Sri Chinmoy holds the Peace Torch with President of Czech Republic Vaclav Havel and gives a private esraj performance at the Presidential Palace in Prague, Czech Republic.
I welcome your initiative to give a symbolic expression to our common efforts for a world in which nations will live in peace and harmony. — Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic
Sri Chinmoy meets with Mrs. Shashi Tripathi, Consul General of India in New York City, at Annam Brahma Restaurant in Jamaica, Queens, New York. These are some excerpts from the conversation:
Mrs. Tripathi: What was it that drew you towards the spiritual path?
Sri Chinmoy: My parents were religious. My eldest brother became Sri Aurobindo’s disciple, and the very name of Sri Aurobindo gave us all boundless joy. I went to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram for the first time at the age of one year and three months. Then I visited the Ashram at the ages of four, seven and eleven. In 1944 I became a permanent member of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
I studied for a few years at the Ashram school. At that time there was no degree, no diploma given. We studied for the sake of knowledge. I also had within me a great urge for literature, and I started writing poems at the age of twelve or thirteen. I studied our Bengali literature thoroughly, and then I studied English literature, philosophy and so forth.
I was at the Ashram for twenty years. I worked there in various capacities, such as doing electrical work and working in various cottage industries. I enjoyed my work washing the dishes the most because it did not require any brain-power.
For about eight years, I was the secretary of the General Secretary of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. First came Sri Aurobindo, then the Mother and then Nolini Kanta Gupta. He was third in rank. Tagore had deep admiration for him as a writer. He was a great scholar, a savant. He saw something in me, and he wanted me to be his secretary. My job was to translate his writings from Bengali into English. They were all dealing with Indian literature and world literature.
I also worked under the General Manager, and I served some other distinguished writers. In addition, I served the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, who was known as the Divine Mother, in various capacities.
In 1962, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo from New York came to the Ashram, and he also saw something in me. He wanted me to come to America, and he became my sponsor. In 1964 my new life began here.
Once I came to America, I could not remain a student or a seeker as before. Some seekers in America saw something in me, and they wanted me to be of service to them. Of course, in one sense, I will always be a seeker. All individuals, even the Masters of the highest order, have to feel they are seekers because we are all transcending our capacities. Even the Highest is transcending His infinite Capacities.
In the meantime, I had a visa problem, so I began working at the Indian Consulate. Now you are the Consul General. I was a junior clerk, and my dear friend Mr. Ramamoorthy was a senior clerk. So we are all sailing in the same boat, side by side. Mr. Ramamoorthy and I were extremely close friends; we are enjoying the same friendship even now, and we shall do so for the rest of our lives.
This is my life in a nutshell. If you have any specific questions, I will be extremely happy and grateful to answer them.
Mrs. Tripathi: As you mentioned, we are all seekers in some way or another, in our own little fashion. But how does one know if one is making any spiritual progress?
Sri Chinmoy: It is so easy. We are all aware of our limitations — jealousy, insecurity, misunderstanding, impurity and so forth. These difficulties, or you can say shortcomings, every day are disturbing our mind or haunting us. We have to know how many times today we doubted others, how many times we suspected others, how much purity we had in our mind today, and in how many ways today we tried to be of service to mankind. Then let us make the comparison between today and yesterday or between today and a few months or a few years ago — what we were and what we are now.
Let us take doubt, for example. If we doubt others, we become the losers, and if we doubt ourselves, then we are making a Himalayan mistake. If we doubt others, we are in no way helping them. Again, in no way will we bring them down from their standard in their inner life or their outer life. From our doubt-experience or doubt-invasion, they are not going to lose anything. We are only lowering our own consciousness.
When we doubt ourselves, that is the end of our spiritual life. God is within us, growing and glowing at every moment. Every day He is inside us as an ever-blossoming Dream, or we can use the term ‘Vision’. If we doubt our capacity, that means we are belittling God’s Dream that is trying to blossom in and through us. If we doubt ourselves, we are only seeing the light through our own limited, absolutely limited, vision — not with God’s omniscient Light.
To come back to your question, how do we know that we are making progress? We know how much happiness we have. If we doubt someone or have impure thoughts and ideas or wallow in the pleasures of ignorance, we will not feel happiness. Happiness comes the moment we sacrifice ourselves for a higher cause. Again, in the highest philosophy, there is no such thing as sacrifice. When you do something for your children, it is not sacrifice. When your children come to you for your affection, love, concern, sweetness and fondness, it is not sacrifice. It is a mutual bond — your love for them and their love for you. In the world of love, there is no such thing as sacrifice. But when love is missing, then whatever I do for you is an act of sacrifice, and whatever you do for me is an act of sacrifice.
So we can make progress provided we want to conquer our limitations. We have come into the world to expand our consciousness, to expand the divinity that we have or that we embody.
Mrs. Tripathi: Does that mean, then, to be a better human being is consistent with spiritual progress?
Sri Chinmoy: They have to go side by side. They are like the obverse and the reverse of the same coin. Spirituality means inner progress and outer progress, or you can say inner progress and outer success. When the outer success is founded upon inner progress, then only the outer success will not lower our consciousness. Otherwise, pride and haughtiness will definitely take us in the wrong direction. But if spirituality is there deep within us, we will feel that we are doing something to manifest God’s Light in and through us. Then our outer manifestation — our selfless service to humanity — will not take the wrong direction because spirituality is the foundation. Spirituality and the outer life, with its multifarious activities, must go together. We cannot separate them. If we separate them, we shall be bankrupt both in the inner world and in the outer world.
There was a time when Indian sadhus, swamis, saints and spiritual figures wanted to live in the Himalayan caves to pray and meditate. But those days are gone. If we want to accept God the Creator, then we have to accept God the creation as well. Spiritual figures of the hoary past only wanted to accept God the Creator, not God the creation. They said, “Let us climb up and remain on the top of the Himalayas.”
But God says, “If you truly love Me, then you should come down for the sake of poor humanity, for the sake of those people who are at the foot of the mountain, and serve them with your light, with your delight, with your peace — with whatever you have achieved. If you want to go up, I am there to give you light and bliss, but I want you to share it with humanity.”
So the acceptance of life is now our philosophy, not the rejection of life. If today we reject our body, if we do not pay any attention to it, then tomorrow we will reject the vital, the day after the mind and the day after that the heart. Then what will we have? Nothing. But if we accept life, then if something is wrong with our body, we shall try to perfect it. If something is wrong with our vital or mind, if we have jealousy or insecurity or other obstructions, these things we shall try to overcome. In this way, we are going to perfect ourselves. Then only can we become choice instruments of God — not by negating, but by accepting the world as it is and then transforming the world.
Mrs. Tripathi: Creative expression is also a form of bhakti, don't you think? You yourself are an artist in many ways. That is also a form of bhakti, isn’t it?
Sri Chinmoy: Definitely! Bhakti means devotion. A true creator offers everything to God as part of his devotion. He prays to God not for anything specific, that is, not to become a good poet or a great singer or a great athlete. If he is a true seeker, he prays to God: “Please make me a choice instrument of Yours. You express Yourself in and through me, if You want to, as a writer, as a singer or as an artist.” He surrenders his own desire-life to God, and he accepts God’s Will with his aspiration-life.
In the desire-life we go from wanting one house to two houses to three houses to four houses, from one car to two cars. It is only the expansion of material wealth. But in the aspiration-life we say to God, “Whatever I need, please give me. I do not want to have any choice. If You want me to have one house or a car because You feel that it is of supreme necessity, then You can give it to me. But if You feel that it is not at all necessary, then do not give it to me.” The aspiration-life is the life of surrender to God. The aspiration-life says to God, “Please utilise me in Your own Way.” The desire-life says to God, “I want to become happy in my own way. If You give me material wealth, I will be happy.”
But the more material wealth we get, the quicker we bind ourselves. Whereas, if we get even an iota of light, peace or bliss from Above or from within, then we enter into the effulgence of the vast ocean of light. So desire binds; aspiration liberates.
The following remarks are offered while discussing Sri Chinmoy’s artwork:
Sri Chinmoy: We surrender to God’s Will. I never dreamt of becoming an artist. That was not in my line. In my family, everybody was a truth-seeker and God-lover. Poetry was in our family. Everybody in my family wrote poetry. Singing also was in our family, although not to a great extent. Nobody was an artist, nobody was in the sports line, but God wanted me to be an artist and an athlete.
Weightlifting was dead against my nature, absolutely! I was the best athlete in the Ashram, the decathlon champion and so forth. In those days there was a theory that if you were muscle-bound, you would not be able to run fast. Now that theory is completely changed. Now sprinters have very bulky muscles, and they run so fast! They have shattered all the world records.
In the Ashram there was a well-equipped gymnasium, but in twenty years I went there only two times. I lifted only 20 pounds a few times. I was shot-put and discus champion, but only because of natural strength. I did not lift weights. I am just saying how God changes us. Now I am lifting hundreds and thousands of pounds.
Fourteen years ago, I went to buy a 70-pound dumbbell, and I could not lift it even two inches onto the scale to see whether the weight was correct or not. The owner of the shop patted me on my back and said, “Stop, stop! I can see you are going to become a weightlifter!”
I told him, “One day I shall lift a hundred pounds overhead and give you a cake.” He laughed at me. Then in four or five months’ time I did lift a hundred pounds, and I did give him a cake.
After that, we became such good friends. In his shop he used to keep so many photographs of me lifting weights. Sometimes he would not sell things to me from his shop. He would say, “This is junk.” I would go there to buy things, and because he was such a close friend of mine, he would tell me, “This thing will not help you in your weightlifting.” This is Mark Lurie, Dan Lurie’s son. His father came the other day to my weightlifting anniversary.
How life changes! In India, while I was writing poems and translating, I had a strong desire: “How I wish I could write two hundred books in English!” What a desire! Once we accept the spiritual life, God sometimes laughs at our prayers. I thought that if I could write two hundred books, I would be something. Now I have 1,300 books to my credit. Believe me — in all sincerity I am telling you — although I have written 1,300 books, I got such joy when I had the desire to write two hundred books. If I am inspired from deep within, that is the greatest joy. Previously my goal was to lift 100 pounds to show off. Now that desire is gone. Now my goal is 1,000 pounds.
We bind ourselves with our mind when we say, “I cannot do this, I cannot do that.” God laughs at us. He says, “You cannot do it? Who is doing it in and through you?” If I feel that I as an individual human being am the doer, then I can do nothing, nothing, nothing. But if God allows me to be His instrument, then every day, at every moment, God can perform a miracle through me because He is the Doer. When I feel that I am the doer, I cannot lift even 70 pounds. I pray to God, “You perform in and through me according to Your own Will. I shall just take my exercises. Then it is all up to You. I have surrendered the results.”
The results can come in only two forms — success or failure. If my success I can offer to God happily, what is wrong with offering my failure too? I can have a ripe mango or an unripe mango. Today if God gives me a ripe mango, then I shall give it to Him. Tomorrow if He gives me an unripe mango, I shall also give that to Him. If I give both to Him with equal happiness, then God will be pleased with what I have and what I am giving. He can give me the experience of failure or the experience of success. If I can place them at His Feet with equal happiness, then I will not feel miserable. Then I will be the happiest person. Whatever He gives me, immediately I offer back to Him.
Mrs. Tripathi: You are so right! To share a personal experience with you, when we went back to India after ten years, I went to Delhi. There I went to an organisation called the ICCR. At that time it was in very bad shape. There was a lot of corruption there. The unions were up in arms, and they used to have strikes every day. So they posted me there! They said, “You are the only one who can set it right.” I was very upset. I said, “Look at this! Couldn’t they think of something else for me? Why do I have to do all this?”
By the Grace of God, whatever we planned turned out right — everything, every action — with the result that I myself was shocked. I did not know how it was happening. Then the realisation came to me that Somebody else was doing it. I was not doing it. It was happening through me, but Somebody else was doing it!
Sri Chinmoy: When we see and feel that Somebody else is doing it, then we do not have to worry at all because we are not responsible. If Somebody is doing something in and through me, it is up to Him to accept success and failure.
When I was working at the Indian Consulate, I never dreamt of writing thousands and thousands of poems and songs. At that time, I wrote a poem on B.K. Nehru, then Indian Ambassador in Washington. I think he was the nephew of Jawaharlal Nehru. At his farewell party I read out the poem. I also read out a poem at the farewell party for B.N. Chakravarty, the Indian Ambassador to the United Nations. He was Bengali. I did the same for Lakhan Mehrotra. So three of my poems I read out at their farewell parties, but I never thought I would write thousands of poems.
Once the Asia Society came to the Indian Consulate to find somebody who could sing Bengali songs. As I am a jack of all trades and master of none, I agreed to sing. They asked me to sing three songs. For each song they gave me ten dollars. That was very good. I am just telling how my literary and musical career started blossoming.
Another time the Consul General S.K. Roy asked me to give a talk on Hinduism at a synagogue in Long Island. The organisers wanted S.K. Roy to preside over the event. S.K. Roy asked, “Who is giving the talk?” They were so happy to tell him that Ananda Mohan was going to give the talk. When S.K. Roy heard that, he said, “No, I am sending Ghose.” I was a junior clerk, and Ananda Mohan was in the Information Section. But I was asked to go and give the talk. So I gave the talk, and the Consul General was pleased.
Ananda Mohan was an excellent lecturer on Hinduism and Indian culture. He wrote Indira Gandhi’s biography. I had such admiration for him. He worked in the Information Section, and I was nobody, absolutely nobody. Unfortunately, he was not in the good graces of S.K. Roy. Even though I was still quite young, S.K. Roy wanted me to give the talk on Hinduism. I had never thought of giving a talk on Hinduism, but I was asked to go there, and they liked it. They gave me one hundred and ten dollars, so I was making progress.
I was terribly afraid of S.K. Roy. Once when I was near the elevator, the elevator door opened up, and I ran away when I saw S.K. Roy inside. He came out of the elevator screaming, “Ghose! Ghose! Am I a tiger? Am I a snake? You must come in!”
S.K. Roy was so kind to me. Once he asked me if I knew Dilip Kumar Roy, the great Indian singer who was known as the golden voice. Perhaps you have heard his name. He was the dearest disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. When I was only thirteen or fourteen years old, I basked in the sunshine of Dilip Roy’s compassion and love. We lived on the same street, and once I gave him two hundred poems of mine. He corrected them and appreciated them. I also wrote something about his father, a great poet and revolutionary, so he was full of affection for me.
When S.K. Roy asked me if I knew him, I said, “Dilip Roy? Yes.” Then I told him all about my closest connection. I told him that when I came here, I wrote a letter to Dilip Roy, who opened up his own ashram. I told S.K. Roy all my experiences with him from my adolescent years. S.K. Roy was so happy because he and Dilip Roy were very close friends.
Mrs. Tripathi: Your brother is still in the ashram?
Sri Chinmoy:& One brother, Mantu, is still there. I dedicated the weightlifting demonstration to him for his birthday.
Sri Chinmoy: I never dreamt of composing thousands of songs. Now in English and Bengali — forgive me, I am bragging — 15,000 songs go to my credit. I not only wrote the words, but I also set them to music. In India I was a singer, good or bad, but here people have appreciated my singing voice. Encouragement is of paramount importance. If we are encouraged, then we go forward. If we are discouraged, then we need adamantine will-power to cross the discouragement-barrier.
In my weightlifting, Bill Pearl — five-time Mr. Universe and the 20th Century’s Best Built Man — encouraged me like anything. He encouraged me from when I started lifting 40 pounds. This time for my weightlifting anniversary, he was the Master of Ceremonies.
In every field I have been encouraged. At the Ashram also, I happened to be a writer, but by far the best author wanted me to be his translator. There were so many holding highest degrees, but he did not like their translations. He wanted me to be his translator. So again I was encouraged.
Everywhere I have been encouraged, encouraged. Here, when I started composing songs, people were appreciating them, so I got inspiration. Encouragement we all need. Again, if there is discouragement, we need adamantine will-power. If we want to do something, no matter how we are discouraged on the way, we have to go forward.
Mrs. Tripathi: I must say, your singers sang such beautiful bhajans on the 2nd of October for the observance of Gandhi's birthday at the Gandhi statue in Manhattan.
Sri Chinmoy: Please allow me to introduce you to Ranjana. Ranjana is the leader of that group.
Ranjana: Thank you for inviting us.
Mrs. Tripathi: The compositions were beautiful, and they were very well sung. They stopped the traffic. People just stopped there, got out of their cars and listened.
Ranjana: We were so happy to be able to perform at the Gandhi statue.
Mrs. Tripathi: I thank you so much for your time. It has been so wonderful.
Sri Chinmoy: It was so kind of you to be with us. We have enjoyed your company, and we shall only increase and illumine our friendship. Here we had such a wonderful time. I pray to our Lord Beloved Supreme to make you the choicest instrument of our beloved Mother India to spread her light throughout the length and breadth of the world. May you be the supremely choice instrument spreading Mother India’s sempiternal light. You have been to so many countries! I am absolutely sure you have offered Mother India’s inner light, pristine beauty and purity, and I would like you to continue.
Our philosophy is progress, progress, progress and self-transcendence. What you have done is good. But God within us wants us to be better, best and perfect, to increase our divine qualities, to serve Him in every possible way. You are now carrying the supreme message of Mother India here to America. Not only to America, but to the East, West, North, South — everywhere. I pray to the Absolute Supreme for you to spread His infinite Light. This is my most sincere prayer, coming from the inmost recesses of my heart.
Mrs. Tripathi: Thank you so much. It is the most beautiful blessing. Thank you very much.
Published in Sri Chinmoy Answers, part 23