“Our progress-life
Is sumptuously fed
By our inner cries.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Spiritual progress blossoms in the expansion and deepening of our heart, experienced when our mind is silent. To enter into a silent mind is therefore the first objective of any meditation practice or spiritual path.
The mind, however, cannot and will not easily be silenced. Its very nature is to be restless like a monkey, to distract us and thwart our concentration and meditation efforts, to keep our attention focussed on itself. As long as we are absorbed in our mind, we are restrained in the box of our mind’s chatter: we do not change, and cannot progress.
We cannot employ our mind to silence the mind; we cannot think away thoughts. Only the psychic power of our hearts’ inner cries can subdue the mind. Our mind’s bluff and bluster is swept away in the flood of our inner cry’s intensity, disarmed by its purity, charmed by its simplicity, captured by its urgency, silenced in its sincerity.
As our inner cry eclipses our mind, the portals of our heart open and we find ourselves basking in our inner sunshine, flowing and growing into our perfection-potential. Our inner cries not only make our spiritual progress possible, but inevitable; they are the spark plug, fuel, engine and accelerator of our progress-life.
Our inner cry arises from a compelling dissatisfaction with our present consciousness and capacity, a gnawing awareness that we can and must go deeper, grow into and become someone better, brighter, fuller. Our inner cry fulfils its own yearning, piloting our progress-journey from human self into divine being. Sri Chinmoy states this spiritual law in an aphorism of transcendent beauty:
“The rainbow of our inner divinity
Always rises from
Our crying and weeping hearts.”
– Sri Chinmoy