Sri Chinmoy’s New Year’s Message for 1994
The Year of Supreme Choice:
The aspiring heart’s confident forward march
orThe doubting mind’s imminent backward run.
Swim in the ocean of oneness-delight
or
Sink in the sea of separation-night.
From the higher worlds, the Divine Beings want to illumine, protect and perfect the earth planet.
From the lower worlds, the Ignorance-Titans want to dominate the earth planet. Let us make our wise choice Here and Now.
In us is Divinity’s Peace-Lover. In us is humanity’s War-Monger. The one we do not want to feed and cherish we must bring to the fore immediately and cast aside ruthlessly.
Because of our conscious and continuous blunders, we have compelled our poor Lord God to sleeplessly cry.
Stop we must! From this very moment we must please God in His own Way, for there can be no other way if Happiness is our choice, Peace is our choice, Infinity-Immortality’s Fulfilment is our choice.
— Sri Chinmoy
Notes:
• On December 9, 1993, Sri Chinmoy offered a Peace Concert and a New Year’s meditation at the New York Society for Ethical Culture in New York, NY, USA.
• On 24 January 1994, Sri Chinmoy offers the following talk about the New Year after returning to New York from the annual Christmas Trip with his disciples.
You Have the Golden Chance
by Sri Chinmoy
My dear children, this is my most and most blessingful request to each and every one present here. Each night before you go to sleep, while seated on your bed, only for three to five minutes please pray and meditate. Also, please sing or recite the new song, Bhulite diyona. This is the translation:
My Lord Absolute Supreme,
Do not allow me to forget Your Feet.
Do not allow me to forget Your Eye.
Do not allow me to forget Your Message.
Do not allow me to forget Your Dream.
In my life and in my death,
O Lord of my heart,
Do accept my prayerful obeisance.
My Lord, do not allow me to forget You.
Do not allow me to forget You, do not.
Those who have learnt the song and those who are good singers can sing the song, and others can just recite it.
Once more I am making my most blessingful request to each of you. At six o’clock in the morning, please meditate for ten minutes. Only wash your eyes, face, nose and especially your ears. When we meditate, at that time the cosmic sound reverberates in the depths of our aspiration-heart, so our earthly ears may get some benefit from the cosmic sound AUM, the soundless sound.
Then at night, whenever you go to bed — at ten-thirty, eleven-thirty or midnight — please meditate for three minutes at least while seated on your bed.
My dear children, my sweet children, what I am saying applies also to those who are not physically here. This year either we will be able to offer our supreme victory to our Lord Beloved Supreme, our Eternity’s only Goal, or we will offer Him the worst possible defeat. Remember, it is up to you to offer Him the worst possible spiritual defeat or your supremely glorious victory.
Please remember this poem:
I never want to count
My heart’s aspiration-moments.
I just want to multiply
My life’s dedication-hours.
Your life’s dedication-hours please multiply this year. Make yourself worthy of your inner life, your spiritual life. Dear ones, it is up to you. Take every moment seriously.
When I came to America, when I came to the West, the Supreme in me did expect to have supremely chosen instruments to manifest His Victory here, there and everywhere. My oneness with your heart, my oneness with your life, I shall never be able to make you feel — never, never. But if you yourself dare to feel my oneness with your heart and with your life, then you are bound to feel that your victory is my victory, and your defeat is my defeat, for I am one with you, inseparably and eternally. Because I have accepted each of you, your defeat is my defeat, and your victory is my victory.
You have the golden chance to be the pioneers of this divine vision that I embody, the divine vision that I have entrusted you to spread all over the world. I am extremely, extremely fortunate to have your souls — such beautiful, such loving, such self-giving souls — for my supreme cause. There is not a single soul that is not one hundred per cent sleeplessly for me. All your souls, according to their individual development, are here on earth only to love the Supreme in me, only to serve the Supreme in me, only to fulfil the Supreme in me. If you can dive deep within and if you can get just a glimpse of your soul for a brief moment, then you will see the inseparable connection and oneness that your soul has established with me to manifest the Light, the Peace and the Divinity of our Lord Beloved Supreme. I want that Light, that Peace and that Divinity to manifest in and through your lives.
I beg of you, I beg of you, I beg of you not to fail yourselves, not to fail your souls. Make me the happiest person both on earth and in Heaven by pleasing me and fulfilling me here on earth, for I am your own highest. Your absolute highest is your Master, Sri Chinmoy. If you have faith in me, you have faith in your soul. If you have faith in your soul, you have faith in me. We are inseparable.
Swami Vivekananda gave his Inspired Talks at Thousand Island Park in 1895. The West may not have accepted, or could not accept his light, but I know that millions and millions of Indians received boundless inspiration, boundless encouragement and boundless enthusiasm from his Inspired Talks. Over the years, I have also given many, many, many inspired talks. I know that those talks have helped you enormously in your inner life of aspiration and in your outer life of dedication. Again I am telling you now, please take your life of aspiration and your life of dedication as supremely important. I am begging you to dedicate more of your life. If you have the capacity, then give talks, here, there and everywhere. Give classes and, in as many ways as possible, inspire people. Work together, work together.
A great Indian figure happened to be a disciple of a spiritual Master of the highest order. Once, at a time when this particular disciple was suffering from one of the worst possible attacks of doubt — doubting his Master, doubting himself and doubting the spiritual life — he was asked by a seeker to talk about his Master. He spoke so soulfully, so powerfully and so profoundly that, while speaking, he brought his own tears of gratitude to the fore.
Then the disciple wrote to his Master, “I have been doubting you, Master, so much. I have been doubting my spiritual life. I have been doubting the whole world. Even a few hours ago, my existence had no value; everything was negative. But in speaking about you, Master, I have made everything positive, and I have made myself happy. How can it be? Surely I am the world’s worst possible insincere person. I am a hypocrite!”
The Master replied, “My child, how proud I am of you! While you were speaking about me, your soul got the opportunity to come to the fore and manifest your own divinity and your own light in the heart of that sincere aspirant. When you feel that you are doomed to disappointment, when all the negative forces are coming to you, at that time if you speak highly of your Master, highly of your spiritual life, highly of your path, do not think that you are a hypocrite, that you are fooling yourself or fooling the sincere seekers—far from it! During your mind’s darkest hour or your life’s darkest hour, your soul, on the strength of its inseparable oneness with the Supreme and with your Master, got the golden opportunity to convince your mind, which was either in the barren desert or in the thick forest. Your soul was able to grab your body, vital and mind and bring them into your own heart-garden to see how beautiful you are and how fragrant you are.”
These are my interpretations. The Master did not use these exact words, but I know what that particular Master actually meant. I am telling you all this because I see that some of you are at times sad and depressed; you may have all kinds of vital and mental problems. The golden way to overcome these problems is to talk to people about the spiritual life. If you feel that your consciousness has descended, then sing my spiritual songs or talk to your friends about the spiritual life.
Like today’s song, Bhulite diyona, all my soulful songs are bound to help you. If you want your own light to come to the fore, sing a few songs or listen to a tape of my voice. My voice has a very special connection with your soul and with your heart. No matter whether I am singing well or not, my singing voice has a very, very, very special connection with your soul, with the divine in you. Please listen to my voice or my flute or some other instrument of mine that you like.
This is God’s universal Game. When we play a game, who wants to accept defeat? We will do our very best to be the winners. In this case, who is our opponent? It is the undivine, unlit, destructive forces that are trying to threaten us and devour us. We call them hostile forces. Again, the Supreme has kept inside each human being a roaring lion. We must bring to the fore the roaring lion in us, and roar and roar to manifest the divine light that we already have. The more we can be of service to mankind, even if we only offer an iota of light to an individual, the more the Supreme is bound to bless us with His abundant Light. And when we offer our abundant light to others, then He will be able to give us infinite Light.
In my heart-garden I have employed you with my boundless love, boundless affection and boundless fondness. You are my helpers, and I want each of you to bring a few more plants with your aspiration, with your dedication. Try to make our heart-garden as vast as possible, as beautiful as possible, as fragrant as possible. My children, you have the capacity and you are the capacity. I want each one of you to offer the supreme success, supreme glory and supreme victory to our Lord Beloved Supreme.
I do not mind if you are not proud of me, but in all sincerity, I want to tell you how proud I am of your souls, for they know who I am and they know what I stand for. Their soul-lives and soul-breaths at every moment are for me, for me, for me. Your outer life may not be for me. It may be for yourself, for other human beings, for your career or something else. But your soul has a breath, Eternity’s Breath. Your soul’s breath is for me, for me, for me, only for me. Therefore, how grateful I am to your souls, how proud I am of your souls, you cannot imagine. It is far beyond your imagination the love, devotion and surrender that your souls have for me, for they know who I am and who they are. They are my supremely chosen instruments. In your souls is my life-breath.
I am begging each and every one of you to give me the opportunity and to give me the assurance to be inside your life-breath at every moment. I have you inside my heart. Unfortunately, some of you do not have me inside your heart. If you see me and feel me, my living presence, inside your heart, you will not be able to do even one thing wrong, discouraging or displeasing. The moment you do not feel my living presence or my nectar-smile, the moment you fail to see me inside your heart, alas, alas, you fall victim to self-doubt, lack of faith, frustration and other undivine forces.
I am telling you, I see inside you the living Presence of my Lord Beloved Supreme. Him I see and Him I feel at every moment inside you. Therefore, at every moment I am dealing with my own Guru inside your heart. Please feel my smile, my tears, my gratitude, my pride in you.
How many good things you have done for me over the years! I will not be able to count how many good things you have done for me. I am requesting all of you only to think of how many good things you have done for me, not how many good things I have done for you. I am begging all of you to think of how many good things you have done for me since you joined the path. Think of how many ways you have pleased me, how many ways you have loved me, how many ways you have served me, how many ways you have fulfilled me over the years. You will be so proud of yourself. Right from the day you joined our path, try to remember the special ways you have offered your love, devotion and surrender. Think of my oneness-divinity with your heart, with your life, with your soul. Then any discouraging forces that have now become part and parcel of your life are bound to disappear, for your golden moments are the most pleasing fragrance-perfume in your life and in my life. Forget about how many good things I have done for you. I am only telling you to remember and to count in how many ways you have pleased me over the years. Then all your divine qualities once more will come forward.
Do not think, even for a second, about whether you have disappointed me in any way inwardly or outwardly. I am begging you to take the positive side. Think in how many hundreds and thousands of ways you have pleased me with your love, devotion and surrender. Only remember where, when and how. I assure you, you will be inundated with your own divinity. It is you who are going to prove that you are, without fail, my supremely chosen instruments. You are not only for yourselves; you are for the entire Creation of our Lord Beloved Supreme. God the Creator is inside you, and He wants you to serve and fulfil God the Creation around you.
My dear ones, I am inspired and I shall remain inspired. I do hope my inspiration-light, which I have just now brought down from the highest Heaven to offer to you, has entered into you, and you have become a totally different person from this moment. I am a beggar for your smiling heart radiating on your face and from your eyes. The eternal beggar in me wants you to be happy, divinely happy, supremely happy, so that your happiness radiates on your face and from your eyes. From your outer life, it has to radiate all over the world to illumine the world.
I know who I am. Unfortunately, I cannot make you see and make you feel who you truly are, who you are to me, who you are to the Supreme. But if we work together, then I shall definitely be able to make you feel who you are to me and who I am to you. We need each other. I need you for the manifestation of the Supreme here on earth. You need me for the highest realisation. I will be known as the tree, and you will be known as the flowers and fruits. Immortality’s flowers and Immortality’s fruits I want to dedicate to aspiring humanity. Again, I am the bird and you are the wings.
Whatever I have said has gone very, very far, because it has entered into the Universal Consciousness. These words I get from the Transcendental Consciousness and I offer them to the Universal Consciousness. You are part and parcel of the Universal Consciousness, plus you are nearer than the nearest to me.
The most important thing I have said is for you to think of how many good things you have done for me. Only remember in how many ways you have shown your love, devotion and surrender to the Supreme in me. Think how readily, happily, cheerfully, willingly and eagerly you have pleased me over the years. You will be so proud of yourself. Just try to remember those golden moments. It will take a few months to count them! All your depression, frustration, feelings of uselessness and other negative qualities will disappear. Any kinds of spiritual fevers that you may have now, which are making you absolutely miserable and paralysed in the spiritual life, will disappear. You will no longer remain inside the dry, barren mental desert that you have been walking through, or the thick forest that you have created for yourself. You will come back again to your own heart-garden. Again you will be able to run faster than the fastest.
And also try to feel my presence. The way I feel your presence inside me, inside my heart, I want you to feel my presence inside your heart at every moment.
By remembering how many good things you have done for me, I shed tears of gratitude. I swim in the sea of my gratitude-tears. In how many countless ways you have served the Supreme in me, loved the Supreme in me and fulfilled the Supreme in me! Those are your possessions, your own divinity-manifestations.
Published in Live in the Eternal Now