We are used to approaching life and its many questions, mysteries and challenges from a scientific viewpoint. We have come to assume that science either already has, or will be able to find the answer to every question and the solution to every problem.
Yet science can only go so far: faced with the inner realms of the Self, the scientific method must give way to more direct means of perceiving the truth. Sri Chinmoy writes:
“Ours is not a scientific path; we approach God psychically, from the heart. We notice inside our hearts a mounting flame that is climbing high, higher, highest. This flame is our inner cry for God. When we cry, when the inner flame mounts up, it illumines all our darkness, ignorance and bondage. When we pray and meditate, we intensify this cry and our consciousness rises towards the highest. Since this cry comes from the heart, we call our path psychic discovery and not scientific discovery.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Sri Chinmoy speaks of the inner cry as a mounting flame. This same flame, as it rises and expands, raises our consciousness and illumines all our darkness. The inner cry is not only the spark which ignites our aspiration, stirs our inner yearning and prompts our self-search; it is the very flaming of aspiration itself; and the spreading, all-illumining light which answers the very questions it posed, and fulfills the very longing it voiced forth.
Born as a helpless yearning, our inner cry morphs into a daring, transforming journey – and ultimately reveals itself as the fulfillment of that yearning and destination of that journey.
Our inner cry is the Goal itself, come to us disguised as a question, a puzzle, a mystery; a self-completing circle of fulfillment; God’s game of hide-and-seek within us.
“Now that sincerity
Is your real name,
Your heart’s inner cry
Shall be able to answer
All your life’s questions.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Sincerity and the inner cry are interdependent. Each has the other’s back: they protect, nurture and depend on each other. An inner cry is sincerity’s choice; sincerity, the inner cry’s voice.
An inner cry devoid of sincerity is meaningless. Sincerity bereft of an inner cry, pointless. Sincerity focuses the inner cry, which gives purpose to sincerity.
Sri Chinmoy was once asked, how we can increase the power of our spiritual heart:
“How do we increase our heart-power? By being sincere in our inner cry. The more sincere we are in our inner cry, the sooner our heart-power increases. Sincerity is the living force, the quintessence of everything divine in us. It is the motivating force that increases the heart-power or the real in us. When we cry sincerely and soulfully, the right cause will present itself. Then, we will throw our entire existence into this cause. We will give it all our aspiration-power and dedication-power. At that time, we will find that the power of the heart increases immensely.”
– Sri Chinmoy
All our success and progress, happiness, self-transcendence and personal fulfillment flow from the union of sincerity with inner cry. It is sincerity which shows us we are ignorant and helpless, injecting intensity and urgency into our inner cry. It is sincerity which insists on a sanctum of inner silence, wherein our inner cry is established and finds its voice. It is sincerity which reveals to us the necessity of inner and outer purity, to nourish and liberate our inner cry; sincerity which demands our inner cry stays on its toes; sincerity which rallies us always to heed and follow our heart’s inner cry.
“There is something that can never be old,
And that is my heart’s inner cry.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“As you cannot remain alive
With yesterday’s food,
Even so, today you cannot remain
Spiritually alive
With yesterday’s inner cry.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Our inner cry impels us always forward, inward and upward. The moment our inner cry recedes, our progress stalls and we start to fall backwards, slide outwards, slip downwards. Our inner cry envelopes us with energy and dynamism; when it ceases, we lapse into lethargy and stagnation.
That is why our inner cry has to be new, refreshed at every moment, or it loses impetus, tires, becomes a whimper and accepts defeat. Like a fire that has to be continually stoked, to remain alive and effective, our inner cry requires our constant attention, concern and vigilance; it thrives and flourishes when it is loved, treasured and appreciated.
Just as our heart’s inner cry can never be old, so the radiance of its constant yearning keeps us ever young and childlike. Focused always on our expansion, purity and progress, our inner cry keeps our consciousness fresh and youthful; our most effective anti-ageing agent.
Like a self-charging battery, the more we engage our inner cry, the more it energises us with purity, clarity, inspiration and purpose.
Our heart’s inner cry is the current of our spiritual life-river. As long as the current is surging, the river is perpetually renewing itself. And like the current, which seems to propel the river forwards yet is actually following gravity’s call beckoning the river towards the ocean – so is the architect and origin of our inner cry not our own heart, but our own eternity’s Source.
We are the children of our inner cry; our inner cry the voice of our child-pure heart-sky.
The inner cry is our visa to pass beyond the mind, into the realms of meditation, spiritual progress and self-transcendence. Yet this visa must constantly be renewed with inner purity, sincerity and intensity, or else it lapses as the inner cry fades.
Sri Chinmoy has spoken beautifully of what is required to keep our inner cry alive:
“You can make your inner cry more sincere by feeling at every second that you are helpless, absolutely helpless and hopeless without God. With God, with God’s Love, Concern and Guidance, you become omnipotent, but without God you are impotent. When you feel that kind of helpless feeling, then your inner cry will come to the fore spontaneously. When you feel that you are helpless without God, your inner cry comes to the fore with utmost sincerity. Why do you cry? You cry because you feel that you do not have something which you badly need. You cry for your conscious oneness with Infinity, Eternity and Immortality. These three divine blessings are your own, only you have to rediscover them. They are your own inner wealth which you have lost or misplaced. But you have every right to search for them and cry to the Supreme for them. In order to have that inner cry, always try to feel that you are absolutely helpless. When you feel helpless, automatically your aspiration grows. When you feel helpless, you will feel that the right thing is to pray and meditate. You will not try to make yourself miserable and helpless so that you can have a good meditation, but when pride or jealousy or lethargy or lack of aspiration come, cry inwardly to regain your own inner treasure. You have every right to cry for your own lost treasure.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“An inner cry
Is the only remedy
For mind-caused problems.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“To reach the outer sky
I fly and fly.
To reach the inner sky
I cry and cry.”
– Sri Chinmoy
The inner cry is the only treasure we will ever need. The inner cry is the secret and secure passageway from our blind, ignorant, finite self to our illumined, liberated, infinite Self.
Before crying for anything or anyone, we must cry to attain the inner cry. And then, to retain, intensify, sweeten, brighten, purify and perfect the inner cry, always and at every moment.
Pouring ourselves utterly into the inner cry, is the fastest and most effective way to silence the mind, calm the emotions, open and widen our heart, sharpen our awareness, focus our will, harness our energy, maximise our capacities, fulfill our potential and realise our purpose.
When our inner cry is perfect, everything in our life becomes perfect.
Like a hot-air balloon that is fixed to the ground, our ego-bound mind weighs us down, tethering us with its thoughts, concepts and formulas, to the definable and the describable, the limited, the finite, the futile and false. Focusing on the finite, our thinking and imagining become encased in the finite, and we pretend and even believe ourselves to be finite. The inner cry loosens and releases the cords tying our consciousness-balloon to the ground, freeing us to rise above our small plot of ego, to envision beyond the valleys of the known, to soar over ever-receding horizons of possibility, to fly into the illumined freedom-sky of our soul.
The inner cry costs nothing, and gives everything. Invisible, it reveals all to be seen. Unknowable, it makes everything known. The more intense the budding inner cry, the more radiant the blossoming outer smile.
“No, it is not possible
For any inner cry
To remain unheard.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“If there is an inner cry, then nothing on earth can be denied. No fruit can be denied an individual who has an inner cry.”
– Sri Chinmoy
The inner cry is the secret that answers all questions, the key that unlocks all mysteries, the treasure that fulfills every need. The inner cry is the nourishment that sumptuously feeds all, the peacemaker who resolves all disputes, our protector who slays every dragon. The inner cry is the magic wand that dispels all darkness, the medicine that heals every illness, the wealth that ends all suffering. The inner cry is our ticket to heaven, agent of our transformation, guarantor of the world’s liberation, and usher of universal perfection.
When our inner cry is not genuine, we know it. Our inner cry is invoked, awakened and fuelled by our sincerity: when we don’t feed our inner cry with absolute sincerity, it simply stays in hiding; it has no voice, charm or brilliance, it doesn’t work and cannot play its role.
When our inner cry is accompanied by our hearts’ sincere tears of yearning, we feel it, and we become it.
Then our cry sets to work, overcoming our body’s lethargy, overriding our vital’s restlessness, cancelling our mind’s doubt and hesitation, subduing pride and ego, bypassing insecurity and jealousy, obliterating fear, suspicion, division and all ignorance.
The inner cry always finds, follows and pursues the path forward and upward. How? Because our inner cry is an emissary directly from our higher self, from our soul, from God. Our inner cry is God within us, our own home, reaching down, entering into, and raising up our lower self to unite us with our eternal Self, our Source.
“When a child cries, no matter where his mother is, the mother comes. She knows the child is hungry; he needs milk. In the spiritual life also, when we cry for Peace, Light and Bliss, immediately a spiritual Master will come.”
– Sri Chinmoy
The child’s role is only to cry; the mother’s role is to meet the child’s need.
A child cries with utmost sincerity, intensity and commitment. There is no calculation, hidden agenda or ulterior motive. The child is not even thinking of why or for what they cry; they just cry with their whole being, becoming their cry and nothing else, with no part of themself observing, reserved or standing aloof. It’s all in.
It is the mother’s job to know what the child is crying for and to fulfil that cry.
If we are sincere, we have to acknowledge that, spiritually, we are little children, we are babies – we don’t know who we are, where we have come from, where we are heading, or how we will get there. So, like the babies we are, our only task and need is to cry within, wholeheartedly and unreservedly. It is then up to our soul, our spiritual Master or God to answer and fulfil our cry.
The child who doesn’t cry is left alone by their parents, who assume they have everything they need and are happy. Similarly, if we do not cry with utmost intensity and sincerity as a small child, then God, our own soul and the higher forces will likely leave us alone, assuming we are not in need of any inner assistance, guidance or nourishment.
All book knowledge and meditation techniques are of no avail, unless we are consumed with the only indispensable requirement for spiritual progress: our inner cry.
“We start with a cry, an inner cry. A child is not taught by the mother how to cry. The mother does not tell the child that he has to cry. She does not teach the little baby, ‘If you cry, then I will give you candy. If you cry, I will give you milk.’ No, it comes spontaneously. When he needs a piece of candy or milk or something, he cries. In the spiritual life also, when the seeker enters onto a path, if he cries most sincerely and soulfully, then that is more than enough. At that time, the Inner Pilot, the Supreme, who is my Guru, your Guru and everybody’s Guru, listens to this cry.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Evolution is continuous. We have all been evolving since the beginning of creation; we are all evolving now; and we shall all continue evolving for all time. As the stars in a galaxy, ants in a colony, troops in an army, or the moving parts of a machine are guided by some central force, intelligence or mechanism, be it gravity, magnetism, electricity, instinct, intuition or ropes and pullies – the agent of evolution, its executive will, is expressed in all of mankind through our inner cry.
Our inner cry is instinctive, intelligent and intuitive, and operates on every level of our being – physical, vital, mental, psychic and spiritual. We cry for food, warmth and shelter in our physical world; for energy, power and capacity in our vital domain; for knowledge, understanding and control in our mind; for peace, light, love and bliss in our heart. Our inner cry forecasts, guides and expedites both our outer material success and our inner spiritual progress; our success and progress in turn must nourish, treasure, elevate and intensify our inner cry.
The genesis of our spiritual life is an inner cry, as Sri Chinmoy describes:
“It will be easier for you to make the first step when you know what you are going to get from the spiritual life. The spiritual life will give you inner peace, joy and bliss in abundant measure. People cry for name, fame, earthly achievement, success and progress and so many things. They are right in their own way. But you should start crying inwardly from this moment on for joy, peace of mind and the awakening of your inner consciousness.
“We have, all of us, two different types of consciousness: one is finite, earthbound; the other is infinite. This infinite, universal Consciousness is within us. Early in the morning, go deep within. Focus your concentration on your heart and try to feel there the existence of a child crying within you. This is your soul. Then consciously try to identify with this inner being, which is absolutely yours. When you are identified with this inner being, you will see the inner being is crying for you, has been crying for you and will cry for you for eternity unless and until you have become inseparably one with the Absolute Truth.
“Early in the morning for five or ten minutes, please try to go deep within with your conscious mind or with your pure, sincere heart and feel the necessity of the inner life. Once you feel the necessity, your inner being will guide you, mould you and shape you along the path. Finally, you can march and run along the path. If you can go deep within and sow the seed of aspiration with your inner cry, then sooner or later you are bound to get a bumper crop.”
– Sri Chinmoy
As a young boy, he had left his home in search of happiness, vowing never to return.
Long years of living and working in various places, many adventures and mixing with people of all types, traveling, studying, fighting and exploring, brought him no closer to satisfying his need.
One night he had a dream. He knew this dream was extremely significant, and was guiding him in his search, perhaps even revealing his destined goal. He awoke flooded with exhilaration and eagerness, accompanied by soothing peace such as he has never before experienced. He could not recall any details of his dream: only an all-encompassing vivid blue.
From that night on, his only happiness, peace and fulfillment came in finding that particular colour blue. This colour became his obsession, his deity, his beloved. Actions and experiences were only meaningful if they would bring him closer to this blue. When he found his blue anywhere – in a fabric, a painting, a gemstone, the sky at certain times of evening, he treasured that item as the most precious thing in the universe.
He wandered the world, searching for his only ideal, beloved blue. Yet each time he found his perfect blue, it would fade and lose its magic, a rope of sand.
After decades of fruitless searching, he understood his blue was all his imagination, not to be found in this world.
Now old and nearing his end, he passed nearby to his childhood home, long since abandoned. Now, finally, was the time to return.
Opening the door of his room, he was dumbstruck – the entire room and every object in it, glowing, smiling, flowing, dancing in his blue. The all-blue room he had turned his back on and left behind, now ardently embraced with an overflowing heart and tears of ecstasy.
Every spiritual quality that we need, we already have. To find all the spiritual qualities, we need only search for them sincerely, in the right place.
To source gold, we dig in a gold mine; for croissants, we come to a bakery; for legal advice, we turn to a lawyer. The source and home of all spiritual qualities, is our own spiritual heart.
Imagine your spiritual heart is a vast palace. Peace, love, joy, beauty, power, wisdom, sweetness, subtlety – each has its own room, its own domain on one of the many floors and wings of your vast heart-palace.
Not far from your heart-palace, your mind-hotel accepts all manner of rowdy and disruptive guests, happily welcoming ignorance, arrogance, intolerance, fear, greed, aggression and suspicion. When these guests are blowing and banging their bugles and drums at all hours, the occupants of your heart-palace retreat into their rooms, close their doors, and wait in patient silence. You no longer feel their presence and may imagine they have fled. Actually, they never flee, but sometimes lay low for their own protection.
As the owner and manager of both your mind-hotel and heart-palace, your first task is to evict all unwanted guests from the mind-hotel – which you can and you must. Once the noise and disturbance has died down, you may not immediately see or feel peace, light, love and joy, as they are still locked in their rooms.
Establish and maintain strict policies at your mind-hotel: keep the place clean and orderly, and accept only respectable, well-mannered guests. Now return to your heart-palace. Knocking on each door in turn, you find the occupants awaiting your arrival: love ready to embrace you, peace waiting to feed you, light willing to illumine you, and joy eager to play with you.
“In school you have a teacher who is teaching you and offering his wisdom-light to you through language. In the spiritual life also, the teacher teaches through language. But the language of the spiritual teacher is meditation. Meditation is the inner language, and the teacher teaches meditation through silence.
“All real spiritual Masters teach meditation to their disciples and admirers in silence. When a genuine spiritual Master meditates, Peace, Light and Bliss descend from above and enter into the sincere seeker. Then automatically he learns how to meditate from within.”
– Sri Chinmoy
When we think of learning, we think of studying books and attending lectures – knowledge imparted through words. Yet the vast bulk of all learning is conveyed in and through silence: the art of meditation, especially so.
Silence is the air that meditation breathes. Yes, we can be told about posture, breath control and chanting mantras, of the importance of meditating early in the morning – these are peripheral details. Yet the essence of meditation is wrapped in silence, protected by silence and blossoms within silence. Silence baffles us, a language with which we are unfamiliar: how are we going to learn the art of meditation if we don’t know its basic vocabulary?
A baby cannot speak or understand words – yet learns to walk. How? – by observing how adults walk, and imitating them. Seeing adults walking, a whole new world of possibilities opens up before the baby’s imagination: the baby is inspired to follow suit, then gradually does so.
Spiritually, we are babies. To learn true meditation and activate our highest spiritual potential, we need the example, inspiration, guidance and teaching flowing from the highest source.
Only a Master of silence can teach and convey meditation, the truth of silence, in silence.
“Did you receive any help in learning the alphabet? Did you require a teacher to help you in mastering your musical instrument? Were you given instruction to enable you to obtain your degree? If you needed a helper to do these things, do you not also require a teacher who can guide you to the knowledge of the Divine, the wisdom of the Infinite? That teacher is your Guru and no one else.”
– Sri Chinmoy
It is said, that all knowledge and wisdom is already within us; that ‘learning’, properly speaking, is ‘remembering’ – bringing to the fore, uncovering that which we already possess. A teacher is one who reminds the students of what they had forgotten they knew, or activates that which has lain dormant within.
Yes, all spiritual realisation is already within us, just as the potentiality of the tree lies within the seed. Yet most seeds never germinate and grow into a tree, for they are not fortunate enough to find the right conditions for germination and growth – sufficient space, the right climate, proper soil, moisture, sunlight, nourishment and protection over many years.
“It takes two to tango.” All these auspicious conditions might be present, but without the seed there can never be a tree. Helpful conditions without a seed, are useless; a seed without the right environment, is helpless.
A beginner in meditation is a tiny seed, with all the potential to grow into a massive, beautiful, powerful, fruitful tree. Yet most who start the journey of meditation and self-discovery, do not proceed very far.
Only a God-realised spiritual Master embodies and offers all the conditions – inspiration, aspiration, forgiveness, nourishment, encouragement, confidence, patience, compassion, concern and protection – for a meditator-seed to grow into a self-realisation tree.
