1. Union and oneness

A happy union reigns supreme
When beauty's light
And duty's delight
    Meet together.

A happy oneness reigns supreme
When earth's cry
And Heaven's smile
    To each other lose.

2. Union

Union with God
    Is not and cannot be total satisfaction.
But oneness with God
    Is total and constant satisfaction.
Union is not oneness.
    Union can be withdrawn.
Union is not and cannot be always safe;
    It cannot be eternal.
But oneness can never be withdrawn.
Once oneness is established,
    No matter on which plane,
Everything is established.
Then abiding satisfaction takes place
    In the aspiring heart.

3. Oneness

Oneness with our role
Makes us feel
    That we can eventually become great.
    Oneness with our soul
Makes us feel
    That we can eventually become good.
    Oneness with our goal
Makes us feel
    That the goal,
    The soul
    And
    The role
    Are of us,
    In us
    And
    For us.
    Why?
Because the Source is for us
    And
The flow is also for us.

4. Sincerity

Real sincerity
Is the sincerity
That sees reality
The way reality wants to be seen,
And that becomes the reality itself.
    Real sincerity
Does not see reality
With its own eye.
    Real sincerity
Sees reality
With the eye of reality itself.

5. Simplicity

Simplicity
    Is the most
    Striking
    And
    Challenging
    Speed
When we run along the road
    Of Eternity's
Fulfilling
Achievement-light.

6. Surrender

Let us surrender to God
    Not only what we have
But also what we are.
What we have
    Is a real inner cry for God.
What we are
    Is our conscious or unconscious oneness
    With ignorance.
Let us offer both
    To the Pilot within.

7. Compassion

Write down how many things you want.
Meditate on how many things you need.
When you write them down
    You will see
    That you want millions of things.
When you meditate
You will notice
    That you need only one thing
    And that is God the Compassion,
    God the eternal Compassion.

8. Light

The human in us
Does not want light.
The animal in us
Knows not the existence of light.
The divine in us
Knows that it is nothing but light itself.

9. The future of the world

Your life of perfection
    Is the future of the world.
Your life of satisfaction
    Is the future for the world.
Your life of unconditional surrender
    Is the future in the world.

10. Smile

When my inner cry is pure
God's outer Smile is sure.
My ascending cry
    And
God's descending Smile
    Inseparable
    Ever shall remain.

11. Truth

When I make a promise
    I make friends
    With truth.
But when I keep a promise
    My existence becomes
    Another name for truth.

12. Selflessness

Selflessness is:
I am of God,
I am for God,
Him to please,
Him to serve
In His own Way
At every moment
Is my heart's selflessness.

Selflessness is
Heart-giving,
Life-giving.
What we call selflessness today
Becomes God-awareness tomorrow,
    And
    The day after, that very thing
    Becomes God-oneness,
    Eternity's God-oneness.

13. Devotion

Devotion in the heart
    Is the expansion
    Of our Divinity's real life.
Devotion in our entire life
    Is the fastest speed
    To reach our destined Goal.
Devotion is the strongest magnet
    That pulls us to our Eternity's source:
    Delight.

14. Gratitude

Gratitude
Is life's ever-climbing tree
    That enjoys God's
Ever-transcending Height,
    His Infinity's Delight,
    His Immortality's Life
    And
    His Perfection's Smile.

15. Aspiration¹⁵

Imagination was aspiration.
Inspiration was aspiration.
Now aspiration is inspiration.

When imagination was aspiration
I felt that I was of my Inner Pilot
    And
I was for my Inner Pilot.

When inspiration was aspiration
I felt that I could fly
To my Eternity's Beloved Supreme.

When aspiration is inspiration,
When the real becomes conscious
    Of its existence in us,
God the unmanifested Reality
    Becomes not only the manifested Reality
    But the only Reality
In the world of glowing hope,
In the world of flowing reality.

16. Consciousness

The human in us
Cries and climbs
And climbs and cries.
The divine in us
Smiles and descends
And descends and smiles.
    Consciousness
Is the connecting link,
The golden thread that unites
    Our heart's climbing cry
    With
    Heaven's descending smile.

17. To be free

Why do I want to be free?
    If I want to be free
    Because the rest of the world is bad,
Then God will ask me
To create another world of my own
    Since His creation has failed me.

    But if I want to be free
    So that I can be of greater service
    To my sisters and brothers,
    To God's entire creation,
Then God in me selects the hour,
And at that choice hour
    The aspiring human in me achieves
    Freedom from life's ignorance-night.

If I want to be free
To love the world,
    To be part and parcel of the world,
Then God is all eagerness
    To grant me freedom.
But if I want to be free
Because the world is full of ignorance,
The world is nothing but a devouring tiger,
    Then God feels that I am not the right person
    For Him to grant freedom to.
He will grant me freedom
    Only when He sees that this freedom
    Is for dedicated service,
For the transformation of the human race.

18. Gratitude

Earth's gratitude
    And
Heaven's plenitude
    Are one and inseparable.

Human heart's gratitude
    And
Divine soul's plenitude
    Are one and inseparable.

19. Transformation

Transformation of the mind
    Is all we need.
Once the oldest member of our family
    Is transformed,
The younger members of the family,
Will automatically and spontaneously
    Be transformed;
    Therefore
The transformation of the mind
    Is of paramount importance.

20. Aspiration

Yesterday
    What we called aspiration
    Today
We call that very thing realisation.
    And tomorrow
    We shall call that very thing
    God-satisfaction
    In
    God-manifestation.

21. Expansion

The expansion
    Of human consciousness
Is the beginning
    Of divine revelation
    In and through
    The seeker.

22. Certitude

Remain in the heart always,
    Soulfully and unconditionally.
Then the soul's certitude
    Will become
Your constant and eternal Friend.

23. Eternal

To be an eternal cry
    Of the heart,
    In the heart,
    For the heart,
Is to grow into
    The eternal satisfaction-life
    Of the ever-transcending Beyond.

24. Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is a divine gift,
And this divine gift
We get from higher worlds.
Enthusiasm lost,
Life-satisfaction is lost;
God-perfection in man
Remains a far cry.

25. Oneness

Oneness with the silence-light
And oneness with the sound-might
Can make the real seeker
    An eternally perfect instrument
    In the Heart of the Supreme.

26. Courage

To speak ill of the world
    Needs courage,
But fortunately or unfortunately
    Everybody has that courage.

To love the world
    As one's own,
    Very own,
    Needs courage.
Unfortunately, most of us are wanting
    In that courage.

The courage of the heart,
The courage of the soul
    We badly need,
And not the courage
    Of the unruly,
    Aggressive,
    Impure,
    Demanding vital.

27. Discipline

If you discipline your life,
God not only will play with you,
But also will teach you how to play
Most soulfully and most satisfactorily
The way He Himself plays
In His cosmic Game.

28. Compassion

God's Compassion
    Is the magnet
That pulls us up
    High,
    Higher,
    Highest,
To His Silence-Height
    And
His Perfection-Light.

29. Purity

Purity
Is man's conscious and constant
    Surety
In his life of aspiration-cry
    And
In his life of satisfaction-smile.

30. Service

Service is the illumining light
    That fulfils the divine,
    Perfects the human
    And
Transforms the animal
    In the seeker.

31. Capacity

When capacity is of real necessity,
    Capacity knocks at our door
    To enter into our life.
When capacity is not of real necessity,
    Capacity likes to remain
    A perfect stranger.

32. Patience

Patience is the divine friendship
That we enjoy with divine Time,
    The ever-lasting Time,
    That has far transcended the snares of death
    And the frustration of bitter failure.

33. Light

The real light
    Is within
    And not without.
The real light
    Is self-giving
    And God-becoming.

34. Victory

The animal victory
    Lies in utter destruction.
The human victory
    Lies in tremendous hesitation
    Or
    In total suspicion.
The divine victory
    Lies in constant and conscious
    Self-expansion and God-manifestation
    In the seeker's ever-aspiring heart.

35. Determination

Determination is in our dynamic vital,
    In our challenging vital,
    In our transforming vital.

Will power is in our immortalising soul,
    In our God-fulfilling dream,
    In our God-satisfying divinity.

36. Sincerity

Sincerity is the first step toward purity.
Purity is the first step toward self-discovery.
Self-discovery is the first step toward
    God-revelation.
God-revelation is the first step toward
    God-satisfaction and man-satisfaction
    All at once.

37. Salvation

Salvation is the foot
    Of God the Satisfaction-Tree.
Liberation is the middle
    Of God the Satisfaction-Tree.
Realisation is the top
    Of God the Satisfaction-Tree.

38. Soulful

Live in the heart.
All the soulful qualities,
    Capacities,
    Realities
Of the ever-lasting, ever-illumining Real
Will beckon you,
Will claim you
    As their own,
    Very own.

39. Freedom

What is real freedom?
    Real freedom is not to strike someone
    At one's sweet will.
Real freedom is one's mastery
    Over the attachment-world,
    Over the temptation-world,
    Over the uncompromising,
    Unaspiring human world.
Real freedom lies in acceptance of reality
    And in perfection of reality.
Accept, transform, perfect:
    That is the real freedom.

40. Purity

Cry for purity
    The way a child cries for its mother.
Cry and cry,
For there is no other way to invoke purity,
No other way to inundate our earthly existence
    With purity.
Cry and cry.
Inside the soulful cry
    Purity-seed germinates.
This seed will one day grow into a tiny plant,
    And then into a banyan tree.
Cry and try, try and cry.
There is no other way
    To sow the purity-seed
And to see it grow into
    The purity-banyan tree.

41. Self-offering

The self-offering of the lower self
Is the self-offering
    Of what we have temporarily accepted
    As our own.
The self-offering of the higher self
Is the self-offering
    Of something which we eternally are
    But unfortunately
    Are not aware of.
Our false life we are claiming as our own.
Our true life, natural life,
    We are not claiming as our own.
The higher life is our true life.

42. Obedience

Obedience
    Is not blind self-giving
    To another individual.
Obedience
    Is not the play of compulsion.
Obedience
    Has to be full of inner recognition
    Of our high, higher, highest part
    Playing its role
    In different human beings.
Obedience
    Is the acceptance of our higher life,
    Of which we are not yet conscious.

43. Realisation

First we have to know
    What our ignorance-realisation
    Has given us.
When we are frustrated
    With our ignorance-realisation,
We shall cry for nectar-realisation.
And that nectar-realisation lies in our
    Conscious, constant self-giving
    To our own Source,
Which is the ever-transcending Delight
    Of the Beyond.

44. Nectar

If we give what we have,
If we give what we are
    To our Source,
Then it is not only possible and practicable,
    But inevitable
    For us to drink nectar.
What do we have to give?
We have to give what we see,
We have to give what we feel,
We have to give what we claim,
We have to give what we are
    In the outer world
    To the Source.
This moment we are ignorance-prince;
    Next moment we are aspiration-prince.
This moment we represent darkness and ignorance;
    Next moment we represent light and delight.
Whatever we represent at any moment
Should be offered to the Lord Supreme.
If this moment we represent ignorance,
    Then we must offer it.
If the next moment we represent wisdom-light,
    Then we must offer it.
Then at every moment
    We can drink from the fount
    Of divine nectar-delight.

45. Humility

Humility
Is the expansion of one's real reality
In a sweet, illumining and fulfilling way.
    Humility
Is not the helpless surrender
To something or someone else.
    Humility
Is not a frightened child.
    Humility
Is real receptivity in us.
    If we receive with devoted humility,
Then immediately our receptivity-vessel increases.
    Humility
Is the secret of secrets
    For self-expansion,
    For world-inspiration
    And
    For world-transformation.

46. Transformation

The transformation of the body
    Comes last.
The transformation of the heart
    Comes first.
How does the transformation of the heart
    Take place?
The transformation of the heart takes place
    When a seeker can consciously feel
    That he is not the body
    And
    He is not of the body,
    But
    He is for the body.
To be for the body does not mean
To be satisfied with the animal propensities,
To wallow in the pleasures of ignorance.
But if the seeker cries
    For the transformation of the body
    And the body-consciousness,
    Then the seeker becomes perfect.
    Once we transform the body,
    This body can then be utilised
    For God-manifestation on earth.

47. Purify

How can I purify my mind?
I can purify my mind
    Only by looking at a flower
    And praying to God
    To make me as pure as the flower.
How can I purify my mind?
I can purify my mind
    Only by looking at the moon
    And praying to God
    To make my mind as peaceful as the moon.
How can I purify my mind?
I can purify my mind
    Only by looking at a candle flame
    And praying to God
    To make my mind as one-pointed
    As the flame.
By looking at a flower,
By looking at the moon
    And
By looking at the candle flame
    I can purify my mind.
Once purification takes place in the mind,
Slowly and steadily
The body and vital become pure.
Mental purity comes first
    For the illumination
    Of the entire body-consciousness.

48. Responsibility

Our first responsibility
    Is to please the omnipresent God,
    The Source, the Inner Pilot.
First we have to please God
    Who is our Heaven-Friend
    Earth-Friend,
    Hell-Friend,
    Everywhere-Friend.
Our second responsibility
    Is to please our nearest and dearest ones
    On earth,
    Those whom God wants us to claim as our own.
Our third responsibility
    Is to please ourselves.

49. Purity

Purity
Is the real divinity
In the heart of a human soul.
    This divinity
Ultimately makes us feel
That the Absolute
Is not only the Absolute
    But also
The Supreme Beloved
    In us,
    For us.

50. Light

In our life of aspiration
With the outer light
    We see,
With the inner light
    We become
    And
With the Light of the Supreme
We know what we eternally are:
    God's Dream-Boat
    And
    God's Reality-Shore.

Editor's preface to first edition

The poems in this book were composed spontaneously by Sri Chinmoy from words given by his disciples at various Centres.