Man and God
A talk by Sri Chinmoy
on Good Friday
at his home in New Utrecht Avenue
Brooklyn, New York
Man and God are eternally one. Like God, man is infinite; like man, God is finite. There is no yawning gulf between man and God. Man is the God of Tomorrow; God, the man of Yesterday and Today.
As God is in Heaven, even so He is on earth. He is here, there and everywhere. Each human being has a "God" of his own. There is no human being without a "God." The superb atheist does not believe in God. But fortunately he believes, rather unfortunately he has to believe, in a certain idea, some concept of order. And that very idea, that concept, is nothing but God.
Freedom, an absolute freedom, must be given to each individual soul to discover his own path. Mistakes along the path of spirituality are not at all deplorable. For mistakes are simply lesser truths. We are not proceeding from falsehood to truth. We are proceeding from the least revealed truth to the most revealed truth.
Until we have realised God and have become one with God, we have to call upon Him as Master, Guide, Friend and so on. According to our relationship with Him, our attitude toward Him may vary. This is of no consequence. What is of supreme importance is to feel that we love God as our very own. In our sincere love of God, we shall be inspired spontaneously to worship Him. Here we shall have to know which kind of worship-is for us, that is, which kind of worship is in harmony' with the development and inclination of our soul.
The realisation of absolute oneness with God is the highest form of worship. The next in the descending line is meditation. Lower is the seat for prayers and invocations. The lowest form of worship is the worship of God with things mundane.
When I think that the flute and the Flutist are two different things, I think of myself as God's servant and Him as my Master. When I feel that the flute has a part of its Master's consciousness, I feel that I am God's child and He is my Father. Finally, when I realise that the flute and the Flutist are but one, the Flutist appears as the Spirit and I as Its creative Force.
Man has to realise God in this body here on earth. India's greatest poet, Rabindranath Tagore, said:
"If your bonds be not broken, whilst living, what hope of deliverance in death?
It is an empty dream that the soul shall have union with Him because it has passed from the body;
If he is found now, He is found then;
If not, we do go to dwell in the city of Death."
Sisters and brothers, do not sink into the abyss of despair, even if you have at the moment no clear aspiration for God realisation. You just start on your journey, upward, inward and forward — upward to see God's Dream, inward to possess His Dream, forward to become His Dream. This dream is the dream of absolute Fulfilment.
Countless are those who launch into the path of the inner life only after receiving innumerable blows or after wandering wide in the deserts of life. He is indeed happy and blessed who places his body, mind, heart and soul, like flowers, at the feet of the Lord before the advent of blows. It is true that the teeming clouds of worldliness cover up our yet unlit mind. It is equally true that the volcano of the seeker's concentration and the hydrogen bomb of his meditation can and do destroy the clouds, the age-long mists of Ignorance.
May I say a word to those who are married and have great family responsibilities. To your utter amazement, all such responsibilities will become transformed into golden opportunities the moment you try to see God in your children, the moment you realise that you are serving God in your self-sacrifice. To fulfil the husband, to raise his consciousness into the realm of the Spirit, to found him divinely in the boundless expanse of Matter, the untiring and spontaneous sacrifice of the wife has no substitute. To inundate the wife's soul with the Peace of the Beyond, to beckon her heart to the ever-blazing Sun of Infinity and to transmute her life into Immortality's song, the husband's promise has no substitute.
And those who are single can rest assured that they are singled out to run the fastest along the spiritual path. Inseparable is their aspiration and God's Inspiration. When we men try to see deep within, when we try to live an inner life, we may encounter difficulties all around. We cry out: "Look, God, now that we have turned toward You, we have to take so many tests!" Finding no way out, we get perturbed. Now why should we do that? We should try to recollect if we were sunk deep in worry and if we had passed already through the valley of the shadow of death before we entered into the spiritual life. It cannot escape our remembrance that we have endured misfortunes in our lives. In the past we craved for worldly objects. Hence restlessness dogged our minds. Despondency proved to be our constant companion. Now we are at least in a better position since we have the capacity to recognise the ferocious tiger of worldliness. Let us take restlessness and weakness as tests. Why should God test us? He does anything but that.
He, being the Merciful, warns us of the imminent danger. Suppose we take the difficulties as tests; then to pass the test, we shall have to pray to God. Merely by thinking of difficulties and dangers we can never pass the examination. To pass a test in school, we have to study hard. Similarly to pass an inner examination, we shall have to cultivate more of sincerity and kindle the flame of aspiration.
During meditation the aspirant has to be very careful. At times the mind wants to indulge in certain worldly and emotional ideas and thoughts. The aspirant must not permit the mind to do so. During meditation everything is intense and, if the aspirant indulges in evil thoughts, the effects become more serious and more dangerous. The aspirant grows weaker the moment the mind becomes a prey to self-indulgent thoughts. It is the very nature of our lower mind to deceive us. But our tears and the mounting flame in our heart will always come to our rescue.
Man and God are one. All men belong to the same Family. We are all one. A genuine seeker must not listen to the absurd arguments of sceptics. They don't have even a pennyworth of spiritual knowledge. They are unaware of the fact that they are unconsciously making a parade of their naked stupidity. They say: "If we all are one, then how is it that when you have a headache, I don't? When my hunger is appeased, how is it that yours is not?" In reply, let us ask them if, when they have a wound in the leg, and, after some time, they are no longer conscious of it, then does it mean that there is no wound? Likewise the universal consciousness is within us all. If we are not conscious of it, that does not mean that it does not exist. I have a body of my own. Do I feel pain in my leg when my head suffers from a headache? No. But if I am aware of the Divine Consciousness which pervades all my body, undoubtedly I shall feel the same pain all over my body. Here the individual soul is my head and the collective soul is my whole body. To feel the entire world as our very own we have first to feel God as our very own.
Man is Infinity's Heart.
Man is Eternity's Breath.
Man is Immortality's Life.
Published in AUM – Vol. 1, No.10, May 27, 1966.
Spiritual Words
Poems by Sri Chinmoy
spontaneously composed
in Jamaica, Queens, New York
During a meeting with his disciples, Sri Chinmoy invites them to offer spiritual words, on which he then creates 28 poems.
23. Peace
In the outer world
Peace is man-made
Continuous compromise.In the inner world
Peace is God-Reality's
Fulfilling Immortality.
24. Alertness
Alertness
Is the perfection
Of earth-bound reality.Alertness
Is the upward, forward
And inward movement
Of God-revealing Light,
God-illumining Compassion
And
God-fulfilling Satisfaction.
25. Devotion
My devotion is sweet
When I sit
At my Master's feet.My devotion is sweeter
When I devote myself
To my Master's
Heaven-illumining vision.My devotion is sweetest
When I feel
I have nothing to show
To the world at large
Save my oneness,
Devoted oneness,
With my Inner Pilot,
My Beloved Supreme.
26. Victory
Human victory feeds
The human in us.
Divine victory satisfies
The divine in us
In fulfilling oneness,
Universal oneness.
27. Compassion
The day I saw my Master's face
I became the Supreme's
All-embracing,
All-liberating
Compassion-Grace.
28. Concentration
Concentration tells me
What I can do.Meditation tells me
What I can become.Contemplation tells me
What I eternally am.
29. Heart
I started my journey
With a human heart.
On the way
My human heart
Became tired and wanted rest;
Therefore
I allowed
My human heart
To rest.Now I am continuing my journey
With a divine heart.
This heart not only
Will carry me
To my destined shore,
The Silence-Beauty of the Supreme,
But also will bring
My Beloved Supreme to me
For Him to use me
In His supernal way.
30. Surrender
I used my
Human surrender
To please mankind.
Mankind needed more,
Demanded more.I used my
Divine surrender
To please God.
God immediately said,
"Enough!
You have caught Me,
You have bought Me.
From now on
I am eternally yours."
31. Light
Where is light?
In the mind?
Yes, in the mind
Light there is,
But difficult to discover.Where is light?
In the heart?
Yes, just enter
And claim your old friend:
Your own forgotten reality.
32. Purity
Purity is
Man's necessity.Purity is
God's expanding Reality.Purity is
Perfection's duty
In God's infinite, eternal
And
Immortal Beauty.
33. Concern
Human concern
Is quite often
Our unconscious way
Of self-imposition,
Self-aggrandisement.Divine concern
Is always
The song of Oneness-Reality,
Oneness-Divinity,
Oneness-Immortality.
34. Father
When I think
Of my father,
Infinity's vastness
Captures my heart.When I think
Of my mother,
Immensity's sweetness
Enraptures my heart.
35. Soul
Each soul
Is at once
Earth's opportunity
And
Heaven's opportunity.Earth's opportunity fulfils itself
In God's Manifestation-Light.
Heaven's opportunity fulfils itself
In God's Silence-Height.
36. Oneness
Where is oneness?
On earth?
Impossible!Where is oneness?
In Heaven?
Impossible!Where is oneness?
Oneness is there
Where I see
The Face of my Beloved
And
Where I become
The Grace of my Supreme.
37. Beauty
Human beauty
Is not skin-deep.
Human beauty
Is soul-deep.Human beauty
Is God's illumining
And
Fulfilling reality
In His cosmic Game on earth.Human beauty
Is not to be condemned,
Is not to be looked down upon,
Is not to be neglected.
Through human beauty,
Surrendering beauty
To the Absolute Supreme,
The seeker in us
Expedites his Godward journey.
38. Truth
What is truth?
Truth is God's Love-Light.
And what is God's Love-Light?
God's Love-Light
Is the height of His constant
Self-transcendence.
Truth is God's Vision-dawn.
Truth is God's Reality-noon.
Truth is God's Immortality-day.
39. Gratitude
Sweeter than the sweetest,
Greater than the greatest
Is man's gratitude-heart.
40. Patience
Patience
Is God's fulfilling
Length of time.Patience
Is man's Eternity's
Necessity,
Reality,
Divinity
And
Inevitability.Patience
Is man's harbinger
Of perfect Perfection.
41. Love
I love God
Because
I feel that with God's Love
I can create within me
A new world — a world of beauty,
A new consciousness,
A new Kingdom of Heaven.God loves me
Precisely because
Without me
He feels He is
Hopeless,
Fruitless,
Useless.
Without me
His existence has no meaning;
Therefore
God loves me —
The seeker in me,
The lover in me.
42. Silence
God's Silence-Light
Created me.
My silence-light
Annoys the world,
Confuses the world,
Puzzles the world.God's Silence-Height
Immortalises me.
My silence-height
Is the conscious imperfection,
Constant imperfection,
Of my non-acceptance of God's
All-encompassing,
All-embracing
Reality on earth,
Reality in Heaven.
43. Humour
Do you know
How God dares to live
Eternally?
He dares to live eternally
Just because He knows
The supreme secret:
The secret-life of humour.If God on earth
And
God in Heaven
Failed to enjoy
The life-breath of humour,
By this time,
God would have greatly suffered.
The human in God
Would have died long ago
From earth's mental sickness.
The divine in God
Would have given up
His divinity in Heaven
Because of Heaven's conscious indifference
To earth's excruciating pangs.God will live eternally
Just because
He enjoys snow-white humour.
In snow-white humour
He shakes off His earthly headaches
And
His Heavenly frustrations.
44. Existence
My earth-existence
Makes me feel
What I can do
Both for mankind
And
For Heaven.My God-existence
Tells me what Heaven and earth
Have already done for me.
Heaven has inspired me
To run to the farthest Beyond.
Earth has energised me
To become my ancient God-Reality.
45. Joy
He is a fool
Who thinks
That he can make
Others happy.He is a greater fool
Who thinks
That others can make
Him happy.He is the greatest fool
Who feels
That his earth-life
Is for his own joy
And not for the Joy
Of his Beloved Supreme.
46. Consciousness
Earth-consciousness
Slowly and steadily
Ascends
To the highest Truth.Heaven-consciousness
Soulfully and speedily
Descends
To cure the malady
Of human life:
The imperfection of ignorance-night.
47. Receptivity
Acceptance
Is our first receptivity
In our aspiration-life.Rejection
Is our second receptivity
In our aspiration-life.Surrendered oneness to reality's height
Is our third receptivity
In our aspiration-life.What do we accept?
We accept God-Light in all.
What do we reject?
We reject our
Conscious influence-night
In others' lives.What do we surrender?
We surrender our ignorance-pride
To God's Compassion-Sea.
48. Bliss
A child is blissful
When he hears
A thunderous noise
Or
When he himself creates
A thunderous noise.An old man is blissful
When the desire-life drops
From his earthly existence.A seeker is blissful
Only when he knows
That God has made him
His devoted and surrendered smile.
49. Delight
Delight
Is the expansion
Of Divinity's light in us.Delight
Is the conscious flow
Of Immortality's life-energy.
50. Closeness
On earth,
Closeness is nothing
But physical proximity.In Heaven,
Closeness is nothing
But the soul's oneness,
Conscious oneness.In God,
Closeness is nothing
But the song of His Self-amorous,
Self-fulfilling Immortality.Human closeness is
Our conscious self-giving of the "I"
Which tells us that God is for others
Or
That God cannot be achieved.
But
God is forever and forever
For the seeker,
Who is an instrument of His.
If the seeker
Feels that God is eternally
For the seeker,
Only for the seeker,
Closeness on earth
Will not remain a far cry,
But will become the living breath
Of consciousness-reality
In the seeker's aspiration-life.
Published in Beauty-drops
Four days earlier — on 4 April 1975 — Sri Chinmoy spontaneous composed 22 poems based on spiritual words.