way trying to increase other people’s insecurity. If we have this kind of insecurity, then every day we will try to make progress until we become perfect instruments of God. This sense of insecurity helps us. When we feel miserable that God-realisation is a far cry for us, our next step will be to strive to make progress.
Some disciples become complacent because they get outer affection from me. But perfection will remain a million miles away from them if they do not constantly increase their desire for self-perfection.If you are fighting or boxing in the outer world, you may break your nose or your shoulder and then have to stop. But if you are fighting in the inner world, especially in the vital world, your inner capacities can be permanently damaged or totally destroyed. You can lose all faith in your inner reality, in God and in your Guru. When faith loses to doubt, your spiritual life is ended.
When I see disciples fighting or being jealous in the outer world, sometimes I just ignore them. In comparison to what can happen in the inner world, it is nothing. I direct my attention to the inner world. My whole concern is for their inner life. Their quarrelling outer nature will be transformed in a minute when their inner life is illumined.When depression and frustration loom large in your life, if you want to receive my light, you have to bring some receptivity. You will be able to receive my cure according to your receptivity. What is your receptivity? Your receptivity is your cheerfulness. You have no receptivity when you are depressed, so there is nothing that can be done outwardly. If a patient is dead, what can the doctor do? No matter how many injections the doctor gives him, the patient cannot be cured. Only when there is a little life-energy left is there some hope. If the patient starts with a little cheerfulness, which is spiritual life-energy, then your Guru-doctor will be able to feed that cheerfulness immediately. Even if you have been suffering for a long time, if you come to me with cheerfulness, I can cure your suffering. Your cheerfulness is the bud that will blossom. But if there is no bud, then how can you eventually have a flower? So you have to come with receptivity. If you show inner cheerfulness, then I am ready to help you outwardly as well as inwardly. But without your cheerfulness, the minute I try outwardly to help you, that same minute I will fail and your depression will become infinitely worse. So you must bring some cheerfulness to save yourself.
Outwardly, I try so many times to please the disciples in their own way, so that they will also please me in my own way. If I please them ten times in their own way, I feel that they should try to please me at least once in my own way. But human desire knows no end. The more I try to please them, the more they compel me to please them. I feel that they should at least act like gentlemen: If I please them ten times, then they should please me at least once. But they want to please ignorance instead and they don’t please me even one time. If they did please me, they would be able to open up to light, to compassion and to delight. But instead, the disciples say, “You have not given me an interview. You are not pleasing me. You are doing many things wrong. You smiled at someone else and made me jealous. You do something wrong and make me suffer and then you just watch. You just sit there painting or playing the flute. You are fooling us and you won’t fulfil any of our needs.” When the disciples feel this, then what can I do? I am helpless.Each moment is important in your life, but each second during meditation is of utmost and absolute importance. If you have depression, frustration, anger, insecurity, jealousy, impurity, undivine thoughts, undivine ideas or an unaspiring life, during meditation you must throw all these things into the ocean of the Supreme’s Compassion. Otherwise, you become the most deplorable loser.
Once you have accepted the spiritual life, you have to be extremely wise. There are many, many people on earth who have not accepted the spiritual life. They do not know and they will never, never know what a divine opportunity is, what a supreme opportunity is. Each moment during meditation is both a golden opportunity and an inner examination. If you do not pass this inner examination, then no matter how many years you stay with your Master or how many times you come into this world, you will remain practically the same undeveloped, unillumined human being.
As seekers, you should feel that you are extremely fortunate, for you are in a divine boat. And you should feel infinitely more fortunate that the Pilot Supreme has infinite Concern and Compassion for you. He is under no obligation to give, but He gives unconditionally out of His infinite Bounty. If you do not accept unreservedly when He gives you unconditionally, then nothing will be able to help you, save you, illumine you or carry you to the other shore. Out of anxiety, worry, depression, frustration, anger, fear and all negative qualities, if you forget to value the most valuable thing both on earth and in Heaven — the Supreme’s Compassion — then you are throwing away an unparalleled divine gift.
Nothing will remain permanent in a seeker’s life except the infinite Compassion of our Beloved Supreme. If you can receive this infinite Compassion, then, when you leave the body, Heaven’s door will be wide open for you. But if you misuse this Compassion, then you will have nothing to show to Heaven’s doorkeeper. But, most of the time, the Supreme’s infinite Compassion and infinite Concern either you misunderstand or you ignore; either you don’t have the receptivity to feel it or you do not value it.
It is the Supreme’s Compassion that you have to value first in your life. Unless and until you value the Supreme’s Compassion, the gratitude-flower will never blossom inside you. And if you don’t develop gratitude, then you are still in the animal kingdom. So, at every moment, value the Supreme’s supreme Compassion, which is constantly descending from above. If you can accept it and value it, if you can treasure it at every moment as something which will always remain unparalleled in your inner and outer life, then yours will be the life of supreme satisfaction.
Name, fame, earthly prosperity and earthly achievements will always prove to be useless, useless, useless, even for those who are not sincere seekers. There comes a time when even an ordinary human being — one who has not accepted and who will never accept the spiritual life seriously — will not hesitate to say that earthly achievements all end in frustration. The possessions and the achievements of the desire-life will always end in frustration Only one thing has the capacity to give satisfaction and always will give satisfaction, and that is oneness — conscious, constant, complete, unreserved and unconditional oneness with the Will of the Supreme.
Who says that you do not know the Will of the Supreme? Is there anybody who does not know the Will of the Supreme? No! If you remain in the heart, then at every moment you will know what God’s Will is. But if you remain in the mind, never, never will you be able to know the Will of the Supreme. You may have grandiose thoughts and lofty ideas, but they will not be the Will of the Supreme. Life’s victory or defeat, life’s acceptance or rejection, are not the ultimate reality in the Eyes of the Supreme. He laughs at our acceptance or rejection of life, at our victories and defeats. But He triumphantly smiles at us when His Will becomes our will. We do not have to become great in the outer world to prove to the world or to Him that we are worthy instruments of His. Never does He care for our earthly status. He cares only for one thing: our constant oneness with His Will.
We think that we are beggars. But we have to know that the Supreme is also a beggar. At each moment, we beg Him to grant us millions of things. But He begs us sleeplessly to grant Him only one thing: our soulfully surrendered oneness. This is His only wish. You can say, “Why does He have to beg, since He has everything and He is everything?” He begs because He feels this is the easiest, safest and most effective way to bring humanity close to Him. If He uses His omnipotent Power to bring us close to Him, then He will just break us into pieces. But if He can make us feel His sweetest Compassion, the infinite flood of His Compassion, and if we can remember this Compassion, then this is the safest and surest way to bring about our surrender.
At each moment you can be the happiest person both in Heaven and on earth. The Supreme’s universal Consciousness and transcendental Consciousness can be your constant, illumining and fulfilling friends, if you want to have them as your own. You have to do only one thing: give what you have and what you are. What you have is willingness, and what you are is eagerness. Willingness and eagerness: your willingness to become entirely His, constantly His, and your eagerness to be utilised by Him at every moment in His own Way. If you give these, you don’t have to give anything else. Then you will become His unparalleled, eternally unparalleled, instrument.TDS 11. Sri Chinmoy gave this talk on 5 January 1980 in Honolulu, Hawaii.↩
I have done my task by realising and manifesting my name. How? By crying inwardly, sincerely and constantly for years and years. If you also cry like that, then you will also become fully conscious. If you are not fully conscious, then it is impossible for you to realise the significance of your name.
Consciousness pervades the entire universe. How many times a day or a week or even a month are you aware of the significance of this momentous name? Sometimes months pass by and you are not aware of your name. Like that, many — almost all — of the disciples do not try to remember, let alone become conscious of, the meaning of the soul’s name that they have been given. They forget that it is not just a name.
Previously you had one name, and now you have another. But there is no difference unless you consciously remember the meaning of your new name. Previously your name was Loren. But there is no difference between Loren and Chetana unless you constantly feel that Chetana is not just another name. You have to give importance to your soul’s name; otherwise, it does not help you.
If you give importance to the form, then one day you will be able to give full importance to the essence. Your soul’s name and your soul are like a temple and a shrine. If the temple is not properly honoured and attended, then the shrine will fall into disrepair. The shrine is the significance of the name Chetana, which is the predominant quality of your soul, and the word Chetana is the temple. If you do not think of the temple, then how will you think of the shrine inside the temple? So when you say “Chetana,” or when somebody else says it, immediately think of the temple. The essence of the soulful word is the shrine. Without a temple, the shrine will be destroyed by the hostile forces. But if you remember that you have a temple, which is “Chetana,” then you will also remember that there is a shrine inside it, which is the essence or quintessence of the word. In this way, the form and the spirit go together.In your case, that problem does not arise at all. You are not destructive or disobedient. In your case, it is only your friendship with ignorance that is delaying you. When that friendship goes away, then you will enter into the soul.
There are three types of disciples. One type prays to the Supreme to please me or to please the Supreme in me at every moment in the Supreme’s own Way. Another type prays or meditates to please the Supreme in me fifty per cent of the time, and fifty per cent of the time they expect the Supreme in me to please them in their own way. The third category is praying to the Supreme only to please them one hundred per cent of the time in their own way.
Now you select the category which you want to belong to. See if you can say, “I am trying in my own way to be in the first category, to become a first-class disciple of the Supreme, to please Him all the time in His own Way. That is my prayer.” If you cannot say it, then learn to say it. Everybody should try to please the Supreme in His own Way. Then you will all become first-class disciples.But when you feel that you have made progress, you have to know that this progress has not been lost overnight. There are times when, in order to make faster progress, you may have to go one step backward. Suppose you are a good long jumper, and you have taken five steps forward. You are very happy because you have made some progress. But from there, if you want to jump, you will not do very well. You will be able to jump much farther if you go a few steps backward first and run before you jump. You will see that if you go a few steps backward and take a running start, then the distance that you can jump increases. The calculating human mind will say, “Look, she has gone so far back.” It will not see how far and how fast you will now be able to go forward.
So when you have discouraging, unpleasant dreams, or when you feel that you have gone backward during your sleep, you have to know that a few days later you may have a very significant, illumining and fulfilling dream. The physical mind will feel that you have gone backward, that you have fallen. But the spiritual heart will feel that perhaps it was necessary.
This is all on the human level — to go a few steps back so that we can get a good start. On the spiritual level it does not apply. On the spiritual level wherever you are, you go forward from there. But since the physical mind is operating, I am saying to use the physical method. In the spiritual method, the mind does not work at all. There you have to go forward from where you are. If you see that you are unable to go one step further, you ask yourself what is preventing you. Then, I will say, what you need is conscious awareness of what you are doing and what you are not doing. If you are consciously aware of what you do during the day, then you will be able to go faster.
Sometimes you may dream about something you did ten years ago. A spiritual Master in his early years used to eat one whole chicken every day. After the age of forty he gave it up. But even when he was sixty or seventy years old, in the subconscious mind that experience came to him in dreams. So do not be afraid. These things happen. But if you have an unpleasant experience or dream, immediately you should ask yourself, “Do I really want this experience?” If the answer is no, then all its power is gone. But if you give it importance and say, “Oh, this is something unpleasant which will destroy all my progress,” then you will definitely be affected by it.
Do not be afraid of any dream. If you are afraid of any dream, then that particular dream will bring to you all its undivine friends. If today you are afraid of one particular dream, that undivine dream will invite many more undivine dreams to capture you. But if you are not afraid, that dream will not bother you anymore. At that time, it will not be able to affect you.Real progress in the spiritual life starts only when the seeker sees, feels and is convinced of the truth that he or she wants the Supreme one hundred per cent and not ninety-nine per cent. Before that time, we may feel that we are making progress when we see that we have fewer desires, fewer insecurities, fewer impurities than we had before. But this progress is no progress at all. As long as we live on earth in human form, if we have not realised God, then we will always have these dark forces. If we had ten thousand desires before and now we have only one, then we may feel that we have made progress. But I wish to say that real progress is not there. Inside that one desire all the other thousands of desires are looming large.
If one drop of desire remains, you may think that you do not have countless other drops. But thousands and millions of desiring forces are inside that one drop. So where is the progress? All you can say is that previously you had something on a large scale, and now you have it in a small amount, but very concentrated. Your one drop is so powerful that it can easily expand into a very large quantity. That one drop, that one iota of desire, can be as powerful as hundreds of desires, because it is concentrated.
The progress that we make in terms of earthly capacity is no progress at all. We can only make progress when we feel that our existence is one hundred per cent for the Supreme. On that day, our spiritual progress starts. Then the Supreme grants us His Peace, Bliss and Light, and we receive His divine qualities consciously. Real inner progress starts only on the day when we consciously feel that we want God alone, and for everything we will depend on God only. If we depend on Him for every little thought and action, at every second, then only can we feel that we need Him alone.As human beings, we definitely give more importance to our heart. When the heart fails, we know that we have to leave this world and pass behind the curtain of Eternity. Even if someone does not aspire, or pray and meditate, if anything happens to his heart, he will be miserable. For the heart is dearer to him than anything else. Someone may live in the mind, but the moment somebody speaks of the heart, he feels that his reality there is more important than his reality in anything else. The heart-reality is much more important than the mind-reality, the vital-reality or the physical reality.
Anything that is more real to us is more important and more meaningful to us. And again, anything that is more important to us becomes more real to us. God is most important because He is most real; He is the only real Reality in His entire universe. God is most real to us, and at the same time, God is most important to us.
If we give importance to a thing, then automatically that thing becomes real to us. The moment we take away the importance of a thing, that thing has no value. If we really value the inner life, then the inner life has to become real.
When we don’t pray and meditate, we see only the physical world around us. We feel that this is absolutely real. But when we pray and meditate we see and feel that there is another world and that this physical world is only an expression of that world. But again, we have to know that we ourselves are the creator of this other world, just as we are the creator of this physical world. The physical world is like a house, which we build with our hands, with our outer capacities. Similarly, the inner world we build with our will power — not mere thought power, but will power. When we create something in the inner world with our will power, if what we create is pure, divine and immortal, then we feel that we are safe.
How can we feel that the inner world is more real? As I said, the reality of something depends on the importance or value we give to it. Reality depends on necessity. If we are hungry, immediately food becomes the only reality before us, around us, within us, without us. Anything that demands our attention or concentration has to be real, whether it is material food or inner peace, light and delight. The reality of a thing entirely depends on how necessary it is for us. If we need something, then that very thing has to become real.
Again, if the thing that we need has no reality within it, then there will be no inner cry on our part. If God were not real, then we would not cry for God. The reality itself has abundant power to create hunger in others.
It is like an expert runner who teaches beginners how to run towards the goal. This moment he is at the goal beckoning to them, the next moment he is at the starting point or in the middle of the course right beside them. Similarly, God the Reality is the starting point and God the Reality is the end. But we don’t say “end,” because God Himself is constantly progressing; He is the ever-transcending Beyond. So today God the Starting Point is our supreme necessity; therefore, the starting point is totally real to us. Tomorrow God the Goal will be our aim, and at that time the goal has to be real to us.
The inner world is real because we know everything that is within will one day come forth and blossom. The seed is under the ground, within Mother-Earth. But one day it germinates and grows into a plant, a sapling and, finally, a huge banyan tree. In the beginning, everything is inside. From within we come out.
The soul is inside the heart, and the heart is inside the body. The deeper we go, the sooner we see that the real Reality is within us, not without. But again, to complete the game, we cannot remain only inside the inner reality. We have to come out to the outer reality. Otherwise, there will only be a tenant with no house to live in. Both the tenant and the house are equally important. If there is a tenant, then only we will feel the necessity of a house. And again, if there is a house, then we will definitely need a tenant. The soul is the tenant and the body is the house.
How should we value the inner life? We should value the inner life slowly, steadily, sincerely and devotedly. If we do it in that way, then the inner life is bound to grant us infinite peace, infinite light and infinite bliss. The inner life is the normal life. God is always normal. Occult power, spiritual power and all the other powers are all normal powers. They are not unnatural. Unnatural power we have developed by mixing with ignorance and falsehood. Only when we do not acknowledge our divine birthright do we act like abnormal human beings. The outer life has unfortunately become abnormal because we try or want always to get the immediate result from the outer life as such. We do not want to dive deep within; we are always satisfied with a drop and not with the ocean. But when we value the normal in us, when we want to become normal once again, then we automatically value the inner life.As soon as we learn something from the Supreme, immediately our inner beings try to share this knowledge with others. We call them “others” because we have not yet established our oneness with them. When we pray and meditate, we gain something. If we share that very thing with others, then it immediately increases. The more we share our earthly knowledge, the more we gain. And Heavenly knowledge, which is wisdom and oneness, increases in infinite measure when we share it. With one light, with one lamp, we can ignite another lamp. With one flame, we can ignite two flames or three flames. This is one way to become one with our sisters and brothers.
Another way is to bring to the fore the entire knowledge-sun, the entire wisdom-sun from within. Then automatically we will see each of our spiritual brothers and sisters as a flame inside the sun. Again, each flame embodies another sun. The sun itself embodies countless flames and, at the same time, inside each flame a new sun is dawning.
When we look at our spiritual brothers and sisters, we have to see them as an exact prototype of our own life, our own reality. We have to feel that there are two bodies but only one Goal and one Source. We have to remind ourselves at every moment of the Goal and of the Source where we came from and where we will one day return. If we can remember that, then automatically we will be kinder, more loving, more affectionate, more illumining and more fulfilling.
You play the viola; you also play other instruments. While playing, if you see that one string is not functioning well, what do you do? You fix it. Your concentration is not only on one string, but on all the strings. If one string creates problems for you, then you cannot play well. Similarly, try to feel that each of your spiritual brothers and sisters is a string inside your heart.
The viola that you play is the outer reality. But there is also an inner reality, an inner viola which you are playing every day, every hour, every minute. The strings of this instrument are sincerity, simplicity, humility, purity and divinity. When you think of yourself, think that you are that particular instrument, and your strings are sincerity, humility, purity, divinity and so forth. If sincerity goes away, if sincerity is not functioning, then the whole instrument is useless. If the purity-string is not functioning, then your inner music will be ruined. You have to keep all the strings in perfect order. If you can keep them in perfect order, then only will you have satisfaction. If you can keep them in proper shape, you can have one family, one consciousness, one reality, one soul and one goal.Whenever we want to do something, immediately the mind vetoes it. Even if the mind itself wanted it two days ago or two years ago, that same thing the mind is now ready to veto. This is our tricky mind. Even if it wanted something yesterday, today it takes away its conscious willingness. With our heart or our vital we want something, but our mind immediately says, “No, don’t take it.” So discipline in our ordinary life is nothing short of punishment, precisely because of the mind’s unwillingness.
Here in America you have not suffered from malaria and I hope nobody ever suffers from that disease. In India, how I suffered from malaria! Once my elder brother and I were attacked on the same day. You can’t imagine how painful it is. All the subtle nerves and gross nerves start dancing. Such pain! You simply shout and scream. Previously perhaps you did not know any acrobatics or special exercises, but as soon as you get malaria you become an expert. All our best acrobats you can challenge with your exercises. Pain compels you to do it. At any other time if you had asked me to do that kind of exercise, I would have said, “Impossible!” But when I had malaria, I was in such pain that I could do all kinds of acrobatics.
The only medicine for malaria is called quinine. It is extremely, extremely bitter. No other medicine is as bitter as quinine. But quinine is the saviour. If we don’t accept the medicine, then how are we going to get rid of our fever? Right now, ignorance lords it over us. Ignorance is our master, but we don’t want this master anymore. We need somebody stronger than our present master who can overthrow him. We want knowledge to be our master. Knowledge comes in the form of discipline, which is like quinine. If we accept this discipline, then only can we conquer ignorance. So we have to allow discipline to be our new master, our new guide, our new saviour. Let us give the highest post to discipline.
Right now when we think of discipline, we feel that it is nothing short of punishment, which we are facing all the time. Instead we have to feel that discipline is our help, our guide, our inspiration, our aspiration, even our realisation. It is discipline that can and will conquer the undivine forces in and around us. So let us think of discipline as a new master who is helping us to learn something new, meaningful, soulful and fruitful so that we won’t have to learn anything more from our old master. Our old master was lethargy, darkness, ignorance and all the negative forces. Now we have to give the utmost value to our new master, discipline. Discipline embodies light and it is more than eager to offer us light. If we can feel this, then only will we not be afraid of discipline. Let us think of what it is going to give us which we do not have right now. When we make this kind of comparison, we will see that we are swimming in ignorance-sea and discipline is telling us, “Poor child, why are you suffering? I have boundless light, delight, peace and bliss. Come here: it is all for you.” So let us go there where it is all light and delight. And who is giving us this light and delight? Discipline, our guide, our saviour.From:Sri Chinmoy,Ten divine secrets, Agni Press, 1987
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/tds