“Problems disappear
When the inner cries
Become stronger.”
– Sri Chinmoy
We sometimes feel that we have to enter into a problem in order to solve it. Yet when we focus on a problem and analyse it, we donate to it our precious awareness: strengthening and emboldening the problem, and increasing its hold over us. We have only to dive into our inner cry, and let it do its thing.
Just as light and darkness cannot coexist in the same space, even so the sleep of ignorance cannot persist when we are consumed with an inner cry for illumination. Rather than worry about our ignorance, we need only to treasure and nurture our inner cry.
Sri Chinmoy gave many illumining answers to the challenge of overcoming ignorance. Here are two of them:
“The only way for you to break your ties with ignorance is through your constant, conscious inner cry. When you pray, meditate and aspire, sometimes you do it consciously and sometimes you do it unconsciously. It is your obligation to be conscious all the time. When you pray and meditate you have to do it consciously. Your constant and conscious inner cry can alone free you from ignorance. It is the only answer.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“How can you overcome ignorance? It is through your aspiration that you can conquer ignorance. When you cry, you can’t sleep. Again, when you sleep, you don’t cry. When a child is really sleeping, he cannot cry. He has to awaken first. Similarly, if you can cry, then you cannot sleep. Always try to cry inwardly. The outer cry is for name and fame; the inner cry is for light, peace and bliss. If you can cry for peace, light and bliss, then ignorance-sleep will automatically leave you.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“The inner cry creates receptivity.
Inside receptivity, gratitude flows.
Nothing else can produce it.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Gratitude is the most precious attainment in our spiritual life. Gratitude keeps our spiritual heart open, fresh and pure, a natural home for our higher self to grow, play and flourish.
Gratitude is a rare dazzling butterfly that flits around the periphery of our imagination, mostly eluding our grasp. It is we who must make of ourselves a fit receptacle to receive and hold gratitude. How?
“It is through the constant inner cry. We cry outwardly when we desperately need name, fame, outer capacity, prosperity and so forth. But when we cry inwardly, we have to feel that we are crying only to please and fulfil God in His own Way. The outer cry is for our own fulfilment, in our own way. The inner cry is for God-fulfilment in God’s own Way. If there is a constant inner cry, that means we are trying to please God, satisfy God and fulfil God in God’s own Way. If we can cry inwardly, in silence, then our gratitude increases, because inside the inner cry is the abode of gratitude, and inside the abode of gratitude is God.”
– Sri Chinmoy
How then, to keep our inner cry, so gratitude can grow in us?
“When you aspire for the inner cry, you should know that that very cry comes from God’s Concern and Compassion. So the most important thing is to offer your gratitude. If you offer gratitude, then immediately your inner cry increases. It becomes continuous and constant. When you offer gratitude, your inner cry mounts to the highest.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Our inner cry creates receptivity, which ushers in gratitude, which enhances our inner cry – parent and child of our spiritual growth.
In the spiritual life, no matter what our question, purpose or goal, the answer will always be revealed by our inner cry. And if we do not consciously have any question, purpose or goal, they too will be revealed by our inner cry.
Sri Chinmoy was once asked a question that goes to the very function of the spiritual life: what is the best way to raise one’s consciousness and maintain that level?
“The best way to raise your consciousness is through inner cry. Then, in order to maintain your consciousness there on the highest level, you have to establish considerable purity in the vital. First, with your inner cry, your aspiration, you go up; then, through purity in the vital you will be able to stay there for good.”
– Sri Chinmoy
The inner cry is the seed that germinates and enlivens, the clue that solves, the key that opens, the spark that ignites our consciousness’ growth and upward trajectory. Yet, Sri Chinmoy says that to maintain this higher consciousness, to avoid descending again, another essential quality is required: purity.
So, to raise one’s consciousness, an inner cry is needed, and then to maintain our higher consciousness, we need purity. How then, can we obtain purity? We return to where we began: the same inner cry both starts and completes the circle…
“It is through our constant inner cry that we achieve purity and increase purity. When our inner cry climbs up, we gradually illumine our whole being, and when illumination takes place, all purity enters into us. There are a few spiritual exercises that help the seeker in acquiring purity. But the purity that lasts forever, the purity of the highest order, we get only from our inner cry for the highest Supreme.”
– Sri Chinmoy
We know that to progress in the spiritual life, we need self-discipline. How and where can we find this self-discipline? Sri Chinmoy writes:
“A disciplined life can come from only one thing, and that is aspiration, our inner cry. At any hour, that inner cry reaches God, and God is bound to fulfil that inner cry. If one wants to discipline himself, if one is dissatisfied with his loose life, and if he feels that from a disciplined life he can have realisation, he can have real fulfilment, perfection and satisfaction, then God is bound to help that particular sincere seeker. If there is an inner cry, then nothing on earth can be denied. No fulfilment can be denied to an individual who has an inner cry.”
“We cry as human beings for name and fame, for many things. But we do not cry for the one thing which is of paramount importance, and that is God’s inner Wealth. What is that inner Wealth? His inner Wealth is Divine Fulfilment, Divine Perfection. We are all imperfect. No human being is perfect. No. But again, our aim is to be perfectly perfect. This perfect perfection can only come from self-discipline. God is all ready. He is more than eager to offer His perfect Perfection. But for that perfect Perfection, we have to grow into a mounting cry which we call aspiration, constant aspiration. When this flame of aspiration rises towards the Highest, it illumines everything around it which is dark. Then, the higher it goes, the greater and more fulfilling is our manifestation.”
“With our inner cry we can have a self-disciplined life. With self-discipline we can get the inner wealth of self-discovery. Self-discipline is the precursor of self-discovery. Self-discovery is the harbinger of God-Manifestation.”
“If your inner cries are deep,
Then your outer smiles
Will be most powerful.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“What gives life its value,
If not its inner cry
For self-transcendence?”
– Sri Chinmoy
Our inner cry is God’s assurance, God’s voice, God’s guidance and God’s action within us. It is God calling us home.
Our inner cry is the agency of peace, light and bliss; the gateway to happiness, guardian of truth and guarantor of perfection. It at once fills and fulfills, uplifts and enlightens, justifies and glorifies our existence.
The inner cry replaces instinct and transcends evolution as we consciously embrace and actively join in the inward dive, forward march and upward flight of our spiritual life-journey. The inner cry is at once the current propelling our life-river forward toward its ocean-destination; and the gravity-pull beckoning and compelling our life-river to reunite with its ocean-source.
The inner cry recognises that we have somehow drifted far from our natural state, and we need to rediscover who we are and why we are here; that we have become lost and need to find our way back home; that we are carrying a heavy weight of imperfection which we need to lose to fly into the perfection-sky; that we have turned our backs on our souls, and needs must reclaim our inherent divinity which is our birthright.
The inner cry is absolutely for all. The inner cry requires no qualifications, learning or skill; no capacity; no fee; no passport or visa. It cares not what we look like; how we sound; what our income, address, profession or status; what our beliefs or religion; how we dress or behave; what we like or dislike.
Tucked away in every heart, forever at our beck and call, our only indispensable necessity – our inner cry.
We are used to approaching life and its many questions, mysteries and challenges from a scientific viewpoint. We have come to assume that science either already has, or will be able to find the answer to every question and the solution to every problem.
Yet science can only go so far: faced with the inner realms of the Self, the scientific method must give way to more direct means of perceiving the truth. Sri Chinmoy writes:
“Ours is not a scientific path; we approach God psychically, from the heart. We notice inside our hearts a mounting flame that is climbing high, higher, highest. This flame is our inner cry for God. When we cry, when the inner flame mounts up, it illumines all our darkness, ignorance and bondage. When we pray and meditate, we intensify this cry and our consciousness rises towards the highest. Since this cry comes from the heart, we call our path psychic discovery and not scientific discovery.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Sri Chinmoy speaks of the inner cry as a mounting flame. This same flame, as it rises and expands, raises our consciousness and illumines all our darkness. The inner cry is not only the spark which ignites our aspiration, stirs our inner yearning and prompts our self-search; it is the very flaming of aspiration itself; and the spreading, all-illumining light which answers the very questions it posed, and fulfills the very longing it voiced forth.
Born as a helpless yearning, our inner cry morphs into a daring, transforming journey – and ultimately reveals itself as the fulfillment of that yearning and destination of that journey.
Our inner cry is the Goal itself, come to us disguised as a question, a puzzle, a mystery; a self-completing circle of fulfillment; God’s game of hide-and-seek within us.
“Now that sincerity
Is your real name,
Your heart’s inner cry
Shall be able to answer
All your life’s questions.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Sincerity and the inner cry are interdependent. Each has the other’s back: they protect, nurture and depend on each other. An inner cry is sincerity’s choice; sincerity, the inner cry’s voice.
An inner cry devoid of sincerity is meaningless. Sincerity bereft of an inner cry, pointless. Sincerity focuses the inner cry, which gives purpose to sincerity.
Sri Chinmoy was once asked, how we can increase the power of our spiritual heart:
“How do we increase our heart-power? By being sincere in our inner cry. The more sincere we are in our inner cry, the sooner our heart-power increases. Sincerity is the living force, the quintessence of everything divine in us. It is the motivating force that increases the heart-power or the real in us. When we cry sincerely and soulfully, the right cause will present itself. Then, we will throw our entire existence into this cause. We will give it all our aspiration-power and dedication-power. At that time, we will find that the power of the heart increases immensely.”
– Sri Chinmoy
All our success and progress, happiness, self-transcendence and personal fulfillment flow from the union of sincerity with inner cry. It is sincerity which shows us we are ignorant and helpless, injecting intensity and urgency into our inner cry. It is sincerity which insists on a sanctum of inner silence, wherein our inner cry is established and finds its voice. It is sincerity which reveals to us the necessity of inner and outer purity, to nourish and liberate our inner cry; sincerity which demands our inner cry stays on its toes; sincerity which rallies us always to heed and follow our heart’s inner cry.
“There is something that can never be old,
And that is my heart’s inner cry.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“As you cannot remain alive
With yesterday’s food,
Even so, today you cannot remain
Spiritually alive
With yesterday’s inner cry.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Our inner cry impels us always forward, inward and upward. The moment our inner cry recedes, our progress stalls and we start to fall backwards, slide outwards, slip downwards. Our inner cry envelopes us with energy and dynamism; when it ceases, we lapse into lethargy and stagnation.
That is why our inner cry has to be new, refreshed at every moment, or it loses impetus, tires, becomes a whimper and accepts defeat. Like a fire that has to be continually stoked, to remain alive and effective, our inner cry requires our constant attention, concern and vigilance; it thrives and flourishes when it is loved, treasured and appreciated.
Just as our heart’s inner cry can never be old, so the radiance of its constant yearning keeps us ever young and childlike. Focused always on our expansion, purity and progress, our inner cry keeps our consciousness fresh and youthful; our most effective anti-ageing agent.
Like a self-charging battery, the more we engage our inner cry, the more it energises us with purity, clarity, inspiration and purpose.
Our heart’s inner cry is the current of our spiritual life-river. As long as the current is surging, the river is perpetually renewing itself. And like the current, which seems to propel the river forwards yet is actually following gravity’s call beckoning the river towards the ocean – so is the architect and origin of our inner cry not our own heart, but our own eternity’s Source.
We are the children of our inner cry; our inner cry the voice of our child-pure heart-sky.
The inner cry is our visa to pass beyond the mind, into the realms of meditation, spiritual progress and self-transcendence. Yet this visa must constantly be renewed with inner purity, sincerity and intensity, or else it lapses as the inner cry fades.
Sri Chinmoy has spoken beautifully of what is required to keep our inner cry alive:
“You can make your inner cry more sincere by feeling at every second that you are helpless, absolutely helpless and hopeless without God. With God, with God’s Love, Concern and Guidance, you become omnipotent, but without God you are impotent. When you feel that kind of helpless feeling, then your inner cry will come to the fore spontaneously. When you feel that you are helpless without God, your inner cry comes to the fore with utmost sincerity. Why do you cry? You cry because you feel that you do not have something which you badly need. You cry for your conscious oneness with Infinity, Eternity and Immortality. These three divine blessings are your own, only you have to rediscover them. They are your own inner wealth which you have lost or misplaced. But you have every right to search for them and cry to the Supreme for them. In order to have that inner cry, always try to feel that you are absolutely helpless. When you feel helpless, automatically your aspiration grows. When you feel helpless, you will feel that the right thing is to pray and meditate. You will not try to make yourself miserable and helpless so that you can have a good meditation, but when pride or jealousy or lethargy or lack of aspiration come, cry inwardly to regain your own inner treasure. You have every right to cry for your own lost treasure.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“An inner cry
Is the only remedy
For mind-caused problems.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“To reach the outer sky
I fly and fly.
To reach the inner sky
I cry and cry.”
– Sri Chinmoy
The inner cry is the only treasure we will ever need. The inner cry is the secret and secure passageway from our blind, ignorant, finite self to our illumined, liberated, infinite Self.
Before crying for anything or anyone, we must cry to attain the inner cry. And then, to retain, intensify, sweeten, brighten, purify and perfect the inner cry, always and at every moment.
Pouring ourselves utterly into the inner cry, is the fastest and most effective way to silence the mind, calm the emotions, open and widen our heart, sharpen our awareness, focus our will, harness our energy, maximise our capacities, fulfill our potential and realise our purpose.
When our inner cry is perfect, everything in our life becomes perfect.
Like a hot-air balloon that is fixed to the ground, our ego-bound mind weighs us down, tethering us with its thoughts, concepts and formulas, to the definable and the describable, the limited, the finite, the futile and false. Focusing on the finite, our thinking and imagining become encased in the finite, and we pretend and even believe ourselves to be finite. The inner cry loosens and releases the cords tying our consciousness-balloon to the ground, freeing us to rise above our small plot of ego, to envision beyond the valleys of the known, to soar over ever-receding horizons of possibility, to fly into the illumined freedom-sky of our soul.
The inner cry costs nothing, and gives everything. Invisible, it reveals all to be seen. Unknowable, it makes everything known. The more intense the budding inner cry, the more radiant the blossoming outer smile.
“No, it is not possible
For any inner cry
To remain unheard.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“If there is an inner cry, then nothing on earth can be denied. No fruit can be denied an individual who has an inner cry.”
– Sri Chinmoy
The inner cry is the secret that answers all questions, the key that unlocks all mysteries, the treasure that fulfills every need. The inner cry is the nourishment that sumptuously feeds all, the peacemaker who resolves all disputes, our protector who slays every dragon. The inner cry is the magic wand that dispels all darkness, the medicine that heals every illness, the wealth that ends all suffering. The inner cry is our ticket to heaven, agent of our transformation, guarantor of the world’s liberation, and usher of universal perfection.
When our inner cry is not genuine, we know it. Our inner cry is invoked, awakened and fuelled by our sincerity: when we don’t feed our inner cry with absolute sincerity, it simply stays in hiding; it has no voice, charm or brilliance, it doesn’t work and cannot play its role.
When our inner cry is accompanied by our hearts’ sincere tears of yearning, we feel it, and we become it.
Then our cry sets to work, overcoming our body’s lethargy, overriding our vital’s restlessness, cancelling our mind’s doubt and hesitation, subduing pride and ego, bypassing insecurity and jealousy, obliterating fear, suspicion, division and all ignorance.
The inner cry always finds, follows and pursues the path forward and upward. How? Because our inner cry is an emissary directly from our higher self, from our soul, from God. Our inner cry is God within us, our own home, reaching down, entering into, and raising up our lower self to unite us with our eternal Self, our Source.
“When a child cries, no matter where his mother is, the mother comes. She knows the child is hungry; he needs milk. In the spiritual life also, when we cry for Peace, Light and Bliss, immediately a spiritual Master will come.”
– Sri Chinmoy
The child’s role is only to cry; the mother’s role is to meet the child’s need.
A child cries with utmost sincerity, intensity and commitment. There is no calculation, hidden agenda or ulterior motive. The child is not even thinking of why or for what they cry; they just cry with their whole being, becoming their cry and nothing else, with no part of themself observing, reserved or standing aloof. It’s all in.
It is the mother’s job to know what the child is crying for and to fulfil that cry.
If we are sincere, we have to acknowledge that, spiritually, we are little children, we are babies – we don’t know who we are, where we have come from, where we are heading, or how we will get there. So, like the babies we are, our only task and need is to cry within, wholeheartedly and unreservedly. It is then up to our soul, our spiritual Master or God to answer and fulfil our cry.
The child who doesn’t cry is left alone by their parents, who assume they have everything they need and are happy. Similarly, if we do not cry with utmost intensity and sincerity as a small child, then God, our own soul and the higher forces will likely leave us alone, assuming we are not in need of any inner assistance, guidance or nourishment.
All book knowledge and meditation techniques are of no avail, unless we are consumed with the only indispensable requirement for spiritual progress: our inner cry.
“We start with a cry, an inner cry. A child is not taught by the mother how to cry. The mother does not tell the child that he has to cry. She does not teach the little baby, ‘If you cry, then I will give you candy. If you cry, I will give you milk.’ No, it comes spontaneously. When he needs a piece of candy or milk or something, he cries. In the spiritual life also, when the seeker enters onto a path, if he cries most sincerely and soulfully, then that is more than enough. At that time, the Inner Pilot, the Supreme, who is my Guru, your Guru and everybody’s Guru, listens to this cry.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Evolution is continuous. We have all been evolving since the beginning of creation; we are all evolving now; and we shall all continue evolving for all time. As the stars in a galaxy, ants in a colony, troops in an army, or the moving parts of a machine are guided by some central force, intelligence or mechanism, be it gravity, magnetism, electricity, instinct, intuition or ropes and pullies – the agent of evolution, its executive will, is expressed in all of mankind through our inner cry.
Our inner cry is instinctive, intelligent and intuitive, and operates on every level of our being – physical, vital, mental, psychic and spiritual. We cry for food, warmth and shelter in our physical world; for energy, power and capacity in our vital domain; for knowledge, understanding and control in our mind; for peace, light, love and bliss in our heart. Our inner cry forecasts, guides and expedites both our outer material success and our inner spiritual progress; our success and progress in turn must nourish, treasure, elevate and intensify our inner cry.
