AUM — Vol. 7, No. 5, 27 Dec. 1971

Return to the table of contents

Mind-confusion, heart-illumination

There was a great spiritual Master who had abundant spiritual power, occult power. He had hundreds of disciples and out of these hundreds there were a few who were intimate. Unfortunately, one of his most intimate disciples became a victim to doubt. Although this particular disciple had tremendous inner aspiration, deep love for the Master and genuine dedication to his cause, she had some doubt about the Master and about her own spiritual life. Her mind, like everybody’s mind, played a miserable and painful trick on her. She had been used to getting boundless joy, inspiration and aspiration from her meditation and from talking to the Master about her spiritual life. But whenever she came back home it was all suffering, because the members of the family were against the spiritual life. The friends and neighbours were also unsympathetic. At the Master’s ashram she was all joy, but at home, she was made miserable by confusion and sorrow.

This went on for months and months. The months ran into years, but this deplorable situation showed no sign of coming to an end. In spite of her best aspiration and dedication to the Master’s spiritual mission and her purest love for the Master, her mind was tormenting her. The heart was all dedication, but the mind at times became a tornado of confusion.

The Master felt extremely sorry for her, but he was helpless. He had asked her repeatedly not to pay any attention to the mind, but to live always in the heart. She tried her best and, whenever she lived in the heart, it was all joy, satisfaction and fulfilment. But whenever she forgot and lived in the mind, in the physical mind, it was all doubt, confusion and frustration. The Master tried to help her, but he was not successful.

The Master now went a step higher. He had a talk with God about this particular disciple. He asked God how he could be of some help to her. God said to the Master, “Tonight I shall offer you a dream. In that dream you will be able to get some indication, so that in the future you can solve her problem.”

The Master did have a dream that night and in that dream he saw a beautiful mango, a most delicious mango, placed in front of him by God Himself. On one side of the mango was the Master and on the other side was the mind of the particular disciple. The mango was the disciple herself. The mind was separated by God from the physical consciousness of this particular disciple. Now the Master saw that there was a constant tug-of-war going on between herself and the mind of the particular disciple. The mind of the disciple wanted to grab her, the mango; and the Master wanted to have her for divine use. At times the mango-consciousness (the disciple), which was conscious, would take the side of the mind, its mind; and at times the mango would take the side of the Master. This way there was no settlement, no final settlement. It went on for hours and hours.

All of a sudden the Master felt extremely sorry for the mango, for the disciple. He said, "Both of us are trying to possess this mango. The mind is trying to grab it mercilessly and I am trying to take it for a divine purpose; but, even then, there is no end to our battle. While we are fighting for this mango, it is being damaged. Now, since I have true love and concern for this disciple, let me leave the fight. Let her mind possess her. In that case she will not be torn between us. She will have some relief.” So the Master surrendered. He left the fight, not out of disgust, but out of compassion. The mind was extremely happy and delighted that it had gotten the mango, its own mango, forever, so it seemed. This was the Master’s thought but it did not work out in that way.

What happened? When the mind became the full possessor of the physical consciousness of the particular disciple, it began to torture her.

The mind said, “Look, it is for you that I had to fight so hard. A terrible fight I had and you were the apple of discord. So now that you have become totally my possession, I want you to be totally my slave. For you I fought. Now that I have got you, you deserve punishment. I want to torture you ever more.”

The poor disciple. Now her condition was most pitiful; her condition was most deplorable. It went on for a few months. At last she came back to the Master crying. She said, “O Master, I did not know that you were so unkind to me. You left me, you became indifferent to me, you left the fight. Now look what has happened. My unruly, undivine, obscure, ignorant mind has possessed me totally. I have lost everything, I have no faith in myself, I have no faith in you, I have no faith in the spiritual life. Master, save me, save me, protect me, illumine me.”

The Master said, “What can I do? When your mind and I were fighting against each other for you, you sometimes used to cherish your mind’s doubt, fears, anxieties and worries. You did not accept me wholeheartedly. If you had accepted me wholeheartedly, I would have got you for my divine use. Quite a few times you took the side of your mind. Now here is the result.”

“O no, Master, forgive me, it was my ignorance. Now I want to be yours, for your divine purpose, for God, for God’s use and for your mission.”

The Master said, “All right, if you listen to me, I will be able to solve your problem.”

She said, “Anything you ask me, Master, I will do it.”

The Master said, “All right. When your mind says that your Master is wrong, your spiritual aspiration is wrong and everything that you do is wrong, immediately you have to tell your mind, ‘Granted, you are sixty percent correct and the spiritual life, my own inner life and my Master are only forty percent correct. Nevertheless I am not going to accept you as my Lord, as my saviour.’ Then, when it comes to a stage where the mind is convincing you ninety-nine percent with all its cleverness and all its tricks that you are doing the wrong thing in your inner life, that your faith in the spiritual life, in your Master’s realisation is all wrong, you tell the mind, ‘I do not want you. I do not need you, even if you are ninety-nine percent correct and we are only one percent correct.’ Then, if the time comes when the mind tells you that it is one hundred percent correct, it convinces you that you are all wrong, then you have to tell your mind, ‘Mind, you stay with your wisdom, with your ignorant wisdom. Even if you are correct I do not need you, I do not want you. I want peace, I want joy, I want light, I want delight. They are all inside my heart. Even if you convince me, I am not going to accept you. You stay with your own conviction; let me stay with my heart’s spontaneous joy, delight and love for my spiritual life, for my inner life and for my Master's mission.’ If you can do this then your life’s problem is totally solved.”

The disciple touched the feet of the Master and said gratefully, “Master, from now on, no doubt, no fear, no anxiety, no suspicion, no jealousy, nothing. But all joy, all confidence, all peace, all love, all devotion, all surrender I will have. You are mine. You are my life’s only Haven and Heaven.”

The Master blessed his dearest disciple and said: "At long last, my child, we have won the divine race.”

The mother's four gifts

There was once a very great spiritual Mother who had hundreds of spiritual children. She was extremely kind, compassionate and forgiving to these children and her spiritual children loved her most devotedly and soulfully. The very name of their Mother was, for many of them, enough to make them feel boundless ecstasy. They recognised that in comparison to her, their human mothers showed them scarcely any affection, concern, love, or sympathy. They got everything — love, concern, joy and all that could nourish and fulfil a human being — in boundless measure from their beloved spiritual Mother.

One Mother’s Day about four hundred disciples gathered together to honour their spiritual Mother. They brought hundreds of gifts in the form of money and other material things. These they placed at the feet of the Mother and in soulful gratitude they offered their love, devotion and surrender to her. Now, because it was Mother’s Day, the Mother was all compassion, all concern, all love, all joy, all pride for her spiritual children. From among the four hundred disciples gathered there, she pointed out four men who were most developed spiritually and she asked them to come and stand in front of her.

To one she said, “Your name is Simplicity.” To the second she said, “Your name is Sincerity.” To the third she said, “Your name is Purity.” To the fourth she said, “Your name is Humility.”

“All the rest who are here have all these qualities: simplicity, sincerity, purity and humility, but these four have these qualities in abundant measure. That is why I have singled them out.”

To the one who was named Simplicity, she said, “Any boon you want from me I will grant to you today. Your simplicity has pleased me most. Anything you want from me, any boon, I shall grant you.”

With folded hands, this particular disciple said, “Mother, I want your constant concern for me. I want you to be concerned all the time about me — not only about my inner life, but about my outer life as well. If you are pleased with me, this is what I want most: I want your concern.”

The Mother blessed him and said, “Certainly my child, you have all my concern.”

To the one she had called Sincerity, she said, “Now, what do you want from me?”

He said, “Mother, I need your love. If I get love from you I can try with utmost sincerity to realise God with your help. If you just give me your love, if I feel your constant love in my heart, in all my activities, I will feel that I will be able to fulfil you. So I need your love, your real love. I need your constant love.”

The Mother said, “Certainly, I will give you all my love. I am most pleased with your sincerity. You have all my love.”

To the third she said, “Purity, what do you want?”

“Mother, I want to have constant assurance from you that you will always be mine and I will always be yours. I shall realise God with your boundless compassion. My pure heart is a gift of yours and I want to feel, I want to get the assurance from you, that you will take this pure heart to God. I need only your real assurance to take me to the Highest. The Highest is inside you. I want you to take me there. This is the gift I would like to have from you."

The Mother said, “Certainly, I shall give you this. I give you my inner assurance that I will lead you to your destined goal. I give you my soul’s promise and my soulful assurance.”

Now the Mother turned to the fourth, Humility and asked him, “What would you like to have from me?”

He replied, “Mother, Mother Divine, I would like to have, I would like to feel, your heart all the time inside my heart. I do not want anything else. I only wish to feel your heart in the very depth of my heart. Please make my life a blade of grass. Since you have given me the name Humility, I wish you to give me this boon; that I can feel your divine feet at every moment in my heart. I want, I beg, to be purified every moment by the touch of your divine feet.”

The Mother said, “Certainly, I shall give you this. I shall place my feet inside your heart. At every moment you will feel my divine feet blessing you, purifying you — blessing your aspiration and purifying your lower vital, your lower life.”

Then the spiritual Mother said to them, “I am most pleased with your prayers. The things that you four wanted to have from me are most significant, most valuable for your inner realisation and perfection. I am extremely pleased with your aspiration. I am so pleased with you that I want to give you four more boons.”

She said to Simplicity, "My child, I am pleased with you. In your life of aspiration I wish to offer you a straight path, a path that will be absolutely straight, free of zig-zags and complications. You will run along a straight path.”

To Sincerity she said, “Your sincerity has touched the depths of my heart. Because you are so sincere, I shall shorten your path. In addition to being straight, your path will be short.”

Turning to the third, Purity, the Mother said, "I shall make your path sunlit. There will be no darkness, no obstruction. It will be extremely easy for you to run towards your Goal on the sunlit path which is already straight and short.”

To Humility, she said, "I shall give you total protection. I am making your path full of protection by giving you my soul’s umbrella and my life’s shoes. You will hold the umbrella as you walk and you will be protected from above. Nothing from above will be able to destroy you. If the cosmic forces, the hostile forces, the undivine forces, want to attack you, my umbrella will be there and they will not be able to pierce through its protection. I am also offering you my life’s fastest shoes. You will wear them when you run and you will be able to run the fastest because they will give you comfort and protection. You will have protection above and below and you will be able to run the fastest. Your path, in addition to being straight, short and sunlit, will have all protection.”

So each individual seeker has to cultivate simplicity, sincerity, purity and humility, step by step. With simplicity we start, with sincerity we run fast, with purity we run faster, with humility we run the fastest.

Please the Master in his own way

There was once a very great spiritual Master. He had about six hundred disciples. Out of the six hundred he considered only four disciples to be his near and dear ones. They pleased him greatly and he was happy to have them. The rest were of a lower calibre and could not please him.

One day he asked these four disciples, who happened all to be women, to come and receive blessings from him. When they came he said to one of them, “You love me most dearly. I am most pleased with you. I am most pleased with your spiritual love, your divine, unreserved love.

To the second one he said, "You do the best type of meditation, the highest meditation very often. That is why I am very pleased with you.”

To the third woman he said, “You serve me all the time most sincerely and most devotedly. That is the reason I am particularly pleased with you.”

He turned to the fourth woman and said, “You have surrendered your life to me unreservedly. That is why I am most pleased with you.”

He continued, “I wish to give each one of you a boon. Since I am so pleased with you, tell me anything you want. I will give it to you.

The first disciple said, “Master, since you have said that I love you most deeply, may I ask you also to love me. Please grant me your divine love. I can make the fastest progress with your divine love. ”

The Master said, “Certainly, I offer you my divine love. I shall love you most deeply with my divine love.”

The second disciple said to the Master, “You say that I do the best type of meditation. Would it be possible for you, Master, to grant me the boon that I will always do the best type of meditation?”

The Master said, “Certainly, my child. I shall give you the inspiration and aspiration to do the best type of meditation always.”

The third one said, “Master, you said that I serve you all the time most sincerely. Will you grant me the boon that I can always serve you — not only these few years, but all my life? Will you grant me the boon that I can serve you, only serve you?”

The Master said, “Certainly I shall give you that boon.”

The fourth disciple, whom the Master had chosen because of her utmost surrender, said to Him, “Master, will my surrender always remain intact? Please may my surrender always remain complete. This is the boon I wish to have from you.”

The Master said, “Certainly I will gladly give you that boon.”

When he had granted to each her boon, the Master showed a very sad face to all the four disciples.

They were puzzled and said, “Master, you granted us each a boon and we have asked for our choice. Why is it that you are sad?”

The Master said, “I have given you boons. I was pleased with you. The boons you have asked for, I have given. But I am very sad that none of you tried or wanted to please me divinely, not to mention in my own way.”

They said, “Master, please tell us, how is it that we have not pleased you?”

To the first one the Master said, “Look here: I told you that you love me most deeply and you want me also to love you most deeply with my divine love. But I wish to tell you that if you really wanted to please me, if you came into my life to please me, then you would have said, ‘Master, I love you wholeheartedly, deeply. I am so happy to hear that. It is most kind of you to tell me so; but I don’t want to ask for any kind of love from you. I only want to please you. Even if you hate me, I won’t mind.’ If you had said that, then you would have really pleased me.”

To the second one, who did the best meditation and who wanted to do the best meditation always, the Master said, “I am sorry. You wanted me to grant you the boon so that you could always meditate the best. But why do you want that? If you had really wanted to please me, you would have said, 'Master, out of your infinite bounty you gave me the capacity to meditate well from time to time. Now, if you want somebody else to do the best meditation, it is up to you. Only by your grace was I able to do the best meditation. My prayer is to please you and not to ask you to grant me the capacity to do the best meditation. The best or worst meditation, it is up to you to give me. I only want to please you. If you want somebody else to meditate well, then also I will be equally happy.”

Then the Master said to the one who served him sincerely and who wanted always to serve the Master, “You want only to serve me. That would give you joy. But why didn’t you say, ‘Master, out of your infinite bounty you have given me the opportunity to serve you. My prayer is to please you whether you want me to continue serving you or not. Please only give me the chance to please you in your own way. You have given me the opportunity to serve you. I am most grateful. Tomorrow, if you take away this opportunity I shall not mind in the least. Only give me the capacity to please you in your own way.’ If you had asked for that kind of boon, then I would have been truly pleased with you. ”

To the fourth woman whom the Master felt had surrendered most, he said, “You want to maintain the same kind of surrender to me. It is good. But if you had wanted to please me most greatly, you would have said, ‘Master, with your grace I have been able to surrender to you completely. But now, if you want somebody else to surrender completely, the way I have surrendered, or if you want me, for a special reason, to have the experience of not surrendering to you — the suffering that one goes through when one does not surrender to one’s Master — then I am ready for that experience. Please allow me to please you always in your own way.’ If you had said this, then I would have been really happy.”

All of them bowed down to the Master and said, “Certainly, Master, we would like to please you in your own way from now on — only in your own way. We came into the world to please you in your own way Master. You have given us capacity, but if you want to take away our capacity, or if you want to give others the same capacity, please do it. Do anything you want to do with our lives, only allow us, with your infinite compassion, to please you in your own way.”

Our eternal need

Father, with love we feed
each other feed.
Indeed, this is our mutual
eternal need.

The Promise-Light

I know Thee not,
O Land of Promise-Light,
Yet Thee I love
With my bosom’s weeping night.

My danger and my protection

In the cave of my mind
My death-danger lies.
In the home of my heart
My protection-skies.

No eyes have we

Thou art the All and beyond the All,
This truth we fail to believe.
Our ego never sees thy Will;
To ignorance vast we cleave.

Revolts of ours defy thy Smile
That leads all souls without
Within to thy Sea of rapture-fire
Where drowns our clay’s blind shout.

God's Power of Love in today's world1

Aum, Aum, Aum.

God’s Power of Love has three gifts to offer: aspiration, liberation and perfection.

Man’s power of love has three gifts to offer: possession, frustration and destruction.

God’s Power of Love in today’s world can be felt only by the special few who have discovered the inner truth that love is the beauty of our aspiring life and the duty of our manifesting soul.

Aum.

The body of today’s world is a filthy pig.
The vital of today’s world is a mad elephant.
The mind of today’s world is a devouring tiger.
The heart of today’s world is a timid deer.
The soul of today’s world is a helpless lamb.

In supreme silence, God’s Power of Love is performing its eternal divine duty. Slowly, steadily and unerringly, it is transforming the body — the filthy pig — into the clean and pure child, the vital — the mad elephant — into a one-pointed dynamic runner, the mind — the devouring tiger — into a seeker of the highest Truth, the heart — the timid deer — into a brother of boundless confidence and concern, the soul — the helpless lamb — into a chosen instrument of divinity’s eternity.

Aum.

Marguerite Blessington said, “Love in France is a comedy; in England a tragedy; in Italy an opera seria; and in Germany a melodrama.”

Now I wish to add to that, “Love in America is at once a frightening and enchanting experience of a green life’s red adventure.”

The master-philosopher Plato remarked, “Love — a great mental disease.” When our physical consciousness lives in the doubting, suspecting and unaspiring mind, this great utterance of Plato is to some extent undeniable. But if our awakened consciousness lives in the illumining soul, love is nectar, the very breath of immortality.

Napoleon Bonaparte has given us an amusing and interesting piece of advice: “The only victory over love is flight.” Now, when our human emotions run riot, the necessity of flying away is perhaps indispensable. But when our divine emotion, the all-loving emotion, reigns supreme, we have to know that we do not need victory over love, but victory of love. This victory of love is self-expansion in God-Manifestation.

India’s matchless leader, Mahatma Gandhi, has a special message. His inner message runs: “Love is the reverse of the coin of which the obverse is Truth.”

In the life of aspiration we come to realise that love is truth embodied and that truth is love revealed.

Man’s obtrusive ignorance of divine love results in a most damaging failure in the battlefield of life.

Man’s power of love is constantly wanting in perspicuity and lucidity.

Man’s love of power knows not how to procrastinate. Fast, faster and fastest it runs and finally when it reaches the goal, it is compelled to shake hands with bitter frustration.

Earthly experience, frustrated and shattered, convinces a lover that there is no such thing as love. It is all chicanery. Heavenly experience, illumined and fulfilled, reveals to a God-Lover the truth that love alone is here on earth, there in heaven.

Here at this august hall, the Dag Hammarskjold Hall, we are trying to throw light on love in today’s world. My heart tells me that the love that the United Nations has is not a guarded and limited concern, but a soulful dedication to the Supreme Cause.

An unaspiring man loves God in a perfunctory manner. An aspiring man loves God in a soulful and ebullient manner. A God-Realised man loves God in an unconditionally surrendered manner. It is through him that God, the inner Pilot Supreme, reveals His Power of Love in today's world.


AUM 784. This talk was given by Sri Chinmoy at the Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium, United Nations Secretariat, New York, on 7 October 1971. No. 11/1.

Meditations

1.

Inner courage mends our outer existence.
Our fear ends our inner existence.

2.

To strive for the inner journey, is to strengthen one’s outer life.

3.

To improve and not to prove myself, I see the light of day.

4.

No one knows the strength of God’s Grace and no one ever will.