Sri Chinmoy Quotations

All around us is the cosmic game, the cosmic play. The universe is full of joy, inner and outer. When realisation takes place, we have to feel the necessity of manifesting this constant delight in our heart. The delight glows, but does not burn. It has tremendous intensity, but it is all softness and absolutely sweet-flowing nectar.

Smile, smile, smile at your mind as often as possible. Your smiling will considerably reduce your mind's tearing tension.

Do not try to approach God with your thinking mind. It may only stimulate your intellectual ideas, activities, and beliefs. Try to approach God with your crying heart. It will awaken your soulful, spiritual consciousness.

If you depend on God's grace there is no such thing as impossible.

Belief comes spontaneously as well as by effort. Belief is power. An insincere and uninspired seeker is aware of the truth that belief is power, but he cannot go beyond understanding or awareness; whereas a sincere, genuine, devoted and surrendered seeker knows that belief is dynamic power, and he has this power as his very own.

Ours is a divine journey; therefore, this journey has neither a beginning nor an end... This journey has a goal, but it does not stop at any goal, for it has come to realise that today's goal is only the starting point of tomorrow's journey.

Your heart will be shattered by sorrow If you force it to live In tomorrow's ephemeral imagination-world Instead of in today's eternal Reality-Now.

Listen to the inner light; it will guide you. Listen to inner peace; it will feed you. Listen to inner love; it will transform you, it will divinise you, it will immortalise you.

You hate someone whom you really wish to love, but whom you cannot love. Perhaps he himself prevents you. That is a disguised form of love.

He who loves, never grows old. God it a shining example.

By hating that person, you have lost something very sweet in yourself.

When you drive, you are doing several things at once. You are using your eyes, ears, hands, your mind. If you have meditated for many years and have reached a lofty height in your meditation, as I have, you can meditate while running and cycling and painting.

In the mind, we doubt and suspect, and we get a kind of pleasure, a kind of joy from that. But in the heart, we try to encompass the full world, and by loving the world, we get joy.

Heaven and God are not high above us, far away; they are deep within us. Heaven is not a distant country where there are trees and houses and other objects; it is a plane of consciousness within us. Seekers of the eternal Truth will realise their eternal Heaven within their aspiring hearts.

There comes a time in the seeker's life when he discovers that he is at once the lover and the beloved. The aspiring soul which he embodies is the lover in him. And the transcendental Self which he reveals from within is his Beloved.

A sincere seeker knows what his goal is: the highest Truth. He will not delay his journey. In spiritual life, we aspire for the highest Truth, for God, nothing else.

Love is the only wealth that man absolutely needs. Love is the only wealth that God precisely is.

You can only hate someone whom you have the capacity to love, because if you are really indifferent, you cannot even get up the enough energy to hate him.

Be universal in your love. You will see the universe to be the picture of your own being.

Even spiritually advanced people are often confused. They feel an inner ecstasy which comes from the vital world, and they think this is the real delight. But it is not so. Real delight comes from the highest world to the soul, and from the soul it saturates the whole being.

My service to humanity is my real opportunity to prove my genuine love for God and God alone.

If we know the divine art of concentration, if we know the divine art of meditation, if we know the divine art of contemplation, easily and consciously we can unite the inner world and the outer world.

Complete and total perfection will come about only when we feel that our perfection is no perfections as long as the rest of humanity remains imperfect.

The word 'yoga' means skill - skill to live your life, to manage your mind, to deal with your emotions, to be with people, to be in love and not let that love turn into hatred.

Yoga is self-conquest. Self-conquest is God-realisation. He who practises yoga does two things with one stroke: he simplifies his whole life, and he gets free access to the Divine.

God has blessed me with the capacity to meditate even while I am talking.

Mysticism, poor mysticism! When it is underestimated and oversimplified, it comes down from its original sphere and stands beside religion.

I'm not a weight lifter. I'm a seeker. Weight lifting is so insignificant in my life.

If the inner world is inundated with peace, then the nightmare of world war cannot even come into being.

Whether you accept or reject it, God's Love for you is permanent.

I don't blame people who suspect my performance. My own mind suspects it. How can I blame them?

Just because one brother is good and one brother is bad in the same family, we cannot say that the rest of the family is bad or good.

We can change the world, but not improve it, if we do not have peace.

If we call ourselves children of God, then others are also children of God.

Even now when I am answering a question I am at the height of my own meditation.

I am very happy because I have loved the world and not myself.

We accept the world in order to change it. If you do not accept, then what are you going to change?

Let us not worryAbout the future.Let us only do the right thingToday,At this moment,Here and now.Let the future take care of itself.

The aspiring soul which he embodies is the lover in him. And the transcendental Self which he reveals from within is his Beloved.

The difficulty is that we try to perfect others before we perfect ourselves.

I am very happy Because I have conquered myself And not the world. I am very happy Because I have loved the world And not myself.

The very nature of kindnessIs to spread.If you are kind to others,Today they will be kind to you,And tomorrow to somebody else.

God's foremost treasure on earth Is my ever-blossoming Gratitude-heart.

To come back to the secret of inner peace, our questioning and doubting mind is always wanting in peace. Our loving and dedicated heart is always flooded with inner peace.

World peace can blossom throughout the length and breadth of the world only when the world-peace-dreamers, world-peace-lovers and world-peace-servers desperately, sleeplessly and breathlessly long for the full manifestation of peace here on earth.

This world of ours has everything except one thing: peace. Everybody wants and needs peace, whether he be a child or an octogenarian.

This world of ours has everything save and except one thing: peace. And this peace has to start from within. If I have peace of mind, then only can I be of help to you. If you have peace of mind, then only can you be of help to me.

War forgets peace. Peace forgives war. War is the death of the life human. Peace is the birth of the Life Divine. Our vital passions want war. Our psychic emotions desire peace.

Peace is the whole truth that wishes to enrapture humanity. War is the whole falsehood that wants to capture humanity. Peace begins in the soul and ends in the heart. War begins in the mind and ends in the body.

Peace is something spontaneous; it is something that unites us. Peace is something that we have to spread. But unless and until we have peace deep within us, we can never hope to have peace in the outer world.

We have two main instruments: the mind and the heart. The mind finds it difficult to be happy, precisely because the mind consciously enjoys the sense of separativity. It is always judging and doubting the reality in others. This is the human mind, the ordinary physical mind, the earth-bound mind. But we also have the aspiring heart, the loving heart. This loving heart is free from insecurity, for it has already established its oneness with the rest of the world.

God tells me that My happy heart Increases the beauty Of His universal Heart.

Either by silencing the mind or by opening the heart, today's man can become tomorrow's God, tomorrow's Divinity. And embodied Divinity soon becomes revealed Immortality.

You may not know, But it is absolutely true: With each heartbeat Your heart is calling: "God, God!" You may not hear it, But God Himself definitely hears Your heart's cry.

Precious and spacious The aspiring heart has to remain Always.

There is only one immediate question: Where is God? The immediate answer is: God is where My heart's love-breath is.

Be in love with your heart-life. There, only there, Is the flood of happiness.

If you want to simplify your life, meditation is the answer. If you want to fulfil your life, meditation is the answer. If you want to have joy and offer joy to the world at large, then meditation is the only answer.

Meditation is the eye that sees the Truth, the heart that feels the Truth and the soul that realises the Truth.

Inner silence is not just the absence of thoughts. No! Silence is the blossoming of our indomitable inner will. Silence is our inner wisdom-light.

Meditation gives us peace of mind without a tranquilizer. And unlike a tranquilizer, the peace of mind that we get from meditation does not fade away. It lasts for good in some corner of the inmost recesses of our aspiring heart.

True spirituality is the acceptance of earth-life. A true seeker is he who accepts life, transforms life and perfects life so that the earth-life can become a conscious instrument of God.

Why do we meditate? We meditate precisely because this world of ours has disappointed us and because failure looms large in our day-to-day life. We want fulfillment. We want joy, peace, bliss and perfection within and without. Meditation is the answer, the only answer.

The vision of Hinduism is unity in diversity. First, Hinduism lovingly embraces all alien elements; second, it tries to assimilate them; third, it tries to expand itself as a whole, with a view to serving humanity and nature.

When we pray and meditate sincerely and soulfully, we receive an open-hearted invitation from heaven.

When I meditate, I clearly see that God is already seated inside my heart.

Meditation stops the sound-loving mind.

Nothing impresses me any more, save and except my own deep meditations.

Friendship must never be buried under the weight of misunderstanding.

Sympathy does not think. It acts. It acts to remove. The ceaseless sufferings. Of the world

Sympathy has to be the first and foremost thing in one's life, sympathy and the feeling of oneness. There cannot be anything greater than the feeling of oneness .

At times to think of one's outer helplessness is good, but to think always of one's inner strength is infinitely better.

Silence tells the seeker in us to love, to love himself. It tells us it is wrong to hate ourselves because of our imperfections. When the seeker loves himself, loves the Divine within himself, he eventually realises the Ultimate Truth.

When your love is pure or spiritual, there is no demand, no expectation. There is only the sweetest feeling of spontaneous oneness with the human being or beings concerned.

Each individual has to know himself. He has to know himself as the infinite, eternal and immortal Consciousness.

Meditation tells you only one thing: God is. Meditation reveals to you only one truth: yours is the vision of God.

Meditation means conscious self-expansion. Meditation means one's conscious awareness of the transcendental Reality. Meditation means the recognition or the discovery of one's own true self. It is through meditation that we transcend limitation, bondage and imperfection.

Meditation does not mean just sitting quietly for five or ten minutes. It requires conscious effort. The mind has to be made calm and quiet; at the same time, it has to be vigilant so as not to allow any distracting thoughts or desires to enter.

You must direct your full, intense concentration on the heart. You must feel that you are not the mind. You have to feel that you are growing into the heart. You are only the heart and nothing else.

Real meditation we get from within or from a spiritual Master. We can never get it from books. From books we can get inspiration or an inner approach to the fulfilment of our outer life. But in order to have true meditation we have to go deep within or follow the guidance of a spiritual Master.

True meditation can never be done with the mind. Very often we make a mistake when we say that we are meditating in the mind and utilising the mind. Real meditation is done in the psychic being and in the soul. It goes hand in hand with flaming aspiration, the burning flame that wants to climb up to the Highest.

Whether we meditate individually or collectively, there is one thing we absolutely must do: we have to meditate consciously. Making an unconscious effort is like forcing oneself to play football in spite of one's utmost unwillingness. One plays, but gets no joy. Conscious effort is like playing football most willingly. One gets real joy. Similarly, conscious meditation gives us inner Delight from the soul.

When we meditate, what we actually do is enter into a vacant, calm, still, silent mind. We go deep within and approach our true existence, which is our soul. When we live in the soul, we feel that we are actually meditating spontaneously

When you meditate you have to try to quiet and calm the mind. There should be no thought within the mind. Right now you feel that if you can cherish twenty ideas at a time, then you are the wisest man on earth. The more thoughts that enter into our minds, the more clever we feel we are. But in the spiritual life it is not like that. If consciously we can make the mind calm and quiet, we feel that a new creation dawns inside us.

How do you meditate? You meditate with an inner cry. There should be an inner cry here, in the heart. The outer cry is ego-centred; it wants name and fame. ... While you are feeling this inner cry, you try to make the mind absolutely calm and quiet. If a thought enters your mind, you try to reject it. Consider this thought as a fly. When a fly comes to land on your arm, you don't allow the fly to remain; you just wave your hand and it goes away.

When you meditate, what you actually do is to enter into a calm or still, silent mind. We have to be fully aware of the arrival and attack of thoughts. That is to say, we shall not allow any thought, divine or undivine, good or bad, to enter into our mind. Our mind should be absolutely silent. Then we have to go deep within; there we have to observe our real existence.

How do we meditate silently? Just by not talking, just by not using outer words, we are not doing silent meditation. Silent meditation is totally different. When we start meditating in silence, right from the beginning we feel the bottom of a sea within us and without. The life of activity movement and restlessness is on the surface, but deep below, underneath our human life, there is poise and silence. So, either we shall imagine this sea of silence within us or we shall feel that we are nothing but a sea of poise itself.

Meditation speaks. It speaks in silence. It reveals. It reveals to the aspirant that matter and spirit are one, quantity and quality are one, the immanent and the transcendent are one. It reveals that life can never be the mere existence of seventy or eighty years between birth and death, but is, rather, Eternity itself.

A spiritual man should be a normal man, a sound man. God Himself is normal; He is not insane. In order to reach God, a spiritual person has to be divinely practical in his day-to-day activities. Spirituality does not negate the outer life. But we have to know that the outer life does not mean the animal life. The outer life should be the manifestation of the divine life within us.

To hope is to see with the eye of the heart.

Listen to the inner light; It will guide you. Listen to the inner Peace; It will feed you. Listen to the inner Love; It will transform you, It will divinise you, It will immortalise you.

You have no idea How much you do for mankind When you love God unconditionally Even for a fleeting moment.

Human love wants to possess and be possessed by the world. Divine love wants to establish its inseparable oneness with the world and then it wants to divinely enjoy this oneness. Supreme Love transforms human love into divine love and blesses divine love with boundless joy and divine pride.

Love of the limited self, the very limited self, is another name for human love. Love of the entire world is another name for divine love.

Each aspirant has to be a divine soldier. He must consciously and constantly use his divine energy to drill himself into a liberated soul.

Music is inspiration, soulful inspiration. It inspires the human in us. Music is manifestation, fruitful manifestation. It manifests the divine in us. Music is satisfaction, supreme satisfaction. It satisfies the Pilot Supreme in us.

What gives life its value if not its constant cry for self-transcendence?

We are all God's children. But world-peace-dreamers, world-peace-lovers and world-peace-servers are undoubtedly God's choicest children.

A musician's biography is written wherever he performs; everybody hears what he is playing.

Individual self-transcendence collectively inspires humanity at large.