Sri Chinmoy Has Moved On

I just heard that Sri Chinmoy has died, or as many would say, entered Maha Samadhi.

I was never one of his followers, but I was impressed by some of the things that he achieved in his efforts to ground spirituality in the “external” world.

He was born Chinmoy Kumar Ghose in a small village named Shakpura in what is now Bangladesh. At the age of 12, after the death of his parents, entered the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, a spiritual community near Pondicherry in South India.

He spent the next 20 years there engaged in spiritual practices, including meditation, writing poetry, essays and spiritual songs.

He moved to New York City in 1964 to work as a clerk at the Indian Consulate, and to teach Western spiritual seekers.

He used some unorthodox methods: he spread his philosophy through his own way of life, exercising and creating art and music. He drew attention by breaking weight lifting records and stunts like power-lifting pickup trucks and public figures like Muhammad Ali and Sting.

He claimed to sleep for only 90 minutes a day and when he was not traveling to perform in concerts and spread his message, spent the rest of the time meditating, playing music, exercising and making art.

Sri Chinmoy drew upon Hindu principles to advocate a spiritual path to God through love and devotion, prayer and meditation. But he was one of the first to publicize the idea that meditation does not necessarily mean sitting quietly. Instead he recommended that his disciples develop their spirituality by transcending seemingly impossible physical challenges.

At one time or other he was the guru of many people including Carl Lewis, Carlos Santana, John McLaughlin, Roberta Flack and Clarence Clemons.

As with so many teachers, there were plenty of allegations of impropriety, but I have never seen any credible evidence to support them.

Many years ago he wrote his own epitaph:
“Before the final curtain goes down
On my life,
I shall say to my Mother-Earth,
“My gratitude-heart is all for you, 
All for you.”

Here are some of my favorite poems and quotations that he wrote over the years. I do hope that you find some of them as helpful, enlightening and inspirational as I have.

“You hate someone whom you really wish to love, but whom you cannot love. Perhaps he himself prevents you. That is a disguised form of love.”

“Do not try to approach God with your thinking mind. It may only stimulate your intellectual ideas, activities, and beliefs. Try to approach God with your crying heart. It will awaken your soulful, spiritual consciousness.”

“If we know the divine art of concentration, if we know the divine art of meditation, if we know the divine art of contemplation, easily and consciously we can unite the inner world and the outer world.”

“By hating that person, you have lost something very sweet in yourself.”

“Be universal in your love. You will see the universe to be the picture of your own being.”

“If we call ourselves children of God, then others are also children of God.”

“Love is the only wealth that man absolutely needs.
Love is the only wealth that God precisely is.”

“You can only hate someone whom you have the capacity to love, because if you are really indifferent, you cannot even get up the enough energy to hate him.”

“Whether you accept or reject it, God’s Love for you is permanent.”

“Let us not worry
About the future.
Let us only do the right thing
Today,
At this moment,
Here and now.
Let the future take care of itself.”

“There comes a time in the seeker’s life when he discovers that he is at once the lover and the beloved.”

“Listen to the inner light;
It will guide you.
Listen to the inner Peace;
It will feed you.
Listen to the inner Love;
It will transform you,
It will divinize you,
It will immortalize you.”

“Love is not a thing to understand.
Love is not a thing to feel.
Love is not a thing to give and receive.
Love is a thing only to become
And eternally be.

“I shall love the whole world,
But I shall control
Only myself.

“The aspiring soul which he embodies is the lover in him. And the transcendental Self which he reveals from within is his Beloved.”

“Complete and total perfection will come about only when we feel that our perfection is no perfections as long as the rest of humanity remains imperfect.”

“He who loves, never grows old. God it a shining example.”

“The very nature of kindness
Is to spread.
If you are kind to others,
Today they will be kind to you,
And tomorrow to somebody else.”

“When we have
A childlike state of mind,
It becomes extremely easy to find God
Here, there and everywhere.”

“Of all the medicines
In the inner life,
A smile is by far
The best medicine.”

“Meditation is the only way to overcome fear. There is no other way. Why does meditation help us overcome fear? In meditation we identify ourselves with the vast, with the Absolute. When we are afraid of someone or something, it is because we do not feel that particular person or thing is a part of us. When we have established conscious oneness with the Absolute, with the Infinite Vast, then everything there is part of us. And how can we be afraid of ourselves?”

“For a genuine seeker,
The inner world
Is infinitely more real
Than the outer world.”

“My Lord does not want to know what I have done for Him. He just wants to know how I am. If he hears from me that I am happy, then he himself becomes exceedingly happy. In unmistakable terms He tells me that my happiness is His real and only Satisfaction.”

“Today I must dive deep within
And know what I come
To this earth-stage for.”

“Smile, smile, smile
At your mind
As often as possible.
Your smiling will considerably reduce
Your mind’s tearing tension.”

“Your self-transcendence-goal
Is not something
That you have to achieve.
It was already given to you long ago
By your Beloved Supreme.
You have only to believe it.
You have only to receive it.”

“You follow
Your heart’s love.
Your life’s happiness
Will follow you.”

“God’s foremost treasure on earth
Is my ever-blossoming
Gratitude-heart.”

“Yes, I can!
I certainly can!
I can have
A gratitude-flower-heart
That shall remain open
At all hours.”

“If you give God your heart’s
Dearest treasure, surrender,
Then God will grant you
His Vision’s Dearest treasure, peace.

“Instead of telling the world
What it is supposed to do,
Why don’t you immediately do it yourself ?
In this way, I assure you,
Your happiness will be surprisingly multiplied.”

“Once you have established
Your inner contact
With your inner Pilot,
Your life’s transformation-victory
Will not remain a far cry.”

“O kindle the fire of happiness!
Therein I shall see
The door of friendliness,
The room of greatness
And the palace of goodness.
I shall see, I shall see.”

“If your Lord Supreme requests you to do something, rest assured he has already given you the capacity – even more than necessary – long before you actually need it.”

“If you are already an awakened soul,
Then you must realize
That God has already given you
A supreme task to perform:
He wants you to work
For His Vision’s world-blossoms.”

“My service to humanity
Is my real opportunity
To prove my genuine love
For God and God alone.”

“Enthusiasm
Rules his inner world.
Determination
Rules his outer world.
Therefore
Happiness has become
His real name.”

“Of all the gifts
You have offered to God,
Your happiness-gift
He treasures most.”

“If you want to remain always happy,
Always perfect and always fulfilled,
Then always keep inside your heart
A pocketful of sweet dreams.”

“To my extreme happiness,
My Lord has come to tell me
That from now on
I must stand apart from my actions,
Divine and undivine.
He alone is the Doer;
I am a mere observer.”

“Be in love with your heart-life.
There, only there,
Is the flood of happiness.”

“God loves only one philosophy,
And that is the Do-it-here-now philosophy.”

“Every morning and evening I am
Determined to sing and dance
On the highest peak
Of my sun-flooded
Aspiration-mountain.”

“At last
He is healed of his self-doubt.
Now what is happening ?
He is awakening
To his souls ecstasy-sun.”

“Every second a seeker can start over,
For his life’s mistakes
Are initial drafts
And not the final version.

“We must see that God operates not only in us but in others as well. God also operates in our so-called enemies. But these are not our real enemies. Our real enemies are doubt, fear, anxiety and worry. When we do not cry to perfect others, but only try to perfect our own lives, then we will have joy.”

“A sincere seeker knows what his goal is: the highest Truth. He will not delay his journey. In the spiritual life we aspire for the highest Truth, for God, and for nothing else.”

“Precious and spacious
The aspiring heart has to remain
Always.”

“I am not even six feet tall. Yet I am praying to the Absolute Supreme to reach His infinite Height, which is far beyond even my imagination’s flight. For me to long to grow into that Height — is this not a miracle?”

“I am mortal. My thoughts, my deeds, my experiences — everything that I have and everything that I am — represent mortality. Yet despite everything that I have and everything that I am, I am longing for Immortality. Is this not a miracle?”

“There is only one immediate question:
Where is God?
The immediate answer is:
God is where
My heart’s love-breath is.”

“Ingratitude is as old
As man himself.
Gratitude is a child
Of yesterday.”

“The supreme secrets of a peaceful life:
Expect not; just give.
Delegate not; just start and continue.
Retire not; just aspire for
self-transcendence.”

“In the spiritual life the easiest way to conquer ego is to offer gratitude to God for five minutes daily. If you cannot offer gratitude for five minutes, then utter it for one minute. Offer your gratitude to God. Then you will feel that inside you a sweet, fragrant and beautiful flower is growing. That is the flower of humility.”

“In our spiritual life very often we get fascinating experiences and then we don’t want to aspire anymore. It is true that experiences can give us encouragement, but very often when we get too many experiences we enter into the vital world. Suppose you are walking along a street toward your goal. If you see beautiful trees, ponds and flowers alongside the street, what happens? The scenery is so beautiful that you take a rest. You say, “Let me stay here and enjoy this,” and then you stop and enjoy it. But your destination remains a far cry.”

“The problem with fault-finding
Is that he who finds fault with others
Is in no way a happy person
Even after he has successfully
Accomplished his task.”

“True inner joy is self-created
It does not rely on any outer circumstances
A river is flowing in and through you carrying the message of joy.
This divine joy is the sole purpose of life.”

“Meditation is not an escape. Meditation is the acceptance of life in its totality, with a view to transforming it for the highest manifestation of the divine Truth here on earth.”

“When we meditate soulfully, devotedly, we have to accept humanity as our very own. We have to know that humanity as it stands is far, far, from perfection, but we are also members of humanity. We have to take it with us. If we are in a position to inspire others, if we are one step ahead, naturally we have the opportunity to serve the divinity in the ones who are following us. We have to transform the face of the world on the strength of our dedication to the divinity in humanity.”

“God-realization, or Siddhi means Self-discovery in the highest sense of the term. One consciously realizes his oneness with God. As long as the seeker remains in ignorance, he will feel that God is somebody else who has infinite Power, while he, the seeker, is the feeblest person on earth. But the moment he realizes God, he comes to know that he and God are absolutely one in both the inner and the outer life. God-realization means one’s identification with one’s absolute highest Self.”

“What we call our joy, God calls our perfection. Each human being has come into the world with the message of perfection. Each human being will one day realize the highest Truth. Each human being is destined to be fulfilled. It is the birthright of our soul.”

“Not one
But twenty-four self-giving-hours
Every day I have
For my use.”

“At the end of all the roads
There is only a sound-life
That does everything,
And a silence-life
That becomes everything.”

“True spirituality is the acceptance of earth-life. A true seeker is he who accepts life, transforms life and perfects life so that the earth-life can become a conscious instrument of God.”

“When I was an animal I evolved through selfishness.
Now that I am a man my evolution can be achieved only through self-sacrifice.”

“How can one know who his spiritual teacher is?…His heart looks at the spiritual Masters and makes the choice. When the heart sees a spiritual Master, if it is overwhelmed with joy, then there is every probability that that spiritual Master is the right one for the seeker.”

“The joy of a self-giving life
Can neither be measured
Nor be expounded.”

“God is not a thing to be achieved, but a thing to be.”

“You may not know,
But it is absolutely true:
With each heartbeat
Your heart is calling: “God, God!”
You may not hear it,
But God Himself definitely hears
Your heart’s cry.”

“The moment we use the term ‘help’, a kind of egocentric idea enters into us. If we help someone, that means we are in a superior position. When we help, we feel that we are one step ahead or one step higher than the ones that we are helping. But if we serve someone, then we offer our capacity with humility, on the strength of our loving concern and oneness. So let us use the proper term, ‘service’.”

“A moment of
self-giving life
can conquer the sorrows
of many long years.”

“Forgive, you will have happiness.
Forget, you will have satisfaction.
Forgive and forget,
You will have everlasting peace
Within and without.”

“Imagination plays a most significant role in the spiritual life. Suppose you are not having good meditations, but six months ago you had a very good, powerful, high meditation. What you can do is try to imagine that powerful meditation. Then your imagination will become reality. After fifteen minutes or half an hour, you will get a good meditation. Vivekananda was such a great spiritual figure, yet sometimes for six months at a time he did not have a good meditation. What did he do? He used to imagine a time when he did have a good meditation, and inside his imagination was aspiration. So imagination is very good.”

“Our goal is not to have
A problem-free life.
But to conquer all the problems
As they appear
Along our life-road.”

“Let us serve the world soulfully. The pay we will receive for our service will be in the currency of gratitude, God’s gratitude, God the only gratitude.”

“Each human being can at once be a fighter and forgiver. When self-doubt tortures him, he must play the role of a fighter. And when his own ignorance humiliates him, he must play the role of a forgiver.”

“A spiritual man should be a normal man, a sound man. God Himself is normal; He is not insane. In order to reach God, a spiritual person has to be divinely practical in his day-to-day activities. Spirituality does not negate the outer life. But we have to know that the outer life does not mean the animal life. The outer life should be the manifestation of the divine life within us.”

“Either by silencing the mind or by opening the heart, today’s man can become tomorrow’s God, tomorrow’s Divinity. And embodied Divinity soon becomes revealed Immortality.”

“If we believe in our own
Self-transcendence-task
Then there can be
No unreachable goal.”

“Love of the limited self, the very limited self, is another name for human love. Love of the entire world is another name for divine love.”

“Silence tells the seeker in us to love, to love himself. It tells us it is wrong to hate ourselves because of our imperfections. When the seeker loves himself, loves the Divine within himself, he eventually realizes the Ultimate Truth.”

“Inner silence is not just the absence of thoughts. No! Silence is the blossoming of our indomitable inner will. Silence is our inner wisdom-light. “

“The way to become happy
Is to think
And to feel
That the very best is yet to come.”

“Failure
Is not falling down.
Failure
Is desiring to live
Where I have fallen.”

“There is no greater miracle
Than our conscious efforts
To become good human beings.”

“Meditation is man’s self-awakening and God’s Self-Offering.
When man’s self-awakening and God’s Self-Offering meet together
man becomes immortal in the inner world
and God becomes fulfilled in the outer world.”

“You have no idea
How much you do for mankind
When you love God unconditionally
Even for a fleeting moment.”

“My soul reminds me
Again and again
That I am not the doer.
I am only a witness-
God-existence-life.”

“Allow everything else to vanish
Save and except your cherished dreams,
For your cherished dreams
Are treasured sleeplessly
By God Himself.”

“World-harmony
Should be taken
As a world-prayer
On a daily basis.”

“Just start your inner race without waiting to see
Who else is ready to run with you.
When others see you have reached your goal,
They will also be inspired to run.”

“Keep an open heart
To allow the world
Lovingly and faithfully
To come in.”

“Although it is extremely difficult
We must realize
That we came into the world
Not to destroy but to illumine
Our enemies.”

“Human love wants to possess and be possessed by the world. Divine love wants to establish its inseparable oneness with the world and then it wants to divinely enjoy this oneness. Supreme Love transforms human love into divine love and blesses divine love with boundless joy and divine pride.”

“Each devoted moment
Prepares a beautiful sunrise
And a fruitful sunset.”

“A genius is he
Who ends rules and regulations.
A genius is he
Who is nothing but a powerful drop
In the ocean of cosmic life-energy.”

“When you consciously use time
To do something Divine,
You enter into timeless Time.

When you are consciously thinking
Of something divine, eternal Life come
And shakes hands with you.”

“The heart of every human being
Can leave behind a legacy
Of world-illumining compassion.”

“To inspire others
Is to be immediately rich
In the inner world.”

“What is joy? It is a bird That we all want to catch. It is the same bird That we all love to see flying.”

“When you talk and God listens, it is Prayer. When you listen and God talks, it is Meditation.”

“The moment you want to make progress is the moment you become an eternal beginner. The dawn is the beginning of a new day: it symbolizes hope, illumination and perfection. Every day the dawn begins its journey in the infinite sun. If you can feel that your whole being – your body, vitality, mind and soul – represents the ever-blossoming dawn, then you will always remain an eternal beginner.”

“Do not allow yourself
To be rued by dark doubts.
Make friends with bright hopes
At every moment
To change your own world
And the world around you.”

“Peace will come when we replace the love of power with the power of love.”

“God hears
The soulful prayers of a seeker
Not only with great readiness
But also with immediate
Oneness.”

“In tomorrow’s world
Many things will enlighten humanity.
But the thing that will enlighten
Humanity’s inner and outer life most
Is the transcendental temple
Of universal silence.”