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
Sri Chinmoy’s answer continues: “When you are angry with someone or about to become angry, please feel the necessity of your oneness with him. Feel that anger is not possible. Say to yourself, ‘If I am angry then how can I become one with him?’ Then try to repeat as fast as possible, seven times, the word ‘love’. After you have finished repeating ‘love’, utter the name of the person with whom you are angry. After you have repeated ‘love’, then throw this love into the person with whom you are angry. Bring his understanding inside your own creation which is love. Then you will see that this love will become a reality.
“If anger tortures you, please follow the positive path, the path of aspiration, every day. If you aspire daily, you will get inner love, inner wealth. The product of this inner love is peace. When you have money, you go to the bank and deposit it. That is your outer wealth. When you aspire, you get inner wealth. That inner wealth you deposit here inside your heart. When you are angry, immediately think of what you did early in the morning. You prayed or meditated for half an hour and at that time you gained your inner wealth. When you think of your meditation, you get again that inner wealth, and now you can use your inner wealth. Just touch that inner wealth and you will see that it will solve the problem. Invoke your inner wealth and give to others not money or gold, but peace and love. Your outer wealth can bind you, but your inner wealth can conquer ignorance. At that time ignorance will not affect you, because God is inside you with all His protection.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Sri Chinmoy writes: “Suppose we are constantly at the mercy of anger. Now, if we can establish peace in our being, we will not have anger. How do we do this? We do not think of anger at all; we pray and meditate only for peace. The very nature of peace is to spread. When peace spreads its wings inside our being, our anger is bound to be transformed because it comes under the influence of peace.”
– Sri Chinmoy
On overcoming destructive anger, Sri Chinmoy explains:
“Anger comes precisely because we are lacking in oneness. If we have the feeling of oneness with the world, then anger does not come. The difficulty is that we try to perfect others before we perfect ourselves. We see that something has been done which is not perfection itself and we want perfection from the world first. But this perfection we can never have unless and until we can perfect ourselves. If I am perfect, then the world is blessed with a perfect man. When you and I are both perfect, then the world is blessed with two perfect men.
“So in our spiritual life we try to see perfection in this way. We feel that if we become perfect, then already we have made it easier for the world-consciousness to control or conquer its anger. How can we perfect ourselves? It is aspiration that carries us to our perfection. If we aspire, then we include humanity at large in our aspiration. When we really aspire, nobody is excluded from our aspiring consciousness. But when we desire, we try to separate ourselves from the world. Anger is one of the children of ignorance. If we can conquer ignorance then there can be no anger.”
– Sri Chinmoy
To conquer our anger, we must invoke the stronger and higher powers of love, peace, patience, poise and forgiveness. These powers we can find and gradually embody only through the regular practise of meditation.
Offering advice on how to conquer anger through meditation, Sri Chinmoy writes:
“For some time, concentrate only on divine Peace and leave aside all other divine qualities. During your meditation, try to bring down Peace, sublime and solid, from Above. Your enemy is anger. Anger’s enemy is Peace. Anger openly hates Peace. If you invoke Peace soulfully, then anger will hate you ruthlessly and never will it enter into you, your life, consciously or unconsciously.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Invoking peace during our meditation is a long-term project: we will not become flooded with peace to the extent that we lose all our anger overnight. Meanwhile, here is another approach to employ when we feel anger at someone brewing inside us: instead of blaming that person, try instead to identify with their weakness. Putting yourself in their shoes, you will see there is some good reason why they behaved so badly. Ask yourself: “Have I ever done anything so stupid or heartless or negligent in my life?” Of course the answer will be: “Yes, I have done millions of wrong things and committed countless mistakes.” Since you are ready to forgive yourself for your own blunders, you must be ready also to forgive and forget the blunders of this person.
If you take this approach:
“By this time, anger will lose all its hunger for you and it will not be at all interested in devouring you. It will leave you, it will go elsewhere to knock at the door of somebody else.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Anger is
The tormentor
Of its possessor.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Anger is ink spilt and thrown over one’s graceful heart of sweetness.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Power should make one stronger. Yet anger is a power that makes us weaker. The stronger our anger, the weaker we become. We know this, for anger robs us of our greatest treasures – our poise, inner peace, emotional balance, mental clarity and above all, happiness. When we become angry we are indeed ugly to behold. We do not possess anger: anger possesses us
How then can we learn to diminish, and ultimately control our anger? In this passage,
Sri Chinmoy writes of the destructive capacity of anger:
“Anger is a great obstacle. The after-effect of anger is frustration and depression. We should take anger as a thief. Its very nature is to steal. We have love inside us and it is our treasure. If we allow anger, the thief, to enter into us, then it will immediately steal our inner treasure. When this happens we must immediately call the police. That is to say, when anger assails us we must cry inwardly for deep aspiration to come to the fore and chase away our anger. If we love someone, we cannot get angry; but for the time being we have lost our love. In order to regain our love, we have to call our aspiration-police to save our most precious love-treasure.
“Again, when anger comes to us we have to feel that it is something that is breaking us. We have come into the world to build. If we build something, then only will the world appreciate and admire us. So we have to see which qualities build our nature. Love and peace build our real life; anger only destroys.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Turbulence in our minds and emotions is so common, to have a chaotic inner life is accepted as the normal state of being. Yet the natural state for a healthy human is to have a clear mind and calm emotions.
When next you find your mind distracted, confused or perplexed, or your emotions in upheaval, find a place where you can be alone.
Sit still in your meditation posture with your eyes closed and focus for a minute or more on calming your breath. Once you are satisfied that your breath is under control, imagine you are seated outside in Nature.
It is the silent pre-dawn, and all around you is wrapped in dense fog. This is the fog of your thoughts and emotions, all-encompassing, inescapable and impenetrable.
Gradually, you sense the impending arrival of the dawn, for the air becomes brighter. Gaze fixedly at the point in the sky where you know the sun to be, and do not shift your gaze. Your aim is to see the sun. You know the sun is there, a vague luminous presence behind the omnipresent mist.
Looking at the point where you know the sun to be, imagine you can actually see the sun in all its beauty, power and brilliance. Feel the warmth of the sun on your cheeks and in your heart, imagine the joy and the thrill that the sun brings, coursing through your veins, tingling in your nerves, shining through your face.
Do not pay any attention to the fog enveloping you. It is no longer relevant.
Before long, the sun does its thing and clears away the mist. You are now seeing the sun for real, more beautiful and powerful even than you had imagined.
A baby’s eyes drink in the world with no ego-awareness, no thoughts, no judgement, no motive and no shame. To meet the gaze of a baby is to be engulfed in wonder and captive to an all-flowering divinity.
Imagine you are on a crowded subway. You notice some passengers: a derelict old man, possibly a drunk; an upper-class lady, prim and proper; a heavily tattooed menacing-looking thug. Standing across from you, a young mother absorbed in scrolling her phone, holds her baby with one arm. As the mother pivots, the baby’s eyes meet yours and gaze right into you, transfixed as though witness to a miracle.
Your outer world dissolves as you are drawn utterly into the steady silent stare of these wide-round eyes, purity-soft, agleam with fathomless innocence. Your eyes leap open, your face a pantomime of animated affection as your dancing heart embraces the baby’s sweet gaze in an eager flood of wordless love, play and light. Time and place cease. Each worry of your life is evaporated, every problem never was. The exchange lasts moments – moments in which a baby’s eyes summon from your dormant heart the all-encompassing truth of eternal beauty.
The mother pivots to her left and the baby’s eyes fix on the scruffy old man. You follow the baby’s gaze: the man’s face aglow with an unhorizoned smile of timeless wisdom and mystic freedom. Next the baby peers at the proper lady, summoning from deep behind her façade a compassion-heart aching with an aeon of human suffering. With its next glance, the baby transforms the tattooed thug into itself, his pure mirror-eyes the radiant perfection-proclamation of innocence-sweetness.
For purity, simplicity and tranquillity in all your being, see yourself in a baby’s eyes, then see the world through its unblinking gaze.
