“There is only one way
In God’s entire creation
To be happy,
And that way
Is to make God happy.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“I ask God
How I can make Him happy.
God tells me
There is only one way
To make Him happy,
And that is through
The happiness of my entire being.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Of all the gifts
You have offered to God,
Your happiness-gift
He treasures most.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“The place to be happy
God has chosen for me
With His infinite Compassion.
The time to be happy
I have to choose for myself.
God has chosen the place:
Here!
I must choose the time:
Now!”
– Sri Chinmoy
“You want happiness. He wants happiness. I want happiness. Everybody wants happiness in life, from life. Each creation of God wants happiness. God wants happiness for Himself in and through His creation.
“We want happiness and we need happiness. In this life of ours there are many things we want but actually do not need. But when it is a matter of happiness, we not only want it but we also need it. There is no happiness in mere seeing. There is no happiness in mere feeling. There is no happiness in mere achieving. Happiness can be found only in our conscious surrender to God’s Will.
“You are in the spiritual life because you want happiness. If the spiritual life did not bring happiness, who would be such a fool as to practise spirituality? When you become in tune with God’s living Breath, when you enter into God’s Breath and become part and parcel of it, happiness becomes your inner and outer name and you get infinite ecstasy and infinite delight.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Take God prayerfully
And soulfully —
You will be happy, infinitely happy.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“You are not happy
And you will never be happy
Because you do not lose yourself
Enough to find yourself —
I mean your true self.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“You want to know how
You can be truly happy.
You can be truly happy
If you can reawaken
Your heart’s sleeping God-dreams.”
– Sri Chinmoy
God is not only the source of happiness within us: God is happiness itself. Our quest for happiness and our search for God are parallel paths which ultimately merge into one. Commencing our journey with the idea or expectation that we will receive happiness as a reward for pleasing or fulfilling God, as we surrender ourselves to the God within, we find ourselves growing into and becoming happiness itself, while radiating and revealing happiness all around.
“No matter which way we appreciate the reality or want to identify ourselves with the reality, we have to feel that we are appreciating and identifying ourselves with Divinity; and this Divinity we call either God or Spirit or Being. If you don’t want to call it God, you are at perfect liberty not to do so. But you have to call it happiness. Happiness itself is God. You can appreciate the beauty of nature and if you are happy, then the happiness that you are getting is God. In one word, if God has to be defined, then I wish to say God is happiness.
“So anything that gives one happiness is God. It can be nature; it can be a personal being and also an impersonal being. God is everything.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“How to be happy?
Do not think of yourself —
Think only of God.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“I am happy, genuinely happy, not because God is mine but because I am God’s and God’s alone.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Every day there is only
One thing to learn:
How to be honestly happy.”
– Sri Chinmoy
In this selection of poems on happiness, Sri Chinmoy draws a compelling connection between happiness and spiritual progress:
“Be happy, remain happy.
The perfection of your nature
Is just a question of time.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Be happy, divinely happy.
In your divine happiness
Is your unimaginable progress.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“If you want to make progress,
Only think of your heart’s happiness
And how you can keep
Your entire being happy.
Wherever you go,
Carry happiness with you.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Inhale the breath
Of pure ecstasy.
You are bound to be happy.
Exhale the breath
Of wild fantasy.
You are bound to be happy.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Do you want to be permanently happy
On the spiritual plane?
Then start crying
With your crying heart,
And start loving
With your loving heart.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Don’t be in love with machinery.
There is no happiness there.
“Don’t be in love with money.
There is no happiness there.
“Be in love with your heart-life.
There, only there,
Is the flood of happiness.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Ignore the pains of your body,
Ignore!
You will be unmistakably happy.
“Silence the demands of your vital,
Silence!
You will be unbelievably happy.
“Destroy the doubts of your mind,
Destroy!
You will be unimaginably happy.
“Remember the purity of your heart,
Remember!
You will be unceasingly happy.
“Remember God’s Pride in you,
Remember!
God will be unreservedly happy with you.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Be happy, be happy!
Unless you are happy,
Your outer life will not succeed
And your inner life will not proceed.”
– Sri Chinmoy
This final poem is a happiness mantra:
“Be happy!
Be happy!
You will always have time
To be unhappy later.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Every day there is only
One thing to learn:
How to be honestly happy.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Aside from our daily spiritual discipline, in these poems Sri Chinmoy offers several practical pathways to happiness to apply in our everyday lives:
“We can never be happy
If we close our eyes
To life’s difficulties.
We can only be happy
By challenging and conquering
The pride of difficulties.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Happiness is my name,
For the desire to appear right
Has been replaced
By the desire to be right.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Just try one day
Without finding fault
With any human being.
You will see that happiness
Will become your name.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“We can become happy
Only by seeing
The good and divine qualities
Of each and every human being.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Judge nothing;
You will be happy.
My own personal experience
I am sharing with you.
“Try to forgive everything;
You will be happier.
My own personal realisation
I am sharing with you.
“Love everything;
You will be happiest.
God’s own personal Secret
I am sharing with you.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Do not judge,
But love and be loved,
If you want to be really happy.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Stop talking.
You too can be happy.
Stop frowning.
You can easily be happy.
Start giving.
Lo, you are already happy.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“To be happy,
Do not try to understand
The world,
But try to be useful
To the world.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Serve the crying earth.
You will be happy.
Love the smiling Heaven.
You will be happy.”
– Sri Chinmoy
This final poem perfectly describes the attitude of a spiritual hero:
“You can be truly happy
Only when your life-tree
Touches the vaulted skies
While standing deeply rooted
Inside the heart
Of the lowly earth.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Every day there is only
One thing to learn:
How to be honestly happy.”
– Sri Chinmoy
If how to be honestly happy is the only thing to learn, what advice does Sri Chinmoy offer to attain this state?
First and foremost, that we take our spiritual discipline seriously:
“From the discipline-life-bud
The happiness-flower blossoms
Into immediate progress.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Work, pray and meditate soulfully.
You are bound to remain happy
And make most satisfactory progress.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“To be well-established
In the spiritual life
Is to be happy in the only way
One can really be happy.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Your heart is now in silence.
That means
Your life is soon going to be happy.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“I shall be happy and fulfilled
Only when my mind is crowned
With the beauty and purity
Of silence.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Do you want to be happy?
Then force your mind to be
Inside the breath of your heart.
This is the only way
To keep yourself happy.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Man can be happy and safe only when the heart feels faster than the mind thinks.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“You must command your thoughts,
Not vice versa,
If happiness is something
That you are looking for.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Purity, purity, purity!
True, without being pure
You can meditate.
But you cannot achieve
Abiding happiness
Without being sufficiently pure.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Don’t act like a fool.
Be sincere in your thoughts,
Be pure in your feelings.
You will not have to run after happiness.
Happiness will run after you.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“How can a mind be happy
If it does not look forward?
How can a heart be happy
If it does not dive inward?
How can a life be happy
If it does not fly upward?”
– Sri Chinmoy
Sri Chinmoy speaks here about happiness and the power of forgiveness:
“If we want to make ourselves truly happy, perfectly happy, unimaginably happy, then we must develop the power of forgiveness. And this forgiveness not only shall we apply to people who have done wrong things to us, but also we shall have to apply most powerfully to ourselves. We have to forgive ourselves for all the bad things we have done. Otherwise, we will not be able to go forward — never, never!
“If we do not forgive ourselves for what we did ten years ago, then what will happen? Our guilty conscience will be like ten dead elephants that we have to drag along with us. But if we want to have deer speed, then we shall not only forgive others, but we shall also forgive ourselves. In order to be truly happy, unimaginably happy, infinitely happy, we have to apply forgiveness both to the world around us and to ourselves.
“Forgiveness is of utmost importance. Forgive the world around you, those who have done something wrong to you, and forgive yourself for what you have done, but with the view that you will not commit the same mistake again. Before, you committed the mistake of not identifying yourself with the whole world. That is why forgiving the world was such a difficult task. But forgiveness becomes easier than the easiest if we take the right attitude, which is that we have to go forward, we have to go forward, we have to go forward. We cannot allow the weight of dead elephants to make us fall behind all the time.
“The quickest method to become happy is to forgive the world. Sooner than the soonest the miracle-power of forgiveness will give us happiness.”
– Sri Chinmoy
We seek happiness in attachments and possessions. Yet attachments and possessions bring us the opposite of happiness – frustration, worries, anxiety and suffering.
Where then is happiness to be found? In these two passages, Sri Chinmoy offers us two illumining answers to this question:
“Detachment is true wisdom. Detachment is our divine Divinity. Nobody can be as happy as a man who has detachment. We are under the impression that a man can be happy only when he is attached to something or to someone, but this is a great mistake. When we are attached to something or someone, we actually become a prey to them. We actually become a victim of that person or that thing. So in this world, if we want to have true joy, true peace and true divine qualities, then we must be totally detached. This detachment does not mean that we shall not work for the world; no, we shall have to work for the world, in the world, but should not allow ourselves to be caught by anything.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Happiness can never be found in possession, either of earthly qualities and capacities or of heavenly qualities and capacities. Not in possession, not in dominion, but in cheerful union with the higher realities can we have happiness. Earthly qualities are all negative and destructive. Fear, doubt, anxiety, jealousy, insecurity — these are earthly qualities. But heavenly qualities are all positive and constructive. Peace, light, bliss, love of God, love of truth, self-giving, sacrifice, the feeling of constant oneness with the rest of the world — these are heavenly qualities. If we can identify ourselves with these heavenly qualities, then only will happiness be ours. Happiness will claim us as its very own then, and only then. There is no other way.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“How to achieve happiness?
Not by giving, not by talking,
But by being.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Those who run after happiness
Will never be happy.
Happiness is something
That has to come to the fore
From within.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Happiness does not and cannot come from outer phenomena, achievements, possessions or experiences. Its source is within, in stillness and silence. Once we find inner stillness and silence, happiness is automatically there. Our inner happiness is then reflected around us, in what we see, what we feel and what we receive from other people and circumstances, so our happiness may appear to be coming from outside. It is like shining a torch light – when our torch light is switched on, we see everything clearly around us for what it is; when our torch light is switched off, we do not see the things around us, we see only darkness. When our inner happiness-torch light is on, we see and feel happiness everywhere and in everything – otherwise, we can never see or feel happiness anywhere; we remain in unhappiness-darkness.
We often view happiness as a prize or a gift. We tend to assume that happiness is something to be pursued; that we acquire or receive or earn happiness as a reward for our actions or as a result of something we do.
Yet – happiness is not something we do; it is not a verb. Nor is it something we know, or own, or have. Happiness is not a state of doing, or even becoming: happiness is a state of being. Happiness is who we truly are.
Happiness is not achieved without; it is discovered within. It is not attained through activity; it is revealed in stillness. We cannot conquer happiness; we must allow happiness to claim us.
Sri Chinmoy spoke powerful words on the power of happiness:
“Your happiness you have to increase by all means, inner and outer. Anything that increases your happiness, you must do. Happiness also has its own degree. There is a little happiness, abundant happiness, infinite happiness. You know how happy you are today. Tomorrow, by virtue of your will-power, if you can increase your happiness, then you will see that there is nothing formidable standing against you. The day after tomorrow, again increase your happiness. When there is happiness, even if there is an obstacle, that obstacle does not remain as powerful as we thought. Happiness immediately unnerves or weakens the opposition party that is standing in our way.
“Always try to cultivate happiness. If you have happiness, then your mind’s frustration, your mind’s own way of thinking, will surrender. There is no other way to bend the head of the mind than to be happy, and this happiness is strength, strength, strength! Happiness is the strength of a lion, the power of an elephant. Nothing can stand against happiness, inner happiness. Again, you may say that there are many things that bother each individual every day on a regular basis. I say that is also true, but again, there are ways to avoid these things or escape from them or challenge them. Unhappiness has to be conquered by happiness. Unfortunately, the power of unhappiness on the outer plane is much stronger than happiness in the outer life. But again, the inner happiness is infinitely stronger than the outer unhappiness. If you have peace of mind, if you have happiness in your heart-consciousness, in your psychic consciousness or your soul-consciousness, then you will see that the outer unhappiness is no match for the inner happiness.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Just as a baby is inspired and then learns to walk by observing the adults around them, and as a novice tennis player will learn unconsciously by watching and copying the very best players, so just mixing with spiritually more advanced seekers, can help bring to the fore and develop our own latent inner qualities and capacities.
Sri Chinmoy spoke and wrote many times of the advantages of mixing with and being in the company of spiritual people:
“Each spiritual person, if he is sincere, is a tremendous inspiration to the rest of the world. So if you have fear or doubt, although there are many ways to remove them, you can easily look for another spiritual person. If that person does not have fear, just talk to him; if the person does not have doubt, talk to him. At that time you gain the strength that he has. A seeker, a sincere seeker, is more than ready to give you his strength and faith.
“Everything is divinely or undivinely contagious. Not only does the sadness or depression of others affect us, but their happiness also can easily enter into us. It is not only possible; it is inevitable. If you stay with a bad person, his badness is contagious. If you stay with a good person, his goodness is also contagious. Why do birds of a feather flock together? Because consciously they help each other.
“Sometimes, some of you come here feeling very unhappy. But after you mix with your spiritual brothers and sisters in your spiritual home, then you become happy. From the spiritual atmosphere here you get happiness. You didn’t have happiness, but some individuals had it. By mixing with them, you have caught their happiness, like a contagious disease.”
– Sri Chinmoy
When asked how a spiritual seeker might deal with the challenge of having to work with unspiritual people, Sri Chinmoy offered the following advice:
“It is very, very difficult to work with people who are not aspiring if you are not strong enough to inject inspiration and aspiration into these people. They are in the majority. One person will be a seeker, but there will be ten or twelve others around him who are wallowing in the pleasures of ignorance. If you want to be spiritual, you should try to mix and live with spiritual people. Otherwise, it is like having to face a few extra hurdles or obstacles on your path.
“Unfortunately, a spiritual seeker meets with obstacles every day. Even other seekers who are on the same path are not always in a perfect consciousness. They have insecurities, they have jealousies, they have fears and doubts. But at least they are consciously aware of their limitations, and they know that these shortcomings or weaknesses are things that they want to conquer and that they eventually will conquer. But if your colleagues are not even aware of their shortcomings, and they are not at all ready to perfect themselves, then it is very, very difficult for you to synthesise your outer life and your inner life. It is very difficult to have a bridge of harmony between your daily work and your inner life, between your social life and your spiritual life.
“My advice is to find a new job where you can be with people who are aspiring. They don’t have to be on the same path, but if they have a higher goal in life, then it is really better to be around them than to be around unaspiring people.”
– Sri Chinmoy
In this passage, Sri Chinmoy writes about mixing with spiritual seekers:
“It is always advisable for seekers to mix with other seekers, for then they will be inspired. If you stay with somebody who is not aspiring at all, that means you are constantly struggling. It is very difficult for a seeker — especially in the beginning — to maintain his highest consciousness. As soon as he goes someplace immediately he sees unaspiring people. Even if he does not talk to them, still they are spreading their vibration. If a saint comes here, immediately you will feel his vibration. And if a thief comes, immediately you will feel that vibration. But if you are a seeker and another seeker is with you, then immediately your strength increases tremendously. So it is always advisable for seekers to be in a community together or to meet together often.
“Here in the ordinary world we have to live amongst our friends. But we can easily choose our friends, and we must do so carefully. If we want to be spiritual, then we have to spend most of our time with spiritual people. If we spend most of our time with unaspiring people, then their consciousness will enter into us, and then our God-realisation and inner illumination will remain a far cry. But if we have proper guidance from within, if we know that we are walking along the right path, and if we mix with aspiring people, a day will come when we will be inundated with divinity. Then we will be in a position to reveal our inner wealth, and at that time we will be able to associate with all and sundry, to offer and share our experiences with them without endangering our own spiritual consciousness.”
– Sri Chinmoy
The quest for self-discovery is ultimately an individual journey. for each spiritual seeker can only his or her own self. Yet tremendous inspiration, joy and encouragement are gained from sharing one’s journey with fellow-travellers in whom one has faith and with whom one feels an affinity.
Sri Chinmoy writes:
“In the spiritual life when you want to discipline your life, you have to mix with spiritual people who have disciplined their lives. You are trying to discipline your life and they are also in the same boat. So when two persons are aiming at the same goal, it makes the task very easy. Early in the morning it is very difficult to run because of lethargy and inertia. But if you see that a friend of yours is running, you will go together. At that time, you will energise him and he will energise you. Your strength enters into his strength and his strength enters into your strength.
“Mix only with those who give you a kind of joy, a sense of satisfaction. In this way you can increase your power of discipline and self-control. And if you do not want to follow any spiritual path, then just mix with spiritual people who are your friends. They unconsciously will be able to energise you.
“For spiritual people, it is better to mix mainly with those who are spiritual. By mixing with spiritual people we will get inner strength. By mixing with unspiritual people we will never get inner strength. On the contrary, since unspiritual people are weak in their inner life, our association with them will also weaken us inwardly. So let us be wise and associate with those who have the kind of strength and inspiration which we want to have.”
– Sri Chinmoy
