I think I love You

God, I think I love You.
“Daughter, what is the proof?”

God, this is the proof:
You know, God,
I do not live with ignorance
Anymore;
I do not play with doubt
Anymore;
I do not cry with fear
Anymore;
I do not eat with jealousy
Anymore;
I do not dance with despair
Anymore.

“Daughter, enough.
You love Me
And
I love you.
Be happy.
Remain happy.”

My daughter has no equal¹

Doubt says to God,
“God, why do You love
Your daughter, Faith, so much?”

“I love My daughter
Because she does not argue with Me,
Because she does not question Me,
Because she always believes in Me,
Because she does not ask Me to make her understand
What I say to her.
She accepts My Will devotedly,
She executes My Will unconditionally.
I tell you, Doubt,
Here on earth, in My vast creation,
My daughter has no equal.”

Letter

Luis A. Ferré
San Juan, Puerto Rico
March 7, 1975

Sri Chinmoy
Spiritual Director
United Nations Meditation Group
United Nations Building, Room 3401
New York, New York 10017

Dear Sri Chinmoy:

Please accept my most sincere gratitude for the kind words of your recent greetings which can only serve to increase my desire to continue working for the advancement of my people and the eventual predomination of peace and love in the world.

My deep appreciation also for the copy of the monthly bulletin devoted to the memory of U Thant which is a treasury of thoughts that I shall keep and enjoy as a reminder of that great man.

Most sincerely yours
Luis A. Ferré

Jharna-Kala News

On Saturday, 8 March, hundreds of jubilant disciples gathered on Manhattan’s famed Madison Avenue to celebrate Sri Chinmoy’s completion of 10,000 paintings in 100 days with a parade and free concert. The disciples, dressed in brilliant saris, sparkling whites or the uniforms and costumes of their particular groups, paraded up Madison Avenue from 59th Street to 72nd Street, and from there into the 72nd Street Mall in Central Park, carrying banners, flags, helium balloons and flowers, escorted by balloon-bedecked police cars and motorcycles.

Mahavishnu and Devadip played guitar during the entire parade from a sound-equipped flatbed truck decorated like a traditional parade float with a profusion of brilliant-coloured tissue paper flowers proclaiming JHARNA-KALA and FOUNTAIN-ART on the two sides, and C.K.G., Sri Chinmoy’s artistic pen-name on the front. Four giant-sized reproductions of Guru’s paintings and a huge tissue paper palette also adorned the float.

At the bandshell in the park, a quiet and appreciative audience enjoyed an hour of music by Devadip and Mahavishnu as well as a few Bengali songs by various groups of disciples, a short speech by Brahmananda (N.Y.), president of the United Nations Federation of World Federalists, a song by Navajanma (N.Y.) and a song by the Mahavishnu choir.

Sri Chinmoy has received many congratulatory letters and telegrams from his disciples as word of his completion of this marathon project reached them. Below is printed a most soulful letter from Akuti, president of the Connecticut Centre and one from Savitri, president of the Victoria, British Columbia Centre in Canada.

1.

My dear Guru —

The divine artist in you has once again given to the world your Vision in Art.

They are done with an extraordinary fashion — by instinct, and yet you have given only a semblance of reality to your Art, inseparable from life.

They are the essence of purest sobriety, simplicity and softness. All expressions of visionary insight and quiet poetry.

The painter and the poet in you have become One, and the Supreme offers a gentle smile to His beloved Son.

New generations will come, society will be transformed, acceptance will be on a higher level — but — your paintings will be eternally new — Beloved Guru, most gracious and fragrant flower of our hearts.

How can we begin to express the gratitude, joy and ecstasy that wells up in us when we hear of the great and joyous present-day miracle that you have manifested, with the completion of 1,000 drawings in 18 hours. (I believe even the printing presses will be bowing in awe when they hear of production like that!!)

Surely, now, the sleeping masses will be roused, and will see that you are something far above the common man. What unusual ways the Supreme has used to demonstrate this Truth — for doubting man, seeing is believing. For contemporary man, mass production is truth — so your phenomenal achievements have meaning for him. Once he has accepted that you genuinely are a power to be reckoned with, he will far more readily listen to what you have to say.

He has wanted to believe, but there have been so many false prophets (and false profits) he has become disillusioned, and has taken to many strange and dark highways and byways in an attempt to find his Truth.

I did not hear of the great celebration of the completion of 10,000 drawings till yesterday, from Mukti. We were all so sad that we were not able to send congratulations, flowers, gratitude, flowers, love, flowers, love, love, love — but our love is always with you — we know that your achievements are ladders of progression reaching into the Infinite.

Dearly, dearly beloved, we all have our fulfilment in you —

With all gratitude, joy, thanksgiving, pride and eternal love,

Your own Savitri

2.

Consulat General de France
701 PONCE DE LEON AVE.
SAN JUAN. PUERTO RICO - 00907
TEL. 722-3415

February 21, 1975

No. 140/P
D.2.5

Hon. Sri Chinmoy
Sri Chinmoy Centre, Inc.
1361 Wilson Avenue
Santurce, Puerto Rico 00907

Guruji,

I would like to express how I was sorry that I could not assist yesterday to your meditation that Miss Le Grand enjoyed so much. She gave me your book on U Thant who dedicated his life to the world peace. I thank you very much.

I heard that you have been many years in Pondicherry, therefore I can consider you in a way like one of my compatriots.

I hope that very soon I will have the privilege to meet you.

Respectfully

Paul Poli
Consul General of France

Mothers' Day, March 9²

Dear mothers, I am extremely glad and grateful that you have come. I am your Indian son and you are my American mothers. I have come here to be blessed by all of you. You have come to shower your blessings on my devoted head and loving heart.

In our Indian scriptures there is a famous saying: “Mother and Motherland are far superior to Heaven itself.” Here we are in the presence of our kind and loving mothers.

An eminent English writer once wrote, “As we all know, God could not be everywhere; that is why God created mothers.” When I was six or seven years old I read this in Bengali and I was overjoyed. But at the age of twelve, when I lost my physical mother, I gave much more value to this lofty statement. In my case God, out of His infinite Bounty, showered His choicest Blessings upon my surrendered heart; therefore, I am now in a position to contact my mother in Heaven. Just half an hour ago my mother came to me in my room with a special message from Heaven. To some of you it may sound ridiculous and absurd, but my students, who are your dear and loving daughters, will believe what I am saying.

Heaven and earth are like two rooms. At one moment we can be in one room, earth, and the next moment we can go to the other room, Heaven. When we pray to God and meditate on God, these things are not only possible and practicable, but inevitable. Again, out of His infinite Kindness, God has given me the capacity to have a free access to both rooms.

I give talks at various places in order to offer light to many seekers and to increase their aspiration. But today I have not come here to offer light to my American mothers. As a son I can only share my experiences of the inner worlds and the outer world.

To start with, I would like to tell you that your daughters who are following our path have in no way given up their religions. I tell my students that religion is like a home. How can they live in the street? They have to live in their homes. So in the inmost recesses of their hearts your daughters live in their respective religions.

I happen to be their teacher. The term they use is ‘Guru’, a Sanskrit word which means ‘illumination’. He who illumines the unlit consciousness of someone is called the Guru. But to be absolutely frank with you, I am not their real Guru. No human being can be the real Guru. The real Guru is inside them, inside me, inside all of you. But on the strength of my own oneness with my Inner Pilot I can be of dedicated, devoted and surrendered service to those who follow our path.

I tell my students that ours is one of many paths; it is not the only path. Many roads lead to the same destination. Again, I always discourage them from having a sense of competitiveness. Although other Masters and their followers or devotees may claim that theirs is the only path to God, I tell my students that this is the wrong attitude. Every sincere Master, every sincere disciple is doing the right thing, according to his inner receptivity and inner capacity, to realise the loftiest Truth and reveal and manifest this Truth.

In the beginning perhaps some of you thought that this Indian Master had taken away your children. You felt sorry and thought ill of me. But I wish to say that I have not taken your daughters away from you. The Supreme in you and the Supreme in me wanted me to become the instrument to elevate the consciousness of your dear children. There are many things which your souls wanted me to do, and which your inner beings wanted me to do, but unfortunately you were not and are not aware of them. When the soul does not come to the fore, when the physical mind is not totally conscious of or convinced of the soul’s light and reality, the physical mind quite often doubts the inner voice. It is the inner voice, which all of you have, that wanted these children of yours to accept a spiritual path, to lead a better life and feel God as their very own at every moment of their existence.

You may ask, “Why is it or how is it that our children did not find satisfaction in our churches and in our way of worshipping God? Why did they have to accept an Indian way to realise the Truth?” I wish to say this is not an Indian way; it is not an Oriental way or an Occidental way. This is a universal way of awakening humanity through inner experience.

In the West we try to reach God mostly by prayer and in the East we try to realise God through meditation, but both prayer and meditation are of paramount importance in the inner life. When we pray, we come to realise that we are devotedly talking to the Almighty Father, and He is listening to us. When we meditate with a tranquil mind and with an aspiring heart, at that time we are listening to the Message of God from within. In both cases we are involved in a spiritual conversation. At times the children speak; sometimes the Father speaks. In the East we try to hear what the Father has to say to us and in the West we try to make our Father hear what we want to say. But in our path we are trying to combine both prayer and meditation. With prayer we tell the Almighty Father of our sufferings and of what we really and truly want from Him. At the time of our meditation He tells us what we should do, what we must do, in order to become His dearest and most perfect children.

I am sure that when you yourselves pray or meditate, you feel that your children are doing absolutely the right thing. They are praying, they are meditating — what for? To share with you their inner achievements. You are their mothers. You have given them love, affection, concern, compassion, earthly attainments and achievements for many years. You have given them everything that you have and everything that you are. Now the gratitude-flower in your daughters is blossoming petal by petal, and they are offering you inwardly what they have and what they are. What they have and what they are is a golden flame, a climbing flame, which we call aspiration. This aspiration is our inner cry. It climbs up high, higher, highest and from the highest absolute transcendental plane of consciousness it brings down Peace, Light and Bliss according to our power of receptivity. These blessing-gifts from the Supreme we share with our dear ones.

Undoubtedly you are the dear, dearer, dearest ones to your loving daughters. You have played your role in their formative years. What you have, you have given them unreservedly and unconditionally. Now what they are getting from their prayers and meditation they are offering to you inwardly. The God within you has played a most significant role and now God within them is also playing a most significant role. God never wants to remain indebted to anybody. God within you gave them what He had to offer to them through you. Now God within your children is offering each of you what He has to offer you in and through them. You are bound to see and feel and grow into this at the time of your own prayer and meditation if you can remember what I am saying.

I am sure all of you know by this time that ours is the path of love, devotion and surrender. The love we are speaking of is divine love, the love for the Supreme, which slowly, steadily and unerringly grows and fulfils itself until it reaches the final destination. This love does not bind; it only illumines. Human love wants to bind and blind. But before we can bind, we discover that we are already bound.

In our human love there is always a sense of attachment. Instead of attachment, God teaches us devotedness to a high cause, to a supreme Reality. We use the term 'devotion’. In the spiritual life we devote ourselves to a high cause without being attached to it.

Then comes surrender. In our ordinary, unaspiring life when do we use the term ‘surrender’? We use it when we see a boss and his subordinates, a master and a slave. The slave surrenders his will to the master’s precisely because he is afraid that if he does not listen to the master, the master will punish him. In the spiritual life it is not our fear that compels us to listen to the dictates of our soul or of our higher existence. It is an inner urge that compels us to listen to something deep within us. There comes a time when we discover that this urge is not something from outside or from someone else; it is from the real in us, the divine in us, the Supreme in us. It is coming to us by a messenger from the highest plane of consciousness and this highest plane of consciousness we can claim as our own, very own, when we pray and meditate. When we do not pray and meditate, we come to realise that we are of ignorance and we are for ignorance. But when we pray and meditate, we come to realise that we are of the infinite Light and we are for the eternal and immortal Life.

“From Joy we came into existence. In Joy we abide and at the end of our journey’s close into Joy we retire.” This is the message of life which we have learned from the Indian seers of the hoary past. Spirituality is not and cannot be the sole monopoly of India. Spirituality belongs to everyone, but we have to know how to practise it. Here in the West, unfortunately, when we pray to God and meditate on God, quite often fear looms large. We feel that if we do something wrong, God will punish us or if we do one thing, we will go to hell and if we do something else, we will go to Heaven. The guilty consciousness quite often tortures a Western mind.

But in the East, especially in India, the philosophy is different. For us, Heaven and hell are inside. When the mind becomes a victim to worries, anxieties and other undivine forces, when the mind is disturbed, agitated and tortured by ugly, impure and undivine thoughts, we feel that we are in hell. But when the beauty, light and divinity of the heart come to the fore and we try to reveal and manifest them in the aspiring world, then we feel that we are in Heaven. We don’t have to wait for death to find hell or Heaven. Both of them are within us in our daily life, in our daily conduct. If we are always soulful and surrendered, we are in a position to remain always in Heaven in this very life on earth.

In conclusion, dear mothers, I wish to tell you again that this Indian has not taken your daughters away from you. They do not belong to me or to you or to anybody else. They do belong to the Supreme, who created you and who created your children. The Supreme in you wanted the Supreme in me to be a humble instrument to serve Him in your dear ones. What I am doing, I assure you, all of you inwardly wanted to do for your children. Earthly attainments, earthly riches, earthly prosperity, everything you have given to your children as much as you could. Your souls, your inner beings, your loving hearts wanted to give them Heaven’s Peace, Light and Bliss as well. The Supreme in you knows that He has chosen someone with more capacity to do the thing that you wanted to do. Your daughters have not left you. On the contrary, the deeper they go, the higher they go, the more their gratitude to their mothers increases in boundless measure.

1.³

I saw.
What did I see?
I saw God’s Face.

I did.
What did I do?
I loved God’s Heart.

I became.
What did I become?
I became God’s Compassion-Feet.

I am seeing.
What am I seeing?
I am seeing God’s Beauty in Heaven and on earth, within and without.

I am doing.
What am I doing?
I am doing my God-ordained duty.

I am becoming.
What am I becoming?
I am becoming a soulful and fruitful service-tree.

I shall see.
What shall I see?
I shall see God’s Satisfaction-Smile.

I shall do.
What shall I do?
I shall manifest God-Heights on earth.

I shall become.
What shall I become?
I shall become a boundless gratitude-sea to please my Inner Pilot consciously and constantly in His own way.

Questions

United Nations: Peace Room, 18 March 1975

Question: How can we be more conscious while we are serving, to remind ourselves that what we are doing is for you?

Sri Chinmoy: You can be more conscious in your service if at every moment you can make yourself feel that it is not who does a specific thing for me that matters — whether you or somebody else — but whether the thing is done in my own way. If something is done the way I want it to be done, you get the greatest joy and satisfaction through me. When you satisfy me in my own way and when you feel my satisfaction, then you are bound to become more conscious of your service.

Question: I have difficulty balancing service and inner life.

Sri Chinmoy: You can easily find the balance. If your inner life is genuinely aspiring, then you will be inspired to serve. If you are serving devotedly, then you are aspiring. If you have difficulty serving, then your inner life is not aspiring. If inwardly you are aspiring, then your spontaneous and devoted outer service will be another part of your sincere inner life of aspiration.

Question: How do we get rid of fear of failure?

Sri Chinmoy: Do not take what you now call ‘failure’ as failure, but as experience. Then give that experience to the Supreme. Although the mind says it is a failure, take it as experience and offer it to the Supreme. Then enter into another project. Give the Supreme in me the result of all your actions. That is the real success. Accept every experience with a cheerful frame of mind. If the result of your actions is taken cheerfully, then there can be no failure. Experience has nothing to do with so-called success or failure. Every experience can be offered to the Supreme so that you can go to the Highest.

Question: After meditating in the morning, I feel infinity and vastness. Then at work I enter into small details. I find it difficult to remain in the vastness when I enter into the details of work.

Sri Chinmoy: There is no conflict. Think of yourself in the morning as the sea. At work think of yourself as a drop. Countless drops make the sea. The sea without the drops has no existence. During your morning meditation you become the sea; at work you become a drop. Without the drop the sea has no existence. The drop makes the sea; the sea houses the drop. Take them as one, sea and drops.

Idea and ideal⁵

Each idea is an expansion of the mind. Each ideal is an upward growth of the heart.

When we have an idea, we roam carefully in the forest of thought-life. When we have an ideal, we fly soulfully and confidently in the star-lit sky of heart-life.

The strength that an idea embodies is uncertain, precarious and fleeting. The strength that an ideal embodies is inspiring, encouraging, glowing and fulfilling.

The possessor of an idea quite often walks in an uncertain manner. Sometimes he even walks backward. But the possessor of an ideal always walks, marches and runs forward smilingly and lovingly. The Goal of the Beyond beckons this divine and supreme pilgrim.

An idea can be captured, strangled and devoured by human doubts and human jealousies. But an ideal stands far beyond the domain of blighting doubts and tormenting jealousies.

Each idea is a tender flower that has the opportunity and the capacity to blossom petal by petal. Each ideal is an unwavering flame that glows bright, brighter, brightest.

Idea is a human possession. Ideal is a divine achievement. In the human possession there is always the sense of frustration and uncertainty of what we are doing, what we are seeing, what we are feeling and what we are growing into. In the divine achievement we know what we were, what we are and what we shall forever remain: God the Face of Eternity and God the Smile of Infinity.

Earth Day — 1975⁶

Mother Earth, Mother, we bow to you. We see you with our searching eyes. You see us, your children, with your glowing soul and flowing heart.

We love you with our heart’s feeble capacity. You love us with your life’s all-embracing reality.

Mother Earth, you are God’s Sacrifice-tree. You are God’s Realisation-flower. You are God’s Perfection-fruit.

You are beauty’s inspiration and duty’s aspiration. You are inspiring God’s entire creation to be beautiful, soulful and fruitful. You are aspiring in and through God’s universe for God-satisfaction in God’s own way.

God blesses you constantly with His universal Delight and His transcendental Pride because you teach your children that transformation of human nature and not extinction of human nature is God’s supreme choice.

God loves you most. Why? Because you love Him only. Because you suffer for Him only. Because you prosper for Him only. Because you have taught yourself that His choice is your choice, His voice is your voice. You have no choice of your own; you have no voice of your own. Your eternally and unconditionally surrendered oneness is your perfection-cry and God’s Satisfaction-Smile.

You are at once God’s silence-creation and sound-creation. With your sound-might you tell us, your children, how divinely great God is. With your silence-height you tell us, your children, how supremely good God is. You also tell us that God’s universal greatness we eventually will become and that God’s transcendental goodness we sempiternally are.

Mother Earth, powerfully you concentrate, soulfully you meditate and fruitfully you contemplate. In your concentration we see God the infinitesimal atom. In your meditation we see God the ever-expanding Infinity. In your contemplation we see God the Beloved Supreme. In the inner world you are God’s confidence in Himself. In the outer world, you are God’s assurance to Himself. God is your teacher. God is our teacher. He has taught you how to give unconditionally. He has taught us how to receive from you soulfully. The teacher says that you have done extremely well in the examination, while we have sadly failed. Therefore, Mother Earth, we congratulate you, we admire you, we adore you. Mother Earth, Mother, to you we bow and bow.

1.

/Nami juga avatar/
/Deva bigraha karunar/
/Asim udar/
/Jayatu apar/
/Dhangser pathe chaleche pritthi durbar/
/Mahakalanal/
/Bhishan garal/
/Hingsa irsha abichar/
/Nami juga avatar/
/Chinmoy bapu jyotir adhar/
/Sarva siddhi oishi riddhi/
/Dharani jachiche charane tomar/
/Nami juga avatar./

I bow to You, O Avatar of the era,
O emblem of infinite Compassion-Height.
Constantly I sing Your Victory-Song.
This mad world is running toward destruction.
Around me is the poison of jealousy, cruelty and injustice.
I bow to You, O Avatar of the era,
Your Consciousness-body,
Which is the receptacle of boundless Light,
Filled with heavenly Light and Power.
O Avatar of the era,
My world invokes You alone.