Sri Chinmoys message for the New year 2004

Sunday November 30, 2003 10:47

Do not try to change the world. You will fail.
Try to love the world.
Lo, the world is changed,
Changed forever.

When we meditate in silence with utmost devotion, that is one form of meditation. When we try to dedicate our work to God or to the world, that is another form of meditation, which we may call manifestation. At that time we are serving the divinity in humanity.

In order to serve the divinity in humanity effectively, we have to consciously feel God's presence in those we are serving. While we are speaking to someone, we have to feel that we are speaking to the divinity within that person. Otherwise, if we are just helping someone in our own way without any conscious feeling of dedication to the Supreme, that work cannot be considered as a form of manifestation or as meditation in action. If we pray and meditate, we will feel that God is inside everybody, that He is a living reality. God is everywhere and in everything, true. But if we pray and meditate, then this mental belief becomes a real, living truth to us. At that time we will consciously serve each person precisely because we know and feel that God is inside him.

Sri Chinmoy

From: www.srichinmoy.org

I believe that if one man gains spiritually the
whole world gains with him and, if one man falls,
the whole world falls to that extent.
Mahatma Gandhi

Saturday November 29, 2003 22:09

Concentration is the arrow.
Meditation is the bow.

When we concentrate, we focus all our energies upon some subject or object in order to unveil its mysteries. When we meditate, we rise from our limited consciousness into a higher consciousness where the vastness of silence reigns supreme.

Concentration wants to seize the knowledge it aims at. Meditation wants to identify itself with the knowledge it seeks.

Concentration does not allow disturbance, the thief, to enter into its armory. Meditation lets him in. Why? Just to catch the thief red-handed.

Concentration is the commander who orders the dispersed consciousness to come to attention.

Concentration and absolute firmness are not only inseparable but also interdependent divine warriors.

Concentration challenges the enemy to a duel and fights him. Meditation, with its silent smile, diminishes the challenge of the enemy.

Concentration says to God: "Father, I am coming to You." Meditation says to God: "Father, do come to me."

An aspirant has two genuine teachers: concentration and meditation. Concentration is always strict with the student; meditation is strict at times. But both of them are solemnly interested in their student's progress.

Tuesday November 25, 2003 18:57

The Mystic

Angels have talked with him, and showed him thrones:
Ye knew him not: he was not one of ye,
Ye scorned him with an undiscerning scorn;
Ye could not read the marvel in his eye,
The still serene abstraction; he hath felt
The vanities of after and before;
Albeit, his spirit and his secret heart
The stern experiences of converse lives,
The linked woes of many a fiery change
Had purified, and chastened, and made free.
Always there stood before him, night and day,
Of wayward vary colored circumstance,
The imperishable presences serene
Colossal, without form, or sense, or sound,
Dim shadows but unwaning presences
Fourfaced to four corners of the sky;
And yet again, three shadows, fronting one,
One forward, one respectant, three but one;
And yet again, again and evermore,
For the two first were not, but only seemed,
One shadow in the midst of a great light,
One reflex from eternity on time,
One mighty countenance of perfect calm,
Awful with most invariable eyes.
For him the silent congregated hours,
Daughters of time, divinely tall, beneath
Severe and youthful brows, with shining eyes
Smiling a godlike smile (the innocent light
Of earliest youth pierced through and through with all
Keen knowledges of low-embowed eld)
Upheld, and ever hold aloft the cloud
Which droops low hung on either gate of life,
Both birth and death; he in the centre fixt,
Saw far on each side through the grated gates
Most pale and clear and lovely distances.
He often lying broad awake, and yet
Remaining from the body, and apart
In intellect and power and will, hath heard
Time flowing in the middle of the night,
And all things creeping to a day of doom.
How could ye know him? Ye were yet within
The narrower circle; he had wellnigh reached
The last, with which a region of white flame,
Pure without heat, into a larger air
Upburning, and an ether of black blue,
Investeth and ingirds all other lives.

From Project Gutenberg's The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson

Friday November 21, 2003 16:51

"Patient and regular practice is the whole secret of spiritual
realization. Do not be in a hurry in spiritual life. Do your
utmost, and leave the rest to God."
Swami Shivananda

© Sri Chinmoy 2002. All Rights Reserved.

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Thursday November 20, 2003 4:35

From 'The Art Of Being And Becoming'
by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Lastly we come to that most mysterious _expression, and yet an
_expression that is known to all on the religious path: the grace
of God. What is it? It is the friendship of God. It is the friendly
emotion of God. It is not the judging quality of God. When God's
grace comes, it does not come by saying, "Are you worthy; are
you unworthy; do you deserve it; do you not deserve it?" It comes
as emotion, love, devotion, admiration come from friend to friend.
There are no limits to it. It is all right for someone to say that
because in the past incarnation he has done so much evil, in this
life he has a bad time with much suffering; or that in the past
incarnation he has done so much good, that this time he has
become rich. And it is all right for others to say that when they
go to hell for their sins they will be whipped and thrashed and
put into the fire. But when you look at the grace of God, you
forget all these things; no rules, no laws, no deserving or un-
deserving can be distinguished anymore. There is only one thing,
and that is love, love that stands above law.

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Friday November 7, 2003 7:43

Humans have the ability to shift perspective. We can experience the world through our senses. Or we can remove ourselves from our senses and experience the world even less directly. We can think about our life, rather than thinking in our life. We can think about what we think about our life, and we can think about what we think about that. We can shift perceptual positions many times over.

John J. Emerick

Thursday November 6, 2003 8:57

Spiritual evolution occurs as the result of removing
obstacles and not actually acquiring anything new.
Devotion enables surrender of the mind's vanities
and cherished illusions so that it progressively
becomes more free and more open to the light of
Truth.
~Dr. David R. Hawkins

Saturday November 1, 2003 17:32

Mazie Lane

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Saturday November 1, 2003 7:05

The Upanisads

The Upanisads are diverse in character and outlook. They recognize intuition rather than reason as a path to ultimate truth. They also represent a strong reaction against the merely ritual and sacrificial duties on which stress had been laid earlier. The Upanisads are supposed to be 108 or more in number. Twelve of them are generally recognized as the principal units. The Isa Upanisad begins with the statement that whatever exists in This world is enveloped by the Supreme. It is by renunciation and absence of possessiveness that the soul is saved. In the Kena Upaniad, the Goddess Uma Haimavati in the form of Supreme Knowledge expounds the doctrine of the Brahman or Supreme Entity. The Katha Upanisad embodies the aspiration of Naciketas, who declined his father's offer of property and went into exile, making his way to the region of Yama,the God of Death. Naciketas, in his dialogue with Yama, declines all the worldly possessions and dignities offered by Yama and asserts that all enjoyments are transient and the boon he asks for is the secret of immortality. In This Upanisad occurs the famous saying "The knowledge of the Supreme is not gained by argument but by the teaching of one who possesses intuition"

The following is from the Katha Upanishad, translated
by Sanderson Beck. The full upanishad can be read at:
http://www.san.beck.org/Upan2-Katha.html

"The obtaining of desire, the foundation of the world,
the endlessness of power, the other shore of fearlessness,
the greatness of fame, the wide expanses, the foundation,
you, wise Nachiketas, have steadily let them go.
That which is hard to see, entering the hidden,
set in the secret place, dwelling in the primal depth,
by meditating on this as God through the uniting of the soul,
the wise person leaves joy and sorrow behind.
Hearing this and comprehending,
a mortal extracting what is concerned with virtue,
and subtly taking this, rejoices,
having attained the source of joy.

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This page was last updated: 
4/10/05 13:30

This page was last updated:  April 10, 2005 13:30