Part I — The silent mind

Question: There isn't such a great role in the West of non-verbal communication. How do you deal with people who are used to a different kind of communication?

Sri Chinmoy: I wish to say that when someone comes to me with a sincere and aspiring heart, I can work most speedily and most convincingly through my inner silence. I hold meditations several nights a week, and I have quite a few Centres. Physically I may not be with my disciples, but spiritually I can guide them with my inner silence. This inner guidance is much more effective than outer guidance and outer talk. I can speak to you for hours and hours, but rest assured that if I meditate with you or on you for just a couple of minutes, it will elevate your consciousness and height. When I am talking, your physical mind is sometimes accepting what I am saying and sometimes it is not. The mind is like that. The physical mind, the mind which is in the physical, always wants to accept the truth in its own way; therefore it has tremendous limitation. At one moment, when it is accepting me, it thinks that I am a very great man, a very good man, a nice man and a kind man. But the next moment it wants to reject my thoughts, my ideas, my suggestions, my light, and it will immediately say, "He is very bad." And then, a moment later, what will happen? It will suspect or doubt its own judgement. It will say, "Am I correct in my assessment of this man?" Then where do you stand? First you judge me as a good person, then you judge me as a bad person, then you judge yourself in order to see whether your judgement is correct or not. Now who becomes the loser? Unfortunately you become the loser when you try to judge yourself. With your judgement of me, whether it is wrong or right, you can have some confidence. You have come to assess me and you know that I am a bad man or I am a good man. But when you try to judge yourself, whether you are right or wrong, you are totally lost.

Again, from the spiritual point of view, when you start judging yourself, that means that some humility has dawned, some sincerity has dawned, some inner awakening has taken place. That is why you are judging your own judgement. You try to go to a higher authority and that higher authority is deep inside you. When you get the message from the higher authority, you come to realise that this man who says that he can offer guidance through silence is saying the right thing.

I have given talks at hundreds of universities, and I wish to say that I have inspired and awakened the consciousness of many seekers. According to their capacity and understanding, they have accepted the divine inspiration that I have offered to them. Now recently I have started offering my inspiration and aspiration through silence. I shall be holding meditations at various places. I will bring down Peace, Light and Bliss from above only through inner silence and inner communication, and seekers will receive it according to their own receptivity and capacity.

In the spiritual life, and in our path especially, we always try to identify ourselves and to feel our inseparable oneness with the vast. That is what the heart can do. The mind cannot do this. Suppose the mind is right in front of the vast. It will take a portion of the vast and it won't be satisfied. It will try to scrutinise it, to see if there is any hole or imperfection in it. But the heart will not do that. Even if the heart sees imperfection, the heart will take this imperfection as its own imperfection. When the mother sees her child's imperfections, it is a matter of oneness. Since it is her son, she feels, "His imperfection is my imperfection." But if the mother used her mind, then when she saw all imperfection in the child she would curse God and say, "Oh God, why did You give me such a bad, naughty boy?"

In the spiritual life, real spiritual Masters always identify themselves with their disciples, with their own children. The Masters say, "Their imperfection is mine, their limitation is mine, because I accepted them as my own. As long as they remain imperfect and unrealised, I am unfulfilled. My fulfilment depends on their natures' perfection, on their realisation. Otherwise, I will keep my realisation, but I will remain unmanifest. It is their realisation, their acceptance of my light for the manifestation of the divine on earth, that is my fulfilment. So, as long as they remain imperfect I am imperfect, and as long as they are unfulfilled I am unfulfilled."

My fulfilment entirely depends on my disciples' realisation and perfection. Even my fulfilment is not mine. I am not the Guru. The Guru is the Supreme. There is only one Guru and that is God. I am only a representative, a leader. There cannot be two Gurus. There is only one Guru, the Highest, the Supreme. But somebody has to be His representative for His disciples here. Each Guru is a representative of God. I am a representative of God for my disciples, for those who have accepted me as their own; and they have to take my guidance. I am not the only boatman; there are other boatmen. The world is very big. There are quite a few sincere Masters, and each one has a boat. Each boat will take the sincere seekers to the destined Goal. But only we have to be very careful not to change our boat every day, or we will never reach our Goal. I have a boat and in it I have a few hundred disciples. I will definitely carry the sincere ones to the Golden Shore. The insincere ones will take a little longer time, but they too will definitely go. One has to realise the Truth, one has to be one-pointed so that one can reach the destination.