1. Aspiration

Indeed,
Today's
Aspiration-seed
Is tomorrow's
Realisation-fruit.

2. Surrender

Forgetfulness
Of one's oneness with one's own omnipotence
Compels man's forced surrender
To God's Will.

3. Compassion

God-Compassion
Is man's
Opportunity-perfection,
Opportunity-satisfaction.

4. Devotion

Devotion
To God
Is the liberation
Of the human
In us.

5. Gratitude

Gratitude
Is the only aspiration-soul
In our life of
God-invoking,
God-embodying,
God-revealing
And
God-manifesting
Reality.

6. Charity

Charity
Is the perfect clarity
Of the mind-existence.

Charity
Is the oneness-luminosity
In the heart-consciousness.

Charity
Is the satisfaction-unity
In God's Life of fulfilling multiplicity.

7. Sweetness

Love
Is sweetness embodied.
Devotion
Is sweetness revealed.
Surrender
Is sweetness manifested.

8. Oneness

Oneness
With the earth-consciousness
Shows me what I am not:
I am not God's chosen son.

Oneness
With the Heaven-consciousness
Shows me what I eternally am:
I am God's chosen son.

Oneness
With God
Shows me what I am and who I am:
I am man and I am God —
Man preparing for realisation,
God preparing for manifestation.

9. Satisfaction

Possession is not satisfaction.
Renunciation is not satisfaction.
Liberation from possession
And
Liberation from renunciation
Are indeed satisfaction-perfection
In our life of aspiration.

10. Absolute

The Absolute in us remains mute
Because He does not want to be involved
In our sound-life —
The life that does not want to construct,
But wants to destroy.
The Absolute tells us He is in us and for us
Only when we sing the song
Of constant construction,
Not destruction.

11. Boundless

The moment you discover
That you are boundless Reality,
You will in no time realise
That your life was never,
Never
A groundless experience
Of Mother-Earth and Father-Heaven.

12. Silence

Silence
Prepares
The God-man
In us.

13. Complete

A complete man is he
Who longs for
Silence-perfection within
And
Sound-satisfaction without.

14. Harmony

Look in the mirror
And what you see in yourself,
Try to see in others.
If you see perfection in your life,
Then see perfection in others.
If you see imperfection in yourself
And forgive yourself for your imperfection,
Then try also to forgive others
Who have the same imperfection.
The experience of oneness
In darkness or light
Brings about harmony.

15. Willingness

Human willingness
Is nothing
But God-cheerfulness
In man's life
Of self-transcendence.

16. Power

The power that says
"I have"
Is not the power divine.
The power that says
"God is"
Is the power divine.

17. Compassion

God-Compassion
In the seeker
Is God unrecognised.

God-Justice
In the seeker
Is God recognised.

18. Balance

A life of balance
You discover within yourself
The moment you tell Mother-Earth:
"I am for you,"
And the moment you tell Father-Heaven:
"I am of you."
When you tell Earth
That you are for Earth
And when you tell Heaven
That you are of Heaven
Then you ensure a life of balance.

19. Wisdom

Because of its lack of wisdom,
A snake drinks milk
And emits poison.
Because of his vast wisdom,
A saint drinks poison
And offers milk.
This is wisdom in oneness,
Wisdom in perfection,
Wisdom in God-satisfaction.
All of us must act like a saint.

20. Gentleness

Gentleness
Is one of the roads
That leads us far,
Very far,
Towards our self-perfection.

21. Happiness

If we can cry with the human in us
When the human in us cries,
Then there is happiness.
If we can smile with the divine in us
When the divine in us smiles,
Then there is happiness.
Happiness is in identification;
Happiness is in oneness-reality.

22. Persistence

True persistence is not and cannot be
The quality of a stubborn human being.
In the spiritual life,
Persistence is the aspiration
Of one's continuous patience-light.
And in this patience-light
Man eventually realises
That he is the Truth supreme.

23. Spirituality

The zenith
Of spirituality
Lies
In the equanimity
Of the seeker's searching mind.

24. Guru

A Guru is he
Who asks God
For only one favour,
And that favour
Is for God to give him time,
Endless time,
Before God examines
The Guru’s expansion-reality:
His spiritual children.

25. Grace

Do you want to see God's Face?
If so, then right from today
Call yourself,
And tell others to call you,
God's unconditional Grace.

26. Humility

What is humility?
Humility is our oneness-purity
In the heart
Of the absolute Reality.

27. Certainty

Certainty
Is not in the sleeping body.

Certainty
Is not in the demanding vital.

Certainty
Is not in the hesitating mind.

Certainty
Is not in the worrying heart.

Certainty
Is in the self-giving soul.

28. Goal

If you know what you truly are,
Then your goal does not remain
A far cry.
Your goal runs towards you
To offer its infinite wealth.
And what is it you truly are?
Your are of God-Life
And
You are for God-Love.

29. Friend

With my human friend,
I tried to build a cottage.
Alas, we failed.
With my divine friend, eternal friend,
I don't build;
We just live here,
There, everywhere,
For our oneness is our omnipresence.
And our omnipresence is
What God eternally has
And
What God eternally is.

30. Yogi

A Yogi is he
Who consciously knows
What God has already done for him
And
What God will always do for him.

31. Dynamism

Dynamism
Is the fulfilment
Of inspiration
And
The progress
Of aspiration.

32. Progress

Success
Is what we always
Want.
Progress
Is what we always
Need.

33. Father

A spiritual father
Is he who kindles
Our inner hunger,
And at the same time
Feeds us,
Nourishes us,
And immortalises us,
The divine in us.

34. Selflessness

Human selflessness
Is nothing short of
God's all-fulfilling goodness
For God-Satisfaction
Here on earth
And there in Heaven.

35. Freedom

Inner freedom
Is as beautiful
And as fruitful
As our conscious and constant
Unconditional obedience
To God's Will.

36. Life

Alas,
My own animal life frightens me.
Alas,
My own human life weakens me.
But there shall unmistakably come a time
When my own divine life
Will illumine not only me,
But will illumine
The length and breadth
Of the entire world.

37. Truth

To see the body of truth,
I shall have to run and run.
But to see the heart of truth,
I shall have to live inside
My self-giving breath.

38. Necessity

For a sincere seeker,
A genuine seeker,
There is and there can be
Only one necessity,
And that necessity
Is God-Satisfaction
Before the day dawns
And after the evening sets in.

39. Purity

Purity
Is the divine safe in us
In which God's
Eternal,
Infinite
And immortal Reality
Abides.

40. Discipline

The life of discipline
Is God-assurance
In our nature's cry for
Absolute perfection.

41. Sincerity

Sincerity
Is the revelation
Of our inner
Purity.

42. Dependence

Dependence
On one's own personal effort
Is a dance with futility.
Dependence
On God's Grace and Oneness
And the seeker's surrendered effort,
Is the assurance of God-Victory
In the seeker.

43. Transformation

Transformation
Of the physical consciousness
Is by far the most difficult task
For us.
Once the physical consciousness
Is transformed,
There is nothing,
Either on earth
Or in Heaven,
That one has to acquire.

44. Faith

Belief tells you
What you can become.
Faith tells you
What you have always been:
A conscious search
For God-realisation.

45. Unity

Unity
Is the trunk
Of the reality-tree.

Oneness
Is the essence
And substance
Of the reality-tree.

46. Security

Do not grasp.
If you do not grasp
World-security,
God-security
Will run
And grasp you.

47. Beauty

The beauty of the soul in us
Is crying for its revelation,
But we are crying
For the manifestation
Of our body's beauty.
The day we stop crying
For the revelation
Of our body's beauty,
The beauty of our soul
Will play its role
In and through us.
When this beauty of our soul
Plays its role satisfactorily,
The beauty of the physical
Becomes divine, perfect and immortal.

48. God's Face

In order to see God's Face,
I have to participate in
Self-giving love-race,
Self-giving devotion-race
And
Self-giving surrender-race.

49. Heart's door

The moment I open
My heart's door,
I see God's Infinity-Shore
Smiling at me.

50. Tomorrow

Yesterday
I touched God's Feet
And pleased Him;
Therefore
God became preparation for me.

Today
I feel God's Heart;
Therefore
God has become
My only indispensable necessity.

Tomorrow
I shall smile at God;
Therefore
God will be all-Satisfaction
In my life of inner aspiration,
In my life of outer dedication.

50. Editor's preface to first edition

During a meeting of his Connecticut Centre on 11 August 1975, Sri Chinmoy asked each of his disciples to give him a spiritual word, and he then extemporaneously composed a poem based on the word. The words, and Sri Chinmoy's poem are published here.