The outer power, the inner power18

Each human being on earth embodies the outer power and the inner power. He is aware of his outer power when he looks without, around himself. He is conscious of his inner power when he dives deep within.

Each human being is the outer power and the inner power. When he calls himself the head and the body-consciousness, nothing more and nothing else, then he is the outer power. When he calls himself the soul, the soul-light, then he is the inner power.

The body-consciousness has light of its own. The soul-consciousness has light of its own. The body-consciousness, because of its limitations, does not see far. For the body-consciousness the future always remains a far cry. The soul-consciousness, because of its unlimited capacity, at one and the same time sees, grows into and becomes the achievements of the past, the realisations of the present and the vision-dreams of the future.

The outer power blinds the human in us. The outer power is devoured by the animal in us. The inner power clears and expands our vision; it shows our vision the way to reach the highest transcendental Goal.

The outer power is competition: conscious and constant competition. The inner power is conscious conception: conception of its own worth, its own reality and divinity. Divinity proceeds and succeeds, succeeds and proceeds. Reality eternally is. Again, in its silence-life, reality is at once the transcendental Height and the immanence-Light.

The outer power is supremacy. The inner power is accuracy: accuracy stating the fact of what it has and what it is. What it has is the source and what it is, is the manifestation of the source.

The outer power sings with imagination, dances with temptation, dies in frustration. The inner power is concentration, meditation and contemplation. Concentration accepts the challenges of life. Meditation purifies and illumines the challenges of life. Contemplation transforms the challenges of life into golden opportunities in life for the inner being, the Inner Pilot in us.

The outer power wants to strike and then immediately wants to escape. The inner power wants not only to embrace the world but also to convince the world that the world’s existence and its own existence are eternally inseparable.

The outer power says to the inner power, “Look what I have. I have the capacity to destroy God’s entire creation.” The inner power says to the outer power, “Look what I have. I have the power to illumine God’s entire creation.”

The outer power is at times afraid of its own creation: the atom bomb and the hydrogen bomb. The inner power is constantly feeding its creation with love-light, concern-light and perfection-light.

The outer power feels that there is a height which has to be transcended and that if this goal is achieved, then satisfaction will dawn. The inner power feels that height and depth, the foot of the mountain and the top of the mountain, are all at one place. It sees that they are singing the song of one reality, that they are all inside the cosmic Heart in perfect union, enjoying inseparable oneness.

The outer power wants only to ascend. It is afraid of descending. The inner power wants to ascend and descend. It knows perfectly well that when it is descending, it is carrying down to earth the descending God; and when it is ascending, it is carrying up to Heaven the ascending God.

The outer power is the dance of sound. The inner power is the song of silence. The life of sound is the creation of the human in us. The life of silence is the creation of the divine in us. The human in us wants to prove its existence. It feels that unless and until it can prove its existence, the world will have no respect for us, the world will not care for us. The divine in us does not want to prove its existence for world-acceptance, world-appreciation and world-admiration. The divine in us feels that its existence is God’s universal existence. God is experiencing His own ascending, descending and transcending Light in the divine in us.

The outer power is the human power. The inner power is the divine power. The outer power says, “I can do. I need no help, no assistance.” The inner power says, “I can do nothing and I am nothing. At the same time, I can do everything because there is someone in me, the Inner Pilot, who will do everything for me.” Furthermore, it says that the Inner Pilot has already done everything for us and that we only have to be aware of this.

When we live in the desire-world, the outer power lords it over us. The desire-world is the world of possession and frustration. When we live in the aspiration-world, the inner power illumines us and fulfils us.

The desire-world is the world without. The aspiration-world is the world within. Realisation has a free access to the inner world. And what is realisation? Realisation is the acceptance of reality as it is, reality at its present stage of evolution and reality at its ultimate height. Realisation tells us that the animal in us is for transformation, the human in us is for perfection, the divine in us is for manifestation.


UV 41. 20 June 1975, Dag Hammarskjold Library Auditorium

Sri Chinmoy, Union-Vision, Agni Press, 1975