“Everything that is
Is a golden opportunity to realise God.
Therefore, do not withdraw
From the battlefield of life.”
– Sri Chinmoy
To bring forth toothpaste, the tube has to be squeezed. To shape a horseshoe, the iron must be red hot. To create a beautiful poem can take hours of agonising.
Universal law is continual growth and advancement through evolution – a process we are part of whether we choose to be or not. We are all evolving, consciously or unconsciously. Evolution proceeds within and all around us in a flow it is impossible for us to resist.
This pervasive, perpetual current of evolution inclines us toward our cherished goal, to yearn for that higher state of our soul, for the peace, love, wisdom and creative joy we intuit as our birthright, yet right now are a far cry from our present condition, which we are apt to perceive as incomplete, unfinished and unsatisfactory.
So it is our lot and destiny to seek self-improvement and progress – yet no progress comes without change, and no change occurs without sacrifice.
It is human nature to resist change and to resent the necessity of sacrifice – at least, when that change and sacrifice apply to our selves.
Yet change we must, and sacrifices we must make – so whatever inspires us to make the sacrifice and effect the change, should be welcomed as blessing and benefactor. Sometimes that inspiration comes in the guise of happiness and success – other times through misfortune and suffering. While one type of experience may be more appealing than the other, each can be equally effective.
Personal trials and tribulations always present opportunities for spiritual progress. While we do not seek or embrace them, when we can humbly and gratefully embrace their lessons, we become the unquestionable, inevitable winner.
Only our souls’ will power can tame our mind’s incessant flow of thoughts – but what and where is our souls’ will power?
Imagine your spiritual heart – around the centre of your chest where you feel the presence of love, light and joy – as the home or residence of your soul. Don’t try to see or imagine the soul or to form any specific idea of what the soul looks or feels like. Just feel that your soul is God’s ambassador within you, a ceaseless fount of healing love, revealing light, compelling truth and enthralling delight flowing in and through your heart and all around you, always. Have faith that your soul can accomplish whatever is needed.
When concentrating – on a flower, candle flame or image – feel that your soul’s indomitable willpower is flowing from your heart, up through your third eye to surround and enter the object, which is embraced and enveloped by your heart. As the object merges into you, its inner truth is revealed within your sweep of self-awareness.
The notion of objectivity relies on the separation of subject and object. This separation is an invention of our mind, necessary for its reason and analysis to function. Thoughts are the tools of reason, the language of objectivity. In the heart where there is no separation, there can be no ‘other’, no object: hence – no thoughts.
As the heart concentrates, it includes. Internal subsumes external: object merges into subject. Thinking is redundant.
Concentration now melds into meditation on the self, as the whole superstructure of objectivity quietly collapses; its foundation of separation dissolves in oneness; its pillars of reason crumple into the sea of love; its myriad nuts and bolts of thoughts and concepts, simply evaporate in the all-illumining irradiant light of pure being.
We know that to meditate effectively, we must clear away all thoughts and distractions, which are as pervasive in our consciousness as sight and sound. To be rid of thoughts and distractions would appear an impossible task: can we be sure we would even exist in their absence? What about: “I think, therefore I am”?
It is said that the mind can be cleared through the power of concentration, which serves as an overture and gateway to meditation. Once concentration is mastered, thoughts will remain at bay and meditation flows of its own accord. We are instructed to focus our mind on one object, typically a candle, flower or image.
Yet how can we best summons the mind’s energies to such an effort? Our first instinct is to use the mind itself to clear the mind, to think about how to rid ourselves of thoughts. This process is self-defeating, and doomed: we might as well put a fly in charge of stopping flies from landing on us, or ask a bull to reconstruct the china shop. While concentrating, the mind keeps the object at a distance, employing its customary methods of perception – reason, analysis, description and classification. We find after a short while of such attempt, we develop a headache as the mind grapples with itself. The object remains apart, as thoughts tumble upon further thoughts, leading to frustration or exasperation.
There is another way to concentrate, using the power and method of our spiritual heart.
Just as the mind concentrates using its capacity of objective reason, so the heart concentrates using its inherent specialty – which is love, and the identification of oneness. Oneness-love is the fastest, truest way to knowledge, for here there is no separation between subject and object: they merge as one.
“What concentration can do in our day-to-day life is unimaginable. Concentration is the surest way to reach our goal, whether the goal be God-realisation or merely the fulfilment of human desires. It is concentration that acts like an arrow and enters into the target. He who is wanting in the power of concentration is no better than a monkey.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Concentration is the single most essential skill and capacity we all need in life – which we are never taught. When I was in school, I well remember the teacher remonstrating with me as I gazed out the window: “Concentrate!” All very well – but how? How are we supposed to concentrate, when nobody is there to teach us, either in school or at home?
If any nation would effectively teach concentration early in its school curriculum, that nation’s economic and creative output would skyrocket, while health and happiness would run riot.
The difference between success and failure in any project, any field, any endeavour, is almost always determined by our capacity to concentrate.
Concentration is the shortcut that directly connects us with our task, with the subject we are studying, with the goal of our longing.
Of all the advantages of concentration, none is so beneficial and significant as its role in meditation. By enabling us to clear the mind, concentration builds the foundation and paves the way for meditation and all its limitless peace, light, power and bliss. Unless and until we enhance our capacity to concentrate, our attempts at meditation will be excursions in exasperation and flirtations with frustration.
Like any skill, concentration requires disciplined practise. Concentration and discipline grow hand in hand: as our concentration-power develops, discipline comes more easily; as we become more disciplined, our concentration naturally improves.
“One drop of pleasure-poison
Is enough to destroy
The beauty and purity
Of my aspiration-heart.”
– Sri Chinmoy
One choir member out of tune can ruin an entire performance; one droplet of blood summonses frenzied sharks from afar; one momentary lapse yields a car crash; one stray thought shatters a lofty meditation; one bad choice can terminate one’s spiritual progress.
An oak tree at once carries dead branches of its past, along with acorns of its promising future. Just as humans have evolved from animals, and still embody many limiting and destructive animal propensities – fear, anger, aggression – as ‘memories’ of our animal past, so also we house all the expansive, liberating spiritual qualities – peace, love, light and bliss – as ‘previews’ of our future divine being.
The spiritual life is a very long journey, an evolution from one type of consciousness, from one state of being to another, from the human to the divine. Our spiritual transformation does not occur overnight, as through meditation we gradually transcend the binding, inhibiting limitations of our finite human nature – our body, vital and mind – by nurturing, absorbing, claiming and growing into our infinite within – our divine heart and soul.
As our liberating heart expands in love, peace and oneness, so our mind’s fixed boundaries of certainty, superiority and pride wither and fade, our consciousness awakens from finite to infinite, our identity graduates from confined ego to universal heart.
In this process, what appears desirable or pleasurable to the limiting mind and demanding vital – thoughts and feelings of possession, division, suspicion or dominion – halt and reverse the unfolding of the divine.
Beware: just one miscreant thought or unchecked desire can turn the tide of spiritual progress. The deluding, ravenous ego blocks the doorway of the heart: the promise of spiritual fulfilment vanishes.
“My meditation-heart
Is
My most powerful protection.”
– Sri Chinmoy
We are used to seeking protection from adverse forces of Nature: from accidents, calamities, disaster and disease, as well as from malign human actors: criminals, scammers and betrayers.
Yet in the spiritual life, by far the greatest threats from which we need protection are within ourselves: our own thoughts, misconceptions, fears, doubts, anxieties, jealousies, suspicions, desires and distractions.
All our weaknesses, susceptibilities and points of exposure lie in the finite, limited parts of our being – the physical body, vital and mind. Fortunately, these domains of ours, though they may seem separate and isolated when viewed alone, all exist within the greater whole of our selves – our heart and soul.
It is the natural role of the heart and soul to shelter and protect their little siblings, body, vital and mind. Our heart and soul act as our personal fortress, impregnable against all foes. But any fortress can only protect those inside it. To be safe, we need only to remain inside our fortress, and not indulge ourselves to wander in fantasy-forest or wallow in desire-quagmire as we are continually tempted to do.
As germs enter us via polluted food, drink and air, so negativity enters our system via thoughts and desires. Once they gain entry, thoughts and desires, like germs, can be deadly. In pure meditation in our heart and soul, in the absence of thought and desire, no negativity can enter us or take hold.
Especially in meditation, every thought, every intention matters. Guard and protect the purity, simplicity and sanctity of your meditation as though your life, safety and happiness depend on it – for indeed they do. In turn, the purity, simplicity and sanctity of your meditation will guard, protect and save you, everywhere and always.
If a person standing behind a pole, shows only their right hand and left foot from opposite sides of the pole, we clearly see that the hand and foot are different and separate objects. Yet remove the pole, and we see they are of one person. Our mind is that pole, predisposing us always to perceive separate and opposing parts, and never the whole.
A larger perspective always reveals a larger reality, a more complete picture, a fuller, greater oneness. To perceive the whole, we must remove the pole – in our case, our minds’ limited and limiting view.
The surest escape route from our mind’s prison cell, is to fly on meditation-wings into the boundless sky of our heart. From this elevated perspective we are afforded the fullest, unimpeded realisation of reality.
Our spiritual heart is our centre of harmony, love, compassion, light, wisdom, joy and oneness with the divine. Infinite itself, the heart knows, claims and becomes the infinite reality by the identification of oneness. To the heart of all-embracing love, all secrets are revealed. Within the heart’s ever-transcending heights and depths, the unknown and even the unknowable ever bloom and blossom.
Opposites and conflict only flourish within the bounds of the finite mind. In our heart’s realms of the infinite, in our unhorizoned meditation, contradictions are resolved and conflict evaporates.
The heart embraces north and south, left and right, male and female, light and dark, creation and dissolution, sound and silence as integral, equal and indispensable partners in the cosmic dance.
While in the mind’s domain, polarisation is the pinnacle of division, in the heart’s realm, polarity is the exquisite expression of unity in multiplicity.
The earth literally revolves on the axis of its poles: ‘tis the dance of our opposites makes us whole.
Good/bad, right/wrong, up/down, in/out, positive/negative, night/day, truth/falsehood, us/them – we feel ever-increasing polarisation in our lives and society, and growing concern around this phenomenon.
Yet it is we who create and nurture this polarisation, we who relish its game.
The finite can never comprehend the infinite. Being finite, our mind has no faculty to grasp Truth and Reality, which are infinite. So the mind is forever taking strands of what it perceives, weaving these strands into models of ‘truth’ in the form of ideas, theories, suppositions, superstitions, beliefs and opinions, then labelling and claiming these culled fictions as reality, arguing for and defending these apparitions as though its very existence depended on them – until it changes its mind and supplants one fantastic model with another.
Secretly aware of its own incapacity, the finite mind nurses inherent insecurity, which it masks with the bluff and pretension of being in control and knowing all.
To buttress this bluff, the mind must have an answer for everything. Nothing threatens the mind’s certitude like the unknown or unknowable. That which cannot be defined, is instinctively denied, denigrated or applied with any stick-on label – no matter how obtuse, unlikely or absurd.
In search of understanding and control, the mind sits apart from the world in judgement, scrutinising people, events and phenomena with its feeble flashlight of analysis, doubt and suspicion. Thus the world becomes objectified, and the heart’s love, empathy and concern fade. The mind sees no foothold in blissful oneness: walling itself off from the ‘other’ in its tower of self-righteousness, the mind needs differentiation, breeds and feeds division to sustain its illusion of supremacy.
Polarisation is not the root, but the inevitable bitter fruit of the tree of division: an invariable outcome of a universal problem – our minds’ assumed autocracy.
Debate has raged forever amongst religions, sects and pundits between some who insist God is personal, with form, and others adamant God is impersonal, without form.
Otherwise innocent people have had their children confiscated, careers destroyed, been imprisoned, tortured, exiled or burned at the stake merely for believing one or the other.
All agree their God is infinite, eternal, immortal, omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent, One who can do or be anything, everywhere, any time: such being the case, a personal God can easily be impersonal, while an impersonal God can readily be personal.
Both beliefs are true, authentic and correct. As the shape of a mountain appears radically different when seen from the south or north, so the difference between a personal and impersonal God lies in our perspective. They are One: the same Being, viewed from different angles.
God, the Supreme, or whatever name or term you wish to adopt, is the Source of all – personal and impersonal. All that exists in all realms – physical, metaphysical and spiritual – has and is the Supreme in its essence.
Viewed objectively, we observe the impersonal God of phenomena, the ultimate machine of infinite height, depth, power and vastness, cosmic energy, order and chaos, creation and dissolution, answer and solution, evolution, law, karma, mathematics, cause and effect.
Felt subjectively, we humans as God’s children, instruments and prototypes, experience our Supreme as intimately personal – the ultimate embodiment of all we value, treasure and most aspire for – all-encompassing love, peace, affection, courage, sweetness, forgiveness, compassion, patience, wisdom, willpower, playfulness, humour, mystery, music, dance and drama – our most complete, perfect, delight-flooded, fullest and highest Self.
An impersonal God may be our minds’ highest discovery; our personal Beloved Supreme, our hearts’ sweetest awakening; the summit-oneness of both – personal and impersonal – our lives’ flowering realisation.
“Arise! Awake! – and stop not till the goal is reached.”
– Swami Vivekananda (after the Katha Upanishad)
As we progress along our spiritual journey, we each perceive our goal according to our background, spiritual practise and inner proclivity. While some seek liberation, others may aspire for enlightenment or only God-satisfaction.
Just as we must wake up in the morning before we can pursue our daily tasks and activities, common to most paths and traditions is the concept of spiritual awakening, as a necessary precursor to conscious growth and progress. While this awakening may be observed outwardly through a ritual initiation or baptism, the inner awakening arises from a stirring of the soul, whether induced by the inner touch of a spiritual Master or the fortuitous breath of grace.
As a single spark may start a monumental forest fire, or a tremor under the floor of a distant ocean results in a massive tsunami on another continent, so the daybreak of our inner awakening – though we are likely unconscious of it at the time – is the singular moment of destiny in our lives, leading inevitably and inexorably to the complete and radical transformation of our entire consciousness.
We are the same person, whether asleep or awake: only when awake, we are more conscious. Even so, while spiritually asleep amidst the wastelands of ignorance, delusions of desire and errors of ego, all our limitless capacities, soaring realisations and stupendous achievements lie coiled within us, dormant.
We imagine it is necessary first to awake before we arise. Yet Swami Vivekananda’s injunction is first arise, and then awake. Before thinking of enlightenment, liberation or realisation, we must first arise, take up our action stations of prayer, invocation, meditation and self-giving service: only then awakening dawns, and our inevitable God-realisation – petal by petal – blossoms.
Spiritual writings can be read again and again. As we absorb their wisdom, our inner understanding blossoms like a flower and we become more receptive to ever-deeper insights. The same book, poem or passage can be read a hundred times over the course of years, each repetition yielding a new and deeper treasure of beauty, truth and delight. Each reading opens a new doorway into our hearts, each doorway an opening to fresh light from a future reading.
Spiritual writings show the true significance, beauty and power of words as revealed truth. Throughout history, spiritual light has been imparted from Master to disciple primarily in silence, and next through the spoken or chanted word. The Vedas, the world’s oldest known writings, are transcriptions of the Sanskrit mantras and chants through which these seers revealed and imparted their spiritual realisations. As the Vedas originated in the enunciated word of mantra, a truth echoed by the Bible – “In the beginning was the Word” – so all spiritual writings, as living, resonant truth, are best spoken, chanted or sung aloud. Spoken or intoned words vibrate in our physical frame, even as their meaning activates our mind, their beauty resonates in our heart and their truth thrills our soul.
Spiritual writings initiate our inner awakening, activate our inner awareness, tutor and partner us in the steps and cadence of our inner life’s dance. They summon from within, all the qualities needed for the journey – hope, promise, consolation, courage, determination, wonder, faith, patience, devotion, reverence, sweetness, humility and happiness, conveying ways of seeing, feeling and being that resonate in our own depths and convey a thrill of recognition of our own inmost self.
Spiritual writings take us home and reveal ourselves to ourselves: words that transport us to realms beyond words.
To meditate, we need inspiration and aspiration. One of the easiest, most reliable and rewarding ways to awaken, nurture and intensify both our inspiration and aspiration, is to read spiritual writings, especially the works of spiritual Masters.
Most of what we read feeds our mind with information (or misinformation), or stirs our vital with emotion. The writings of spiritual Masters nourish our whole being with illumination, for they are not theories, fantasies or opinions, but revelations of reality. They do not describe a fruit; they are the fruit.
Because Truth is our very essence, our inner depths resonate when words of Truth are spoken, heard or read. Thrilling to this resonance, something within us identifies with and claims these words as our own, even feeling, “I could have written this”. In the presence of spiritual writings, a seeker will feel that he or she is rediscovering or recovering something known all along – but forgotten. We recognise ourselves. Amidst the beauty of spiritual writings, we feel connected, at home, complete. By itself, a gong is mute and still: only when struck by a mallet it becomes a miracle of wondrous reverberation. Such is the power of spiritual writing to rouse from an inert heart and unconscious life, a magical flowering of ever-transcending fulfilment.
When you find a poem, aphorism or passage that speaks to you, moves and inspires you, welcome it into your heart. Such passages become our unfailing friends, confidants, mentors, teachers and saviours – helping, guiding, reassuring, protecting and illumining our every breathing moment. What we love most, we become: taking our beloved passages to heart and intoning them soulfully, their truth, beauty and power are implanted and grow within our hearts, resonate throughout our being and blossom in our lives: we are transformed.
Today – the 27th of August – is Sri Chinmoy’s birthday.
A birthday is an occasion to appreciate and celebrate a person’s goodness, achievements and inspiration: to savour the flowers, fruits and bounty of their life-tree.
Sri Chinmoy credited all that he became, achieved, created and offered, to his spiritual life of prayer and meditation. Sri Chinmoy taught and wrote that meditation is the key to happiness, creativity, self-discovery, self-transcendence, personal fulfilment and world-transformation: his staggeringly vast, beautiful, powerful, rich and nourishing life-tree is the most compelling proof, witness and advocate of his words.
Sri Chinmoy’s mind-boggling accomplishments, especially in weightlifting and feats of strength, have completely obliterated our conception of the humanly possible.
Composer of 23,000 songs; author of 1,700 published books and over 120,000 poems; creator of 135,000 paintings and 16 million bird drawings – Sri Chinmoy’s creative output towers in jaw-dropping magnitude, and soars in expressive variety, exquisite beauty and breathtaking originality.
Sri Chinmoy’s output dwarfs the life’s work of any individual in each of music, poetry and art – let alone all these fields combined. History has never witnessed such a manifold, incessant, flood of creative force pouring through one individual.
Even to believe Sri Chinmoy’s achievements, we are compelled to abandon our insular minds: to embrace his life’s significance, we are impelled to meditate, to dive into our hearts’ deeper oneness, vaster vision and higher power. Sri Chinmoy is a mirror, reflecting back to us our own potential, our super-human capacity and divine destiny. Sri Chinmoy’s God-glowing life offers us choice and opportunity: we can disbelieve and deny – and remain inwardly impoverished and outwardly diminished; or we can believe, embrace and fly into our own beckoning, unhorizoned liberation-sky.
The inspiration-stage is set, the aspiration-curtain raised…
Step forward, meditate, love and become – our time is now.
