Selected Writings
The following are excerpts from just a few of the books that are available on this website.
Meditation: Man-Perfection in God-Satisfaction
Excerpt: Why do we meditate? We meditate because this world of ours has not been able to fulfil us. The so-called peace that we feel in our day-to-day life is five minutes of peace after ten hours of anxiety, worry and frustration. We are constantly at the mercy of the negative forces that are all around us: jealousy, fear, doubt, worry, anxiety and despair. These forces are like monkeys. When they get tired of biting us and take rest for a few minutes, then we say that we are enjoying peace. But this is not real peace at all, and the next moment they will attack us again.
It is only through meditation that we can get lasting peace, divine peace. If we meditate soulfully in the morning and receive peace for only one minute, that one minute of peace will permeate our whole day. And when we have a meditation of the highest order, then we get really abiding peace, light and delight. We need meditation because we want to grow in light and fulfil ourselves in light. If this is our aspiration, if this is our thirst, then meditation is the only way.
Death and Reincarnation
Excerpt: God has chosen the conditions under which you are living your present life. It is like a play. The stage is set and the curtain has been raised for you to perform your part and advance along the spiritual path. Your present conditions are the best possible ones for your advancement.
Question: Can you say something about eternity and the eternal life?
Sri Chinmoy: Being a spiritual man, I can say on the strength of my own inner realisation that the soul does not die. We know that we are eternal. We have come from God, we are in God, we are growing into God and we are going to fulfil God. Life and death are like two rooms; going from life to death is like going from one room to the other. Where I am now is my living room. Here I am talking to you, meditating with you, looking at you. Here I have to show my physical body; I have to work and be active and show my life. Then there is another room, my bedroom. There I take rest; I sleep. There I do not have to show my existence to anybody; I am only for myself.
My Life's Soul-Journey
Excerpt: Let us not worry over the future. Let us think of the present. As you sow, so you reap. In the past perhaps you have not sown the proper seed. Let us say your inner cry was not intense in the past and that is why your aspiration is not strong now. If you sow a seed now, it will germinate and become a plant and eventually grow into a giant banyan tree. So if we sow the proper seed-that is to say; aspiration-then the aspiration-tree will bear fruit, which we call realisation. But if we do not sow the proper seed inside ourselves, then how can we get the proper fruit? So let us not worry about the future. Let us only do the right thing today, at this moment, here and now. Try to aspire now, today; and let the future take care of itself.
Everest-Aspiration
Spirituality is man's conscious longing for God. Spirituality tells us that God, who is unknowable today, will tomorrow become knowable and, the day after, will become totally known.
We must need God for God's sake. God can fulfil us in our own way, but it is we who will not be truly fulfilled when God satisfies us in our own way. Our crying heart, our aspiring heart, our illumining heart, will never be satisfied unless and until it pleases God in God's own Way; therefore, our God-realisation is for God's sake. Man's perfection lies in God-satisfaction.
A beginningless beginning tells us that spirituality is an aspiration-plant. This plant grows and grows; eternally it grows. An endless end tells us that spirituality is a surrender-tree. This tree bears divine fruits, and these fruits come to us on the strength of our constant, conscious and surrendered oneness with our Beloved Supreme.
The Master and the Disciple
A real spiritual Master is one who has attained God-realisation. Everyone is one with God, but the real spiritual Master has established his conscious oneness with God. At any moment he can enter into a higher consciousness and bring down messages from God to those disciples who have faith in him. The Master, if he is genuine, represents God on earth for those seekers who have real aspiration and faith in him. He has been authorised or commissioned by God to help them. The real Teacher, the real Guru, is God Himself. But on earth He will often operate in and through a spiritual Master. The Master energises the seeker with inspiration and, in the course of time, through the infinite Grace of the Supreme, offers the seeker illumination.
Yoga and the Spiritual Life
No price is too great to pay for inner peace. Peace is the harmonious control of life. It is vibrant with life-energy. It is a power that easily transcends all our worldly knowledge. Yet it is not separate from our earthly existence. If we open the right avenues within, this peace can be felt here and now.
Peace is eternal. It is never too late to have peace. Time is always ripe for that. We can make our life truly fruitful if we are not cut off from our Source, which is the Peace of Eternity.
The greatest misfortune that can come to a human being is to lose his inner peace. No outer force can rob him of it. It is his own thoughts, his own actions, that rob him of it.
The Garland of Nation-Souls
Each nation has five members in its family: Inspiration, aspiration, realisation, revelation and manifestation. The body needs inspiration. The vital needs aspiration. The mind needs realisation. The heart needs revelation. The soul needs manifestation.
The body wants to walk. The vital wants to run. The mind wants to fly. The heart wants to dive. The soul wants to be.
Inspiration without aspiration cannot see God. Aspiration without realisation cannot reach God. Realisation without revelation cannot glorify God. Revelation without manifestation cannot fulfil God.
Each nation has a soul of its own. The soul is at once God's illumining Activity and the nation's fulfilling capacity. Each nation is the involution of its highest Light and the evolution of its inmost Power. Immortality is the homeland of the soul. Eternity is the life of the soul. Infinity is the reality of the soul.
A Child’s Heart and A Child’s Dream
Because a child lives in the heart, he always feels that his mother or his father will take care of him. All the time he feels that there is protection, there is guidance, there is assistance. So naturally he has confidence in his life. Because he is always in the heart, he feels that there is no need which his parents will not fulfil. If he lived in the mind, he would immediately think, "Oh, perhaps my father will not be able to do this. Perhaps my mother will not be there to help me." Then he would become fearful, doubtful and anxious. But a child does not live in the mind. Similarly, if you want to have a childlike spirit, no matter how old you are, you have to feel that there is Someone with infinitely more Wisdom-Light who is constantly thinking of you, guiding you and protecting you, and that this Person is God.
My Lord’s Secrets Revealed
My question is:
"How can I leave the world
Better than I found it?"
God's answer is:
"Give the world a moment of your concern
And give Me your endless night of ignorance.
Lo, you have achieved your noble goal."
My Flute
The Golden Flute
A sea of Peace and Joy and Light
Beyond my reach I know.
In me the storm-tossed weeping night
Finds room to rage and flow.
I cry aloud, but all in vain;
I helpless, the earth unkind
What soul of might can share my pain?
Death-dart alone I find.
A raft am I on the sea of Time,
My oars are washed away.
How can I hope to reach the clime
Of God's eternal Day?
But hark! I hear Thy golden Flute,
Its notes bring the Summit down.
Now safe am I, O Absolute!
Gone death, gone night's stark frown!
The Summits of God-Life: Samadhi and Siddhi
Question: What is Consciousness?
Sri Chinmoy: Consciousness is the inner spark or inner link in us, the golden link within us that connects our highest and most illumined part with our lowest and most unillumined part. Consciousness is the connecting link between Heaven and earth. Now, where is Heaven? It is not upstairs or somewhere far away. Heaven is in our consciousness. But it is the divine consciousness that connects earth with Heaven. The ordinary human consciousness will only connect us with something very, very limited and, at the same time, very fleeting. For one second we will be able to focus our consciousness on another person, and then our concentration disappears. But when we deal with the inner consciousness, which is the boundless, illumined, transformed consciousness, then our focus of concentration can go on, go on, go on.