We are all affected by those around us. People with positive energy inspire and energise us, while people with negative energy drain our joy and optimism. If we aspire to learn or improve in any field, we will associate with those who have more of the knowledge, experience or expertise we seek. Good students apply to enter the best schools, footballers try out for the best teams.
It is the same when we are learning to meditate and exploring the spiritual life. As Sri Chinmoy writes:
“Suppose there are four or five good swimmers. If you want to become a good swimmer, then you will mix with the swimmers. If somebody knows how to swim better than you do, then you will mix with that particular swimmer in order to learn how to swim better. Similarly, if you want to accelerate your spiritual progress, you have to mix with those in whom you have some confidence, some trust that they will be able to guide you and accelerate your progress.
“If you see that a thief or some other culprit is sitting beside you, then automatically your consciousness will descend because of the vibrations coming from him. Negative, undivine forces will come and attack you. But if you mix with those people who are leading a spiritual life and are trying to realise God, they will undoubtedly strengthen your aspiration. If you have faith and trust in these people, their very presence will inspire you. If you sit beside a spiritual person, he will be thinking of God, meditating on God, on divine Love and divine Peace. And this Peace and Love will enter into you also. So the best thing is always to mix with spiritual people as much as you can.”
– Sri Chinmoy
In this one-page encyclopaedia of happiness from “Songs of the Soul”, Sri Chinmoy does not define traits of happiness, or instruct us how to be happy. Revealing happiness as one with the highest Truth, Sri Chinmoy offers a choice, which we read as a command, over and again: not to try, do or become anything – just … Be … happy.
“Be happy
You will grow into God’s greatest blessing, His highest pride.
“Be happy
Yesterday’s world wants you to enjoy its surrendered breath.
Today’s world wants you to enjoy its surrendering breath.
Tomorrow’s world wants you to enjoy its fulfilling breath.
“Be happy
Be happy in the morning with what you have.
Be happy in the evening with what you are.
“Be happy
Don’t complain. Who complains? The blind beggar in you.
When you complain, you dance in the mire of ignorance-condition.
When you don’t complain, all conditions of the world are at your feet, and God gives you a new name: aspiration.
Aspiration is the supreme wealth in the world of light and delight.
“Be happy
Do you want never to be poor? Then be happy. Do you want ever to be great? Then be happy.
“Be happy
You will get what you like most. You will be what you like best.
“Be happy
When you are happy, you and God command each other.
God commands you lovingly. You command God hastily.
When you are unhappy, the hostile forces command you ruthlessly, doubt commands you openly, bondage commands you triumphantly and fear commands you unconditionally.
“Be happy
God sees in you His aspiring Creation, His transforming Realisation, His illumining Revelation and His fulfilling Manifestation.
“Be happy
God sees in you another God. God sees you as another God. God sees you and He as One.”
– Sri Chinmoy
We do not have to create happiness. It is already there, inside us. We do not have to run after happiness. It is already here, within us, integral to our very being. In this delightful series of aphoristic poems, Sri Chinmoy shares several simple ways of unlocking our inner happiness and bringing it to the fore so we can bask in its radiance, beauty and effulgence:
“You want to be happy? That is very easy.
Simply offer a flower-heart of oneness.
Offer your heart’s oneness.
See. You are happy.
“You want to be happy? That is very easy.
Simply let go of all your sadness.
Just let it go.
See. You are happy.
“You want to be happy? That is very easy.
Simply watch the children playing in the park.
Watch them play.
See. You are happy.
“You want to be happy? That is very easy.
Simply imagine you are in a fragrant rose garden.
Imagine the fragrance.
See. You are happy.
“You want to be happy? That is very easy.
Simply watch the innocent child as she plays.
Just watch her playing.
See. You are happy.
“You want to be happy? That is very easy.
Simply look at a dog frolicking with its master.
Look at them.
See. You are happy.
“You want to be happy? That is very easy.
Simply imagine you are in front of a waterfall.
Aah. The waterfall.
See. You are happy.
“You want to be happy? That is very easy.
Simply imagine that you are eating the most delicious fruit.
Imagine how delicious it is.
See. You are happy.
“You want to be happy? That is very easy.
Simply feel a glowing smile on your face.
Feel the glow of your smiling face.
See. You are happy.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“My meditation
Invokes God
The Universal Heart.”
– Sri Chinmoy
In meditation, we endeavour to silence our mind and enter into our spiritual heart. We know our spiritual heart is the home of all the divine qualities we treasure and seek within us: peace, love, light and bliss. When we enter fully into our spiritual heart, we realise this heart is not our unique possession – it is universal.
Sri Chinmoy explains:
“The spiritual heart embodies not only the individual consciousness but also the universal Consciousness. We have two hearts. One heart is a tiny muscle and the other is the possessor of the universal Consciousness. The spiritual heart is much larger than the universal Consciousness. This may be difficult for you to believe right now, but once you realise God, you will see that the universal Consciousness is perfectly housed in your spiritual heart.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“The tree of life reveals to us that there is only one heart, one universal heart.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Each soul
Is a leaf
Of God’s universal Heart-Tree.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“No scriptures
Can totally discover
God’s universal Heart.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Love is the open doorway between our prayer, meditation and the universal heart:
“Divine love
Means oneness
With the Universal Heart.”
– Sri Chinmoy
When asked, “Where did the universal heart originate?”, Sri Chinmoy answered:
“The universal Heart originated in God’s Silence. When God was absolute Silence, inside this Silence something was growing all the time. This was the universal Heart. The universal Heart came into existence before God’s sound-life came into existence. And where is the universal Heart? It is deep inside us, where reality constantly grows.”
– Sri Chinmoy
We are each shareholders of the universal heart:
“God tells me that
My happy heart
Increases the beauty
Of His universal Heart.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Now, how can we conquer these forms of temptation? We can conquer them only by surrendering — not to them, but to the divine Light, to the divine Will. How can we do this? We can do it by consciously trying during our meditation to feel that we are the instrument and somebody else is the player. And who is that somebody? It is the Inner Pilot. If we feel that we are the doer, the undivine forces will mock us. They will come and make us proud, haughty, undivine, impure and insecure. So we have to pray to the Supreme during our meditation: ‘O Lord, I am Your instrument. I am so grateful that You have accepted me as Your conscious instrument. Please use me in Your own Way.’
“Just because we have accepted the spiritual life, we are fully conscious of the fact that we are the instruments and God is the Player. If we can maintain that kind of feeling, there will be no temptation. As long as we want to be the doers, wrong forces will come to attack us and devour us. But if we become absolutely helpless and feel, ‘I am the instrument, O God. You play, You utilise me,’ then all the temptation will come and attack our Inner Pilot, God, and He will not be affected at all.
“When we become the lord, when we feel there is no other lord, then the temptation forces will come and attack us. But if we become clever and wise and say, ‘No, no, no, I am not the doer; I am the instrument. The doer is somebody else,’ then those forces will come and attack the Doer, the Omnipotent, the Supreme. And then we will be safe.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“There are various kinds of temptation. One kind of temptation is physical temptation to enter into the pleasure world, the vital world, sex life and all kinds of undivine activities. If we give in to this temptation, it is the death of our spiritual life. It takes years and years and years to come out of this life.
“Another temptation is aggressive vital temptation. This comes in the form of ego. Like Julius Caesar we want to say, ‘I came, I saw, I conquered.’ We are tempted to have everybody come and touch our feet. We want to be powerful and strong so that we can lord it over others. We feel that will give us real satisfaction. When ego comes forward and tempts us, we feel that we are the supreme lord and everybody else is useless.
“In the mental world there is still another kind of temptation. We feel that we know everything, whereas the rest of the world is composed of fools. Everybody, everybody else, is an ignorant fool, and we are the only ones who know everything. In the mental world we are tempted to believe that we possess the sea of wisdom and everybody else possesses the sea of ignorance. We are tempted to believe that we are the only knowers, whereas the rest of the world is a mass of ignorance.
“There is one other form of temptation. This is the temptation to feel that we alone are purity’s flood, and that the rest of the world is all impurity. We are the only pure and divine persons around. This is a form of ego, but it is different from normal ego. It is very subtle and, at the same time, very damaging.”
– Sri Chinmoy
No matter what might go wrong in our life, no matter what we need to go right in our life, no matter what we aspire to achieve or to become in our life, there is one remedy, one solution, one prescription. These poems of Sri Chinmoy wash over us like waves of the ocean of truth, each with its own unique power, beauty, shape and form expressing one recurring message:
“Just a smile
Makes our mind clear,
Our heart pure
And our world new.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“We can disarm
All our fears
Just by challenging them
With a smile.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Soulfully give yourself
A shining smile.
Quickly your haunting nightmare
Will breathe its last.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“To smile sincerely
Is to have a heart
Of peace and bliss.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Now that our smile has liberated us from our own suffering and raised our own consciousness, we find that our smile also has the capacity to transform the world around us, for our smile is the perfect ambassador of our spiritual heart and all its divine qualities:
“A blooming heart
Carries with it
A radiance-smile.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Man’s soulful smile
Is indeed a perfect expression
Of his inner peace.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Our smile announces our own divinity and calls forth the divinity from all around us:
“There is no magical power
As beautiful, powerful and inspiring
As our smiling eyes.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Just one smile
From my gratitude-heart
Immensely increases
The beauty of the universe.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Finally, the purest expression of the power of our smile, the single reason we should strive to always smile, not only every day, but every hour, every minute and every second is distilled in this simple utterance:
“To smile
Is to offer happiness
To the world.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Happiness we all need, true. So, we may imagine that we might pray for happiness – and so we might.
Yet prayer is so much more enjoyable, meaningful and effective, when it is preceded and inspired by happiness. When happiness comes first, when happiness is the source of prayer, our prayer will unfailingly snowball to further and greater happiness.
Happiness itself is pure prayer; prayer, happiness.
It is a common misconception, that prayer must be in its very nature serious and austere.
Yet prayer is in its essence a divine game between two players; parent and child. When we see praying as playing, and playing as praying, both prayer and play assume a new and deeper significance.
Sri Chinmoy wrote:
“The whole creation is God’s Cosmic Game. Again, praying itself is a game. A game means happiness. If we can pray with happiness, then God will definitely fulfil our prayers. When ordinary people pray to God, many times they pray with anxiety, worries, self-doubt and so forth. When sincere seekers pray, they do not have anxiety, worries or impure thoughts. Everything is positive. They feel the game itself is joy.
“In our outer life, we do not feel that the game itself is joy. The importance of the game is only in the results. If we win, then only we get joy. That is a totally mistaken idea. When we pray, we should feel that the prayer itself is joy. We are praying to God Himself. We should be so grateful to God that He has given us the capacity to pray to Him. God says to us, ‘I want to play with you, My child. But I want you to play happily and self-givingly.’
“So prayer itself is a game of happiness, cheerfulness and fulness.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Bethel was the envy of everyone, considered the healthiest, smartest, most athletic and certainly the most beautiful, for she was by far the fattest – and in caterpillar world, when it comes to beauty, the plumper the better. In every way, Bethel’s life was perfect: she had admiring friends, supportive family, and spent all day feasting to her heart’s content upon an endless all-you-can-eat buffet of succulent foliage.
And yet – Bethel was not content. Something was missing from her life, from her heart. She knew not what she was missing, only that she longed for some deeper sense of fulfilment, authenticity, meaning and purpose. At first, she ignored this vague feeling, trying to shut it out by working on her beauty, eating voraciously for hours at a stretch till she positively bulged. Though outwardly full, she still felt inwardly incomplete, this gnawing void in her heart only growing deeper, the silent call more insistent.
The fateful moment arrived. Bethel stopped eating. Her friends and her whole community were aghast. No one could figure out what had happened to her. They called her sick, ungrateful, even insane. Then to make matters worse, Bethel completely withdrew, spinning a kind of sleeping bag into which she could fully retreat. Without a word she was gone. Her family and friends went back to chomping and gorging themselves, managing to ignore the odd sleeping bag slumped in the corner where she was last seen.
In caterpillar time, a week is beyond calculation. Then it happened. The sleeping bag started to twitch; something was struggling to emerge from within. Everyone stopped what they were doing and watched wonderstruck, as new Bethel slowly appeared. Standing poised for a moment, she carefully spread her dazzling wings and again without a word, gracefully ascended into the sky.
Most people embark on the journey of meditation because they feel unhappy and unfulfilled. They feel something is missing – and hope that the practise of meditation will bring forth the clarity, happiness, confidence and satisfaction that has been absent.
Meditation initiates a process of transformation from within. Transformation requires change. We all want transformation, yet most do not welcome change, for change involves giving up old ways and habits which we are attached to – such as depression, doubt, fear, frustration, negative thinking and self-indulgence.
From time to time, when we face hurdles in our meditation practise and spiritual life, we may feel it is all too difficult and even yearn to return to our “old” life, before we embarked on our spiritual journey. We conveniently forget all the problems we faced in those days, the mental and emotional turmoil we endured.
How can we muster the courage and determination to continue our spiritual journey, and resist this temptation to return to our old familiar, desire-bound life?
If ever you find yourself regretting your spiritual choices, try this exercise:
Whatever it is that you miss from your old life – consciously picture yourself in that activity or frame of mind, or having or doing what you are missing … and then, in your imagination, picture your life in fast forward – not as you wish it would be, but as you know it most probably will turn out. Watch where each thread, each action, each choice, each possession, each involvement, each attachment takes you, all the way to the end of your life. Play it like a movie: you are the observer.
This movie inevitably ends in failure and misery. To envisage and then script a far better ending, continue meditating with ever-new eagerness, determination, love, joy and gratitude.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
– Lao Tzu
Many feel they are too impure, imperfect or unqualified to embark on a spiritual Path, so they shelve the idea. Yet as Sri Chinmoy explains, here and now is our ideal starting point:
“We have to be on the move like an elephant — but not a mad elephant. An elephant goes to this side and hits a wall; it gets hurt. It goes to that side and hits another wall; again it gets hurt. But at least there is movement. Then, after some time, the elephant will find another way; there will be a door wide open, and the elephant will go out. But if the elephant just stands still waiting for the walls to be removed, it will never be free.
“If a swimmer waits for the waves and billows to subside before he jumps into the ocean, then he will wait forever. Ten metres ahead he will see a huge wave and wait for it to subside. Then he will see another wave coming from twenty metres away. Like this it will go on and on. If you want to wait for the right moment, that right moment will never come — never!”
– Sri Chinmoy
We each have many barriers standing in our way. But if we do not start our journey because of them, we will never start, and these barriers will only loom ever-larger and more defiant. If we were already perfect, we would not need meditation and the spiritual life. It is precisely because of our imperfections that we urgently need to dive into meditation and embrace the spiritual life.
Hence every spiritual Path tells us – just start with what you have and what you are, here and now.
Continuing Sri Chinmoy’s answer: “God has many aspects: Peace, Light, Bliss, Power and so forth. But every day if you can meditate for ten or fifteen minutes only on Peace, then you will see that whenever somebody does something wrong to you, immediately your peace will be able to swallow it. Suppose somebody has done something wrong. You have every right to be angry with that person, but you know that by getting angry with him you are only losing your precious peace of mind. If you have already acquired abundant peace from your meditation, then you will see that your peace, like the sea, will be able to swallow others’ misbehaviour or misdeeds.
“So please meditate daily on Peace. If you have peace, you cannot be angry with anybody. And if you do not have inner peace, then at every moment you will be angry with others even if they have not done anything. Why? Because you do not have peace in your own inner being. When you are wanting in peace, the whole world is doing something absurd, acting like a mad elephant, according to your judgement. But if you have abundant peace within, then you will see that you have the capacity to transform others’ misdeeds.
“If you love humanity, then please acquire and develop inner peace. This inner peace is bound to change the face of the world. You will see that people will not misbehave to the extent that they are misbehaving right now. Peace is one of the most important aspects of God. When your whole outer existence is flooded with peace, you will see that anger cannot exist either within you or without you. Anger at that time will become a real stranger to you.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“I lose my heart’s
Flower-fragrance
When I allow myself
To be owned by anger.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“The mind’s volcano-anger
Is no match for
The heart’s fountain-love.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Anger can be replaced
Only with a genuine feeling
Of inseparable oneness.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“How to dissolve yesterday’s anger?
Just inundate it
With today’s peace of mind!”
– Sri Chinmoy
These beautiful poems contrast the presence of anger against the divine realities of peace, love and oneness. Where the divine qualities rule, you cannot have anger, and vice versa. What then can we do on a practical level, when anger has already taken hold of us?
When Sri Chinmoy was asked: “When we are angry and feel annoyance with other people, what is the best way to deal with it?” he answered:
“When you are angry with someone please ask yourself whether by getting angry with him, by showing your eyes like fire and bullets, are you gaining anything or not. Naturally your answer will be, ‘No.’ But when you meditate, what do you expect? Peace, Light, Delight and Power. When we have peace of mind, then we are in a position to conquer our anger.
“When anger comes, sometimes you feel it is coming from outside and sometimes you feel it is coming from within. If it is coming from outside, try to feel that an enemy is entering into you. If it is from within that anger is coming, then feel that you have allowed a new enemy to live with you and now you have to try to kill it. How? With peace. When we are attacked from within, we use peace to kill the inner enemy who in an unconscious moment has entered into us and made its abode.”
– Sri Chinmoy
