Prana and the Power of the Chakras
by Sri Chinmoy
the second in a series of four lectures on Kundalini Yoga held on consecutive Wednesday evenings at New York University in New York, at the invitation of Dr James Carse, Chairman of the Religion Department
Kundalini Yoga is the Yoga of prana. Prana is the life-energy or life-principle of the universe. There are three principal channels through which this life-energy flows. These channels are Ida, Pingala and Sushumna. In Sanskrit these channels are called nadis. Ida, Pingala and Sushumna are inside our subtle physical body, not inside the gross physical. Ida carries the current of life-energy in the left side of the body. Pingala carries the current in the right side of the body. Sushumna carries the current in the middle of the spinal column. Sushumna is the most important of the three nadis. It receives a ceaseless stream of life-energy from the universal Consciousness-Light. There is an inner connection between Ida and Pingala and the zodiac and planets. Ida has a special connection with the moon and the planet Mercury; hence its main quality is coolness and mildness. Pingala is connected with the sun and Mars; hence its quality is powerful and dynamic heat.
Ida rules the left nostril. Pingala rules the right nostril. When we breathe in and out primarily through our left nostril we have to know that it is Ida that is functioning. When we breathe in and out through our right nostril it is Pingala that is functioning. And when both of the nostrils are functioning satisfactorily we have to know that it is Sushumna that is playing its role. It also happens at times that Ida breathes in and Pingala breathes out.
Ida, Pingala and Sushumna meet together at six different places. Each meeting place forms a centre. Each centre is round like a wheel. Indian spiritual philosophy calls these centres chakras. They are also called lotuses, because they look like lotuses. The six centres, as perhaps you know, are Muladhara, Svadhisthana, Manipura, Anahata, Vishuddha and Ajna. There is also another chakra that is inside the brain, called Sahasrara. Because it is in the brain, and not along the spinal column, it is not counted with the other six centres. Apart from these six, there are many other chakras in the subtle physical body. Here in the knee we have a chakra; even in the toes and the fingertips we have chakras. But these chakras are minor and are not usually mentioned.
The root chakra, or the lotus Muladhara, has four petals, which are red and orange in colour. The spleen chakra, Svadhisthana, has six petals. The petals are orange, blue, green, yellow, violet and blood-red. Blood-red is the most prominent colour in this chakra. The navel chakra, Manipura, has ten petals. They are pink, orange and green, but primarily green. The heart chakra, Anahata, has twelve petals. Here the colour is bright golden. The throat centre, the Vishuddha lotus, has sixteen petals. Blue and green are the colours. The brow centre, Ajna, has only two petals. But inside each petal there are forty-eight petals. Here the colour is rose. The crown centre, Sahasrara, has 1,000 petals, or to be more precise, 972. It has all the colours, but the violet colour is predominant.
The universal Consciousness embodies universal Music. From each chakra where the life-energy from the universal Consciousness gathers, a musical note is produced. From Sahasrara the tone of Shadja or Sa is produced. In western music, you call this 'do.' From Ajna, Rishava or Riis produced: what you call 're.' From Vishuddha, Gandhara or Ga is produced: what you call 'mi.' From Anahata, Madhyama or Ma is produced: what you call 'fa.' From Manipura, Panchama or Pa is produced: what you call 'sol.' From Svadhisthana, Dhaivata or Dha is produced: what you call 'la.' From Muladhara, Nishada or Ni is produced: what you call 'ti.'
There are seven worlds corresponding to these seven chakras. Muladhara corresponds to Bhurloka; Svadhisthana corresponds to Bhubarloka; Manipura corresponds to Svarloka; Anahata corresponds to Janaloka; Vishuddha corresponds to Tapoloka; Ajna corresponds to Maharloka; and Sahasrara corresponds to Satyaloka. Each world is symbolised by something. Bhurloka is symbolised by earth, Bhubarloka by water, Svarloka by heat, Janaloka by air, Tapoloka by ether, Maharloka by energy, and Satyaloka by infinite space.
For each centre there is a special Mother-Power, which is a manifestation of the Supreme Mother. These Mother-Powers are known as Brahmi, Parameshwari, Kaumari, Vaishnavi, Varahi, Indrani and Chamunda. Each one has a special place of her own. Brahmi is the Mother-Power that embodies and pervades the infinite space. She rules all the chakras. Brahmi stays in the Sahasrara, or brain chakra, where there is the thousand-petaled lotus. From there she rules the centres that are below her: Ajna, Vishuddha, Anahata, Manipura, Svadhisthana and Muladhara. Parameshwari is located in the Ajna chakra, the brow centre. There she rules Ajna and the chakras that are below her. Kaumari is located in Vishuddha, the throat centre, and rules Vishuddha and the chakras below her. Vaishnavi begins functioning from Anahata, the heart centre, and rules the others below. Varahi, who stays in the navel centre, rules the lower planes: Manipura, Svadhisthana and Muladhara. Indrani rules Svadhisthana, at the spleen, and Muladhara, at the base of the spine. And Chamunda rules only over Muladhara.
Each centre also has a presiding deity, a cosmic god. Brahma is the presiding deity of Muladhara. Rudra is the presiding deity of Svadhisthana. Vishnu is the presiding deity of Manipura. Ishwara is the presiding deity of Anahata. Sadashiva is the presiding deity of Vishuddha. Shambhu is the presiding deity of Ajna. And Paramashiva is the presiding deity of Sahasrara.
These centres can be opened in various ways. The usual method for those who practise Kundalini Yoga is to concentrate firmly on each centre, invoking the Mother-Power or the presiding deity most soulfully. However, all real spiritual Masters, from the very depth of their experience, say that it is better to open the heart centre first and then try to open the other centres. If one opens the heart centre first, there is practically no risk. But if one starts with the Muladhara or Svadhisthana or Ajna chakra, it is very dangerous. Again, there are some seekers who do not follow this method at all. They do not care for occult power; they care only for God's Love, Light and Truth. They learn how to meditate most soulfully; and when they make considerable progress in their meditation, these centres open automatically. And through the Grace of the Absolute Supreme, these centres may open even without meditation.
If these centres are opened without proper purification, the seeker will encounter great pain. It will be like playing with fire or a sharp knife. He may destroy others or he may himself be destroyed. We have to know that the miraculous powers that one gets when his centres are opened are not actually miraculous or unusual at all in the inner world. The powers that they hold are absolutely normal. In the inner world these powers are constantly used by spiritual Masters. There in the inner world they are normal and natural. Only when they are used on the physical plane do they seem unusual or miraculous.
Any real spiritual Master will have these powers. But again, one need not be a spiritual Master of the highest order in order to have them. One need not be even a great seeker. Even someone who leads a normal, ordinary, undivine life can develop these powers.
In India I came across a few seekers — I cannot call them sincere seekers — who had some occult or kundalini power. But most of the time they misused it. They opened their third eye in order to know what their girlfriends were thinking of them. Now this is ridiculous. The same third eye they could have used to destroy their dark, obscure, impure thoughts. They had the capacity, but they didn't use it. I also know someone who used his occult power to threaten his enemies at night and compel them to do whatever he wanted them to do the following morning. By using his occult power, his third eye, he made his enemies his slaves. But he could have used his third eye to know God's Will in his own life and in others' lives. If it had been God's Will to expedite somebody's spiritual progress, then he could have used his third eye to help. Each centre has something special to offer when it is properly used. It becomes a veritable boon to the Inner Pilot and to all mankind.
I want to make it very clear that the opening of the centres does not mean that one is realising God or that he is about to realise God. The opening of the centres is not necessarily the precursor of God-realisation. No, not at all! God-realisation has nothing to do with the opening of the centres. No matter how many centres one has opened, even if one has opened all the seven centres, it does not indicate that one is on the verge of realisation or that one is realised. From the highest spiritual point of view, the opening of the chakras is like the games a mother plays with her children in the playground. Children are fond of games and the mother is showing her capacity. It is not her pride, her vanity. No. It is just that the mother knows this will amuse the children. She can give some joy, some pleasure to the children, so she plays these games. It is usually Lord Shiva on the Sahasrara plane and his consort, Shivani from the Muladhara plane, where the Kundalini is fast asleep, who play. When they play with their children in the inner world, the occult powers start functioning.
Now let us start from the beginning; muladhara, the root chakra. When one has acquired mastery over the Muladhara centre, one can become invisible at his sweet will. One can conquer all diseases. One can know whatever one wants to know and discover whatever one wants to discover. If one wants to discover God's Compassion, God's Light, God's Love for him, then he is in a position to do so. But if one uses the same power in order to know what is happening in others' minds or what is going on in their outer life, or if one uses it to discover out of curiosity if a third world war is going to break out, then this power is misused.
When a person with mastery over the Muladhara sees that someone has a particular disease, he has to know whether that individual deserves the disease or whether it is the result of a hostile attack. If he has done something wrong, naturally under the law of karma he deserves to pay the penalty. But if the disease is not from the law of karma but rather from the attack of some hostile force, and if it is God's Will that his disease should be cured, naturally a spiritual person who has the capacity should cure it. But if he does it at his own sweet will, or if he acts in an undivine way and just shows off, then he breaks the cosmic law. He will cure the person but this very cure will act eventually against both the healer and the sick person. It will add to their ignorant and self-destructive quality. So the healer has to know if it is the Will of God that the person be cured. Only then will he cure; otherwise he has to remain silent and do nothing. You may ask, how can he see himself or somebody else suffering and still do nothing? If his heart is very big, let him go deep within and see who it is that is suffering in and through the individual. He will see that it is God who is purposely having a special experience in and through that person.
Svadhisthana, the spleen chakra. When one has mastery over Svadhisthana, one acquires the power of love. He loves everyone and he is loved by everyone: by men and women and by animals. It is here that people very often fall from the path of Light and Truth. Divine love is expansion and expansion is illumination. Love can be expressed as an expansion of our divine awareness or it can be expressed as pleasure. When the Svadhisthana centre is opened, the lower vital, the sex forces will try to lower the consciousness of the seeker. But if at that time he can bring down abundant purity from the Anahata centre, the heart centre, then this impurity will be transformed into purity. And purity is eventually transformed into ever-fulfilling and everlasting divinity. But if he cannot bring down purity, then there is real destruction, destruction of the seeker's life. The lower vital acts most vehemently and powerfully and sometimes it becomes worse than the lower vital in ordinary human beings. An ordinary human being does not enjoy the vital life the way some seekers enjoy it after opening their Svadhisthana centre.
Manipura, the navel chakra. If one acquires mastery over this centre, one conquers sorrow and suffering. No matter what happens in his life, he will not feel sad or miserable. But this centre can create a problem like the Svadhisthana chakra. This centre is also dangerous. One can create suffering for others if one misuses the power from the Manipura chakra, and thereby incur the world's curse. This centre, like the Ajna chakra, can show one where a relative or dear one has gone after he dies. It lets one see how he is passing through the vital world and entering into the subtle world and the higher planes. It shows how he passes from one sheath to another after death. This centre also gives one the power of transmutation. One can magnify an object or one can reduce it to an infinitesimal size. In addition, this centre has healing power. As I said before, if one can use this power properly, in accordance with the Will of God, then it is a real blessing. Otherwise it is a curse.
Anahata, the heart centre. Here the power is unbelievable. A seeker with mastery over the Anahata centre has free access to both the visible and the invisible worlds. Time surrenders to him; space surrenders to him. If he uses this centre, he can travel to any part of the world in a few seconds in his subtle body. But if he does this he takes a great risk. Suppose he wants to travel occultly and spiritually to Europe to see what is happening there. If he does not get the proper sanction from the other centres, or if the other centres do not co-operate, then the other centres may not allow the soul to come back to the body after its journey. In India, I know of quite a few cases where Yogis leave their bodies through the heart centre without taking help or getting permission, and without even informing the other centres. They feel that the other centres do not have the same special capacity as the heart centre, and so they should use the heart centre. Then the other centres become jealous. Jealousy is everywhere, in the outer world and in the inner world as well. Even the cosmic gods enjoy jealousy. So the other centres, because they are jealous, do not let the soul come back. If one uses this power, one has to take permission from the Inner Pilot first. If the Inner Pilot sanctions it, then the other centres cannot do any harm, since the Inner Pilot has infinitely more power than these centres.
In the Anahata centre, one can enjoy the deepest bliss of oneness; one can have pure joy. Any person can look at a flower and get joy, but the intensity of joy that the flower embodies we cannot all enjoy. But if one opens the heart centre and looks at a flower, immediately all the joy, all the beauty that the flower has will become his. If the seeker looks at the vast ocean, inside his heart he is bound to feel the vast ocean. He looks at the vast sky and he enters into it, becomes it. Anything vast, pure, divine, sublime that he sees, he can immediately feel as his very own and become that thing. There is no yawning gulf between what he sees and what he is. He just becomes in his consciousness what he sees.
This is not his imagination. Far from it! His heart is a divine heart which embodies the universal Consciousness. The spiritual heart is not the heart that we find in our physical body. The spiritual heart is larger than the largest. It is larger than the universal Consciousness itself. We always say that there cannot be anything superior to the universal Consciousness, but this is a mistake. The heart, the spiritual heart, houses the universal Consciousness. This centre is very safe when we use it to identify ourselves with the vast, with the beauty of nature. But when we use it to travel outside the limitations of the body, we take a risk.
Vishuddha, the throat chakra. He who has mastery over Vishuddha has the capacity to offer divine messages to the world. Universal nature discloses its agelong hidden mysteries to him. Here nature bows to the seeker. He can retain eternal youth. The outer world surrenders to him. The inner world embraces him. We get messages from various planes of consciousness. But when one gets a message from the Vishuddha centre, the message is sublime and everlasting. When this centre is open, one receives direct messages from the Highest and becomes a mouthpiece for the Highest. One becomes a poet, singer or artist. All forms of art are expressed from this centre. This centre is open in many individuals. It functions according to the degree to which it is open, according to one's development. There is very little risk in this centre. It is a mild centre; it does not interfere with other centres, and the other centres leave it alone.
Ajna, the brow chakra. He who has mastery over the Ajna chakra destroys his dark past, hastens the golden future and manifests the present in a supremely fulfilling way. His psychic and occult powers defy all limits; they are endless. The Ajna chakra, which is located between and a little above the eyebrows, is the most powerful centre. The first thing one does when his third eye opens, if it is opened properly, is to destroy the unlit, unaspiring and undivine past. Now we see something and we have an experience. But there is a difference between our experience and the thing that we are experiencing. When the Ajna centre is opened, however, we experience the thing itself. We become one with the thing that we are experiencing. At that time, seeing and becoming go together. Seeing itself is becoming, and becoming is seeing. For this reason, the aspirant who has opened his third eye wants to destroy the past from his memory. In this incarnation suppose one has become a Yogi. When he looks back to his previous incarnation, he sees that he was a thief, or something worse. Since he does not now want to enter into that experience again, he will try to destroy that part of his past. He now has the power necessary.
When one realises God, the past is automatically deleted. As I said before, when one opens the third eye or any other centre, it does not mean that one has realised God. When one realises God, the obscure, impure or undivine past is illumined and nullified all at once. At the moment of God-realisation, illumination takes place. It is like coming out of a dark room into an illumined room. It becomes light where before it was all dark. God-realisation is immediate illumination.
With the Ajna chakra, the past can be nullified and the future can be brought into the immediacy of today. If one knows that ten years from now he is going to do something, achieve something or grow into something, by using the third eye he can achieve that very thing today. He does not have to wait for ten, fifteen, twenty years.
But if one brings the future result to the fore, this can sometimes be dangerous. It has happened many, many times that the future of an individual is very bright, very luminous. But when the future is brought right into the immediacy of the present, the enormity of the result puzzles and frightens the seeker. The seeker is like a young elephant. He is growing in strength and in ten years he will be very powerful. But if the power comes right now, there may be no receptivity, no inner receptivity. The power comes, but it cannot be brought under control or it cannot be contained in a safe vessel. At that time power itself acts like an enemy and destroys the person who invoked it. So there is a great danger when you take the future and bring it into the present.
Let the present grow and play its role. The past has played its role; now the present wants to play its role. Only in some cases, when God wants a seeker to make very fast progress, instead of going systematically he can run extremely fast. It is just like a student's situation in school. Sometimes a student does not go through all the grades of kindergarten, primary school and high school. Sometimes he skips grades. In the spiritual life also, if it is God's Will that the future be brought into the present, then there is no danger. But otherwise there is great danger.
With the third eye, one can accomplish much. The third eye has what God, the ultimate Power, is. If the ultimate Power is misused by the third eye, then it is all destruction. But if the third eye uses the ultimate, transcendental Power properly and divinely, then it will be a great blessing, the greatest blessing that humanity can imagine.
Sahasrara, the crown chakra. The Sahasrara is the Silent One which does not interfere in anything. It is like the eldest member in the family; it does not bother anyone and does not want to be bothered by anyone. When this centre is opened permanently, one enjoys infinite Bliss and becomes inseparably one with the ever-transcending Beyond. One comes to know that he is birthless and deathless. He is always dealing with Infinity, Eternity and Immortality. These are not vague terms for him; these are reality. This moment he sees himself as Eternity, and he grows into Eternity; the next moment he sees himself as Infinity and he grows into Infinity; a few moments later he sees himself as Immortality, and grows into Immortality in his consciousness. And at times it happens that Infinity, Eternity and Immortality all go together in his consciousness.
When the Sahasrara chakra is open the Inner Pilot becomes a true friend. Here the Infinite and His chosen son become very good friends to fulfil a specific mission for their mutual manifestation. They share many secrets, millions of secrets, in the twinkling of an eye. On the one hand Father and son are enjoying infinite Peace and Bliss; on the other hand they are discussing world problems, universal problems, all in the twinkling of an eye. But their problems are not problems as such. Their problems are only experiences in their cosmic game.
Of all the centres, the highest, the most peaceful, the most soulful, the most fruitful is Sahasrara. There Infinity, Eternity and Immortality have become one. The Source becomes one with the creation, and the creation becomes one with the Source. Here the knower and the Known, the lover and the Beloved, the slave and the Master, the son and the Father, all become one. Together the Creator and the creation transcend their Dream and Reality. Their Dream makes them feel what they are and their Reality makes them feel what they can do. Reality and Dream become one.
Published in Kundalini: the Mother-Power
God’s Love
A 9:00 a.m. lecture by Sri Chinmoy
in Baird Lounge at Berea College, Berea, Kentucky
God loves us. He loves us constantly and unconditionally. No matter what we have done, what we are doing or what we shall do, He will always love us. God loves us much more than He loves Himself. If we use our thinking and doubting minds, this may seem hard to believe. But if we use our loving and surrendering hearts, then we are bound to feel that God loves us infinitely more than He loves Himself. Why does He love us so much? He loves us because He feels that His Dream remains unfulfilled without us, His Reality remains unmanifested without us; without us, he is incomplete. Right now we feel that it is only we who really love ourselves. Then there may come a time when we think that God, too, loves us. But for us to believe that God loves us infinitely more than we love ourselves seems sheer impossibility.
There have been many, many times in our lives when we have felt miserable because we told a lie or deceived someone or became jealous of others. After we do something wrong or undivine, our inner consciousness comes to the fore and we feel miserable. We curse ourselves and try to punish ourselves. But God’s Love for us remains exactly the same. We hate ourselves for our mistakes, but God still loves us and will always continue to love us. Our justice-power condemns us, but God’s Compassion-power forgives us, illumines us and transforms our weakness into strength with its adamantine will-power. God gets satisfaction when, with His blessingful Smile, He gives us His Compassion-flood, His Concern-sky and His Love-sea so that we can grow into His very Image.
God loves us, and in return He wants us to smile, to love and to transcend. The moment we offer Him a soulful smile, God is pleased with us. The moment we offer Him an iota of our love, God is pleased with us. The moment we want to transcend our earthbound consciousness, God is pleased with us.
Our human love constantly tries to separate and divide, but the divine Love we get from God always adds and multiplies. God used His Delight-power when He created the world, and now He uses His Love-power to protect the world and bring perfection to earth, His creation.
Here on earth we have everything save and except one thing: satisfaction. It is only by loving God that we will get true satisfaction. God is our own highest, most illumined Reality. "United we stand, divided we fall": this is the motto of the State of Kentucky. In the inner life also, when we become consciously one with God, we feel a real sense of satisfaction. But when we are separated from God, when we are divided into two, we feel incomplete, unfulfilled and dissatisfied.
If we are not seekers, we love God once in a blue moon; but if we are seekers of the highest Truth, then we try to love God soulfully and constantly. There is an easy way to love God soulfully and constantly. When we separate darkness from light, the transient from the eternal, and outer knowledge from inner wisdom, then it becomes extremely easy for us to love God soulfully and constantly. After we love God soulfully and constantly, we can go one step ahead and love God unconditionally by giving Him what we have and what we are. What we have within is inner aspiration to grow into the vast Beyond. What we are without is a sea of ignorance.
God also gives us what He has and what He is. What He has is infinite Peace, Light and Bliss, and what He is is constant Concern, Concern for our liberation from the meshes of ignorance and Concern for our perfection. God loves us. We love God. By loving God, we gain victory over our age-old ignorance. By loving us, God makes us consciously feel that we are eternal players, divine players in His cosmic Game.
The great pioneer, Daniel Boone, called Kentucky a second paradise. In the spiritual life, every day we can have a sense of paradise. Paradise means infinite Peace, Light and Bliss. When the seeker prays and meditates, he enters into paradise. When his mind is calm and quiet, when his mind is tranquillity’s flood, his heart becomes all-giving and his life becomes Divinity’s Reality. Paradise is not a place; it is a state of consciousness. When we free our mind from the meshes of ignorance, when we liberate our existence from the mire of earth, we see, feel and grow into paradise.
Published in Fifty Freedom-Boats to one Golden Shore, part 3
Self-Transcendence
A 1:30 p.m. lecture by Sri Chinmoy
in the Student Centre of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee
Dear sisters and brothers, dear seekers of the highest Transcendental Truth, I wish to give a short talk on self-transcendence.
We are all seekers who wish to transcend our present realities. Why do we want to transcend? We want to transcend because the life of ignorance, bondage, imperfection and death cannot satisfy us. We want to achieve something. We want to grow into something which is eternal; we want to grow into the very image of Immortality.
Right in front of us there are two worlds: the world of desire and the world of aspiration. When our life belongs to the desire-world, we feel that satisfaction is always a far cry. When our life belongs to the aspiration-world, we feel that satisfaction is our birthright. The life of desire is a life of self-chosen bondage. The life of aspiration is a life of God-chosen transcendence.
In our life of self-transcendence, from the lower we grow into the higher. The lower is transformed into the higher, the less perfect is transformed into the more perfect. Things that have to be rejected, we reject; things that have to be transformed, we transform; things that have to be transcended, we transcend. This process of transcendence is beyond the thinking of the mental man. It finds its existence in the self-giving of the psychic man. The psychic man becomes part and parcel of reality by identifying with reality itself. The thinking man, the doubting man, finds it extremely difficult or impossible to identify himself with that reality.
In our ordinary life we deal with constant possibility, and at the end of our efforts we meet with either success or failure. But in the spiritual life, we do not care for failure or success; we care only for progress. In this way, possibility is transformed into inevitability.
A seeker of the Highest Truth, the moment he enters into the spiritual life, feels that he has transcended his life of conscious impurity and obscurity. The life of desire he has transcended; now he is living the life of aspiration. At every moment he has the golden opportunity to go high, higher, highest on the strength of his inner mounting cry.
Each time our aspiration, our mounting cry, touches the highest pinnacle, it is fired again. The goal that it touches need not and cannot be the ultimate Goal, for today’s goal is tomorrow’s starting point. Again, tomorrow’s goal will be the starting point for the day after tomorrow. There is no end to our realisation. There is no end to our self-transcendence. Our aspiration ascends, our realisation transcends, our satisfaction dawns, finally our God smiles. With our inner cry we ascend to God’s descending Smile. When we feed our inner cry, and when we become our inner cry, at that time our song of realisation and transcendence begins.
In order to transcend, two things are of paramount importance: our personal effort and God’s Grace. By personal effort alone, we cannot transcend ourselves. Again, God’s Grace will not do anything unless and until we are receptive. If we can receive God’s Grace and properly use it, then only can we reach the Highest. A sincere seeker is transcending his previous reality at every moment. When he transcends, he does not reject anything. The sincere seeker accepts the world as his very own. Like a potter who accepts clay and moulds it into something beautiful, a spiritual seeker accepts the life of ignorance and tries to transform it with his inner wisdom-light.
In our deepest philosophy, we consider past achievements of no value. We say the past is dust. The past has given us what it has to offer, but it has not given us what we need: liberation, realisation, salvation and perfection. So it is today, it is in the immediacy of the present, that we have to grow into the spiritual life. Since most of us are beginners in the spiritual life we try to meditate for five minutes, ten minutes, half an hour, or an hour a day, and to keep our best consciousness always to the fore. If we can meditate an hour a day, we try to extend the effects of this meditation throughout the whole day. As soon as a child throws a ball, its momentum keeps it going, and it covers a considerable distance. So also our soulful prayer and meditation, even if it only lasts half an hour, projects our aspiring consciousness into the heart of each day and enters into all our multifarious activities as they unfold hour by hour.
As in the world of desire we want to grow and expand, so also do we want to grow and expand in the spiritual life. In the beginning we want an iota of Light, then we wish to have abundant Light, and then infinite Light. But there is a great difference between the expansion of our earthly desires and the expansion of our divine aspiration. When we possess mortal life, the desire-life, we are not actually satisfied. Even when our desires are fulfilled, we discover that we have new desires, and there is no abiding satisfaction. We have always the same hunger, the same unsaturated, unfulfilled hunger. But in the spiritual life, when we get an iota of Peace, Light and Bliss — although our ultimate aim is to have these in infinite measure — even an iota gives us a sense of satisfaction. And, in the long run, at God’s choice Hour, we do get Peace, Light and Bliss in infinite measure. Each time we are divinely satisfied and fulfilled, we transcend our earthbound reality and enter into the Heaven-free Reality.
The motto of this state is “Agriculture and commerce”. The spiritual seeker is a farmer. He cultivates his heart here in this world and receives from Above, like falling rain, the divine Grace. At the time when the seeker develops one-pointed devotion to the Inner Pilot, he collects the bumper crop of realisation. It is like an exchange of natural capacities. The seeker identifies himself with the consciousness of earth, increasing his receptivity through surrender. And at the same time he invokes the transcendental consciousness from Above. When the earth consciousness and the Transcendental Consciousness meet, when earth’s surrender and Heaven’s Grace join together, at that time realisation dawns in the seeker’s aspiring life. There is a royal road that leads to self-transcendence. That road is our surrender, our conscious, unconditional surrender to the Will of the Absolute Supreme.
Published in Fifty Freedom-Boats to one Golden Shore, part 3
Warriors of the Inner World
A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
at the University of Ottawa, Canada
There are many warriors of the inner world, but the main warriors are simplicity, sincerity, purity, aspiration, dedication and surrender. These divine warriors help the seekers discover God. Together they fight against bondage-night and ignorance-day. Their supreme commander is faith.
Simplicity shortens the road that leads to God-discovery. Sincerity expedites the journey. Purity feeds the seeker and the journey together. Aspiration loves the journey. Dedication enjoys the journey. And surrender completes the journey.
Simplicity is a very simple word, but it embodies tremendous power. When we enter into the spiritual life, we value this most significant achievement. We have countless desires. But from our list, if we can take out one desire, then to that extent our life becomes simple. When it becomes simple, an iota of peace dawns in our mental firmament. Each time we become simple, simpler, simplest, our desire-life becomes short, shorter, shortest. Then we enjoy peace of mind; we enjoy Light and Delight.
Sincerity is our peerless achievement. If we can become sincere, then we can run the fastest in our spiritual life. When we make friends with insincerity, at every moment we have to justify our insincere life. Once we tell a lie, we have to tell twenty more lies in order to justify that particular lie. And each time we tell a lie, we add a heavy burden to our shoulders. How can we run the fastest when there is a heavy load on our shoulders? But when we are sincere, we accelerate our progress; we run the fastest like a deer.
Purity is of paramount importance in the spiritual life. Purity means the power of receptivity. When our heart is inundated with purity, we feel that our inner receptacle has become large, larger, largest. Peace, Light and Bliss enter into that vessel from above. And inside the vessel we see our divine qualities sporting, dancing and fulfilling their reality’s Light and Delight. Purity is receptivity’s capacity. Purity is the same thing as capacity’s receptivity. When we are pure, immediately our self-expansion, our divine reality, looms large.
Aspiration, dedication and surrender. Aspiration is our journey’s start. Aspiration is the flow of our journey, the continuous, endless journey itself. Aspiration is an inner cry. This cry liberates us from the meshes of ignorance. This cry eventually makes us one with the Eternal, the Infinite and the Immortal. When we aspire, we feel that deep within us there is a higher reality which we unfortunately right now cannot claim as our very own. But there comes a time when, on the strength of our own aspiration, we can claim this reality — our own reality, our highest, supernal reality — as our own, very own. Each time we aspire, we bring to the fore our own hidden, divine, immortal reality.
Dedication. When we dedicate ourselves to a cause, we expand our own reality-existence. This dedication is not done under any compulsion. Responsibility has not been thrust upon us. It is we who want to expand our reality, so we adopt the right approach and try to expand ourselves through dedication. One becomes many; again, many become one. As an individual, when we dedicate ourselves devotedly, soulfully and unconditionally, we grow into the many. And when we do this as a collective body, we become one. So it is through dedication that we become many and that we become one. When we become one, we fulfil God as Infinity’s Silence, birthless and deathless Silence. When we become many, we fulfil God as the eternal, infinite sound, birthless and deathless sound. Finally, we fulfil God the soundless Sound.
Surrender. Surrender completes the journey. This surrender is our conscious awareness of our highest reality. It is not the surrender of a slave; it is the surrender of the finite in us to the Infinite in us. The unlit, obscure, impure existence of ours is making surrender to the illumined, pure and perfect existence of our own reality-height. We are not surrendering to a second or third person. We are surrendering to the divine within us, to the Infinite within us, to the Immortal within us. Surrender here is our conscious and constant expansion, illumination, liberation and perfection. Each time we surrender our earth-bound existence to our Heaven-free life, we enjoy Nectar, divine Bliss.
When a seeker establishes his body’s reality-oneness with the Will of the Supreme, he becomes the simplicity-warrior. When a seeker establishes his mind’s reality-oneness with the Will of the Supreme, he becomes the sincerity-warrior. When the seeker establishes his vital’s reality-oneness with the Will of the Supreme, he becomes the purity-warrior. When the seeker establishes his heart’s reality-oneness with the Will of the Supreme, he becomes the aspiration-warrior. The same seeker, in the course of time, when he establishes his life’s reality-oneness with the Will of the Supreme, becomes the dedication-warrior. Finally, when the seeker consciously, devotedly, untiringly, unreservedly and unconditionally establishes his soul’s oneness-reality with the Will of the Absolute Supreme, he becomes the surrender-warrior.
As there are many divine warriors of the inner world, even so there are many undivine warriors of the inner world. The main undivine warriors are insecurity, fear, doubt, lethargy, disobedience and indulgence.
Insecurity starts in the mind, but the mind is not aware of insecurity at the beginning. From the mind it enters into the vital and finally it comes to the physical consciousness. At that time we are fully aware of the presence of insecurity. Insecurity is a poisonous disease. If we do not get rid of it, this poison spreads and destroys the whole system eventually.
Fear is worse. Fear of the unknown, not to speak of fear of the unknowable, is a fatal disease within the seeker’s life. The seeker is afraid of everything that is not in his domain, of anything of which he is not aware. He fears others, he fears the unknown, he fears the Vast; finally he becomes afraid of himself. He has a knife. When he looks at his knife, fear enters into his mind. He feels that at any moment this knife can cause an accident in his life. He enters into the kitchen. There is a stove, and he uses it at his sweet will. But even when the stove is not on, he is afraid it may catch fire. At every moment he is afraid of his own possessions, not to speak of others’ achievements or realities. When he is afraid of himself, he loses badly, miserably, in the battlefield of life. Fear is a fatal disease.
Then comes doubt. When the seeker treasures doubt with a view to judging others, he digs his own grave. Each time he doubts someone, he digs his grave. If we judge others with our unlit human mind, with the intellectual mind, with the sophisticated mind, the persons whom we judge do not lose an iota of their achievement, of their reality. But we lose. How do we lose? When we start doubting others, we offer something of our own existence to the outer world; something of our own reality goes and eventually we become very weak.
Doubt is the almost incurable disease in us. When we doubt others, we feel that we are now sitting on a high pedestal and, at the same time, we are on a safe footing. But this is a deplorable mistake. We cannot judge others. We do not know their heights; we do not know their depths. We do not know what is actually happening in others. It is the cosmic Will that is operating in and through each and every individual. So we are in no position to judge others. Each one is guided, moulded, shaped and prepared by the Will of the unseen Hand.
First we doubt someone and immediately afterwards we try to see whether we are correct in doubting that person. Then we begin to judge and doubt ourselves. When we doubt ourselves, we lose everything. So we should follow the path of faith. Faith is the commander in us. Faith tells us of the existence of Reality and Truth in us, for us. Then faith tells us that we not only embody the Truth, eternal Truth, infinite Truth, but we as a matter of fact are this transcendental Truth, this universal Truth ourselves. But right now we are not aware of it precisely because we have made friends with ignorance.
Then comes lethargy. When the Hour of God strikes, if we do not respond, then we cannot start our journey. The road is long, very long. When the Hour strikes, owing to lethargy, if we do not respond to the call of the Hour, we unconsciously lengthen our road. The mind becomes totally immersed in ignorance and feels the road is longer than the longest. When the Hour strikes, if we do not respond, then the road is bound to become longer than it was before. So those who wallow in the pleasure of lethargy will have to walk along the road that never ends.
Disobedience is the worst weakness in the seeker’s life. A seeker may listen to the inner dictates quite often. But if one day he disobeys the inner command, then he is bound to notice a hole in the life-boat which is destined to take him to the Golden Shore of the Beyond. His life-boat has sprung a leak. Gradually the hole will become large, larger, largest, and his spiritual boat will capsize and sink. But if he is obedient, then his life-boat will sail fast, faster, fastest towards the destined Goal, the Goal of the highest ever-transcending Beyond.
The last undivine force or warrior is indulgence. When we enter into the world of indulgence, we run backward. We enter into the animal kingdom. We believe in evolution. From the stone world we came to the plant world. From the plant world we came to the animal world. From the animal world we came to the human world. Now we have to go to the divine world. But if we enter into the world of indulgence, then instead of running forward we run backward. And each time we run backward, we again make friends with our old friend doubt.
A spiritual seeker has to be aware of these undivine forces: insecurity, fear, doubt, lethargy, disobedience and indulgence. The divine warriors have only one thing to tell us: accept light and reject night. Acceptance of light is the only thing that is needed. Night is the ignorance within us. Ignorance-night binds our body, blinds our eyes, stabs our heart. Ignorance-night represents the undivine warriors of insecurity, fear, doubt, lethargy, disobedience and indulgence. When we are attacked by these undivine warriors, the divine warriors come to our rescue and offer us perfection-light. As the representative of the Supreme, this perfection-light first liberates us, then illumines us and grants us vision. It grants vision to our eyes and then immortalises our heart. This is what perfection-light does for us.
There are divine warriors of the outer world as well as of the inner world. The outer warriors are our divine personality and divine individuality, which say, “I am of God and I am for God.” The inner warriors do not fight outwardly. They become one with God’s Will and in this way feel that they are establishing God the eternal Truth and Light in the inner world. The outer warriors feel that they have to fight. The hero-warriors fight for God’s victory on earth at every moment in the outer world.
The outer hero-warriors want to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. They want to see the Infinite in the finite. But the inner hero-warriors see that Infinity is already there in the finite. They see that the finite does not have the eye to see the Infinite, whereas the Infinite can envision its own presence in the finite itself. The inner warriors are aware of what they eternally are, whereas the outer warriors are not aware of what they eternally are. Therefore, they do something in order to become. By doing something, the outer warriors want to become. The inner warriors feel that they don’t have to become; they already are.
But there comes a time when the inner and outer warriors become one, inseparably one. The inner warriors bring to the outer warriors the message of realisation: realisation of the infinite Truth, eternal Light and immortal Delight. And the outer warriors try to manifest the divine realities, the divine treasures that are offered to them by the inner warriors. The inner warriors bring these realities to the earth-arena. The outer warriors manifest these realities in the earth-arena. This way both the inner warriors and the outer warriors complete the cosmic Lila, the divine Game.
Published in Warriors of the Inner World