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My heart can never understand
Why my mind, vital and body
Are so attached
To the fleeting finite.
Sri Chinmoy, Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, part 9, Agni Press, 1998
To me God is not only the most beautiful golden Being or Spirit; to me God is everything. Anything that is God's creation embodies God. Anything that can be seen in God's creation is of God and for God. Anything that you appreciate here on earth is not only an embodiment of God, but God Himself.
When we think of God in Heaven, we have more faith in Him. But God is also here on earth — inside me, inside you, inside everyone. God can be above in any form, or formless, as infinite Light, infinite Peace, infinite Bliss. Again, He can be inside our hearts, where our real existence is. And if we open our eyes and look at nature, at the mountains and rivers, that also is God.
So no matter which way we appreciate the reality or want to identify ourselves with the reality, we have to feel that we are appreciating and identifying ourselves with Divinity; and this Divinity we call either God or Spirit or Being. If you don't want to call it God, you are at perfect liberty not to do so. But you have to call it happiness. Happiness itself is God. You can appreciate the beauty of nature and if you are happy, then the happiness that you are getting is God. In one word, if God has to be defined, then I wish to say God is happiness. 1
Aspiration tells me that my God is
Compassion-Mother.
Realisation tells me that my God is
Liberation-Father.
God-oneness tells me that my God is
Perfection-Friend.Sri Chinmoy 2
God is at once finite and infinite.
He is space. He is measured. He can be measured. He must needs be measured.
He is beyond space. He is measureless. He is boundless. He is infinite.
God is infinite Consciousness, infinite Bliss, yet he can also assume a finite form. He is infinite, He is finite; and at the same time He transcends both the Infinite and the finite. He is life, He is death; yet again He is beyond both life and death. When I say ‘Supreme’, I am referring to the Infinite, the Eternal and the Immortal. But when I see Him, I see Him face to face the same way I see you. 3
God is at once our Divine Father and our Divine Mother. In the West, God the Father is prominent, while in the East, in India especially, God the Mother comes first. Both East and West are perfectly right. When we realise God the Father, we are bound to see God the Mother within Him. When we realise God the Mother, we will unmistakably see God the Father within Her.
When we approach God the Father, we feel His Wisdom, His inner Light, His Vastness. When we approach God the Mother, we feel infinite Love, infinite Compassion, infinite Concern. It is not that God the Father does not have Compassion. He also has it. But God expresses Love, Compassion and Concern through the feminine form more than through the masculine form. In the masculine form He offers Wisdom, Light, Vastness. 4
Each of these divine qualities - Love, Compassion, Concern, Vastness, Light and Wisdom - is of paramount importance in the life of each aspiring soul. When we feel in the inmost recesses of our heart God's Love, Concern and Compassion and His Wisdom, Light and Vastness, we know that today's unfulfilled man will soon turn into tomorrow's realised, fulfilled and manifested God. 5
Sri Chinmoy: A child calls his father ‘Daddy'. The father's friends call him by another name, and his relatives may call him by a different name. Those at the office may call him by yet another name. Nonetheless he is the same man. Similarly, each aspirant can have his own name by which he calls God. It is a matter of personal preference.
In my case, by referring to God as ‘He', I am not denying that God is also the Divine Mother, far from it. God is the Mother. God is the Father. God is Light. God is Peace. God is infinite Energy. When I refer to God as ‘He', I am not taking anything away from God. God will come with all that He is, no matter whether I call Him Father, Mother or Brahma. God does not mind which name we use as long as our call is sincere. Then He simply comes to answer His child's call. 6
Sri Chinmoy: Paramatman and Brahman of the Advaita Vedanta, Purusha of Samkhya and Yoga, and God of the English-speaking world are one and the same. I may use the term 'God', or I may use another English term, 'the Supreme', or 'the Absolute'. To me the word 'God' encompasses all the concepts from the different systems of religion and philosophy.
When I use the term 'God', I am referring to the broadest possible concept of deity. 'God' is the Creator and the creation. He is at once cosmic Silence and cosmic Sound. 'God' is within us, all around us, far beyond us and, at the same time, He is us.
When we use the term 'God', our feeling is that He is on the top of the Himalayas, in the middle of the Himalayas and at the foot of the Himalayas. He is both inside the creation and beyond the creation. God is everywhere. But when we use the terms brahman, paramatman or purusha, unfortunately we feel that God is only stationed at the summit of the Himalayas. These aspects of God are for us, but we do not feel that they are within us or from us. It is the same God, but at the summit we feel He should have a separate Name. Here God is the witness, sakshi purusha. Like an individual who acts in various capacities, each time He plays a different role, He is given a different name.
To simplify everything, we can say paramatman, brahman, purusha, God — these all comprise one supreme Reality. This Reality is nothing other than Infinity-Eternity-Immortality's Light and Delight of the ever-transcending Beyond. 7
Sri Chinmoy, Nineteen American mothers and nineteen American sons with Sri Chinmoy, Agni Press, 1976↩︎
Sri Chinmoy, Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 4, Agni Press, 1979↩︎
Sri Chinmoy, The Vision of God's Dawn, Agni Press, 1974↩︎
Sri Chinmoy, India, my India. Mother India's summit-prides, Agni Press, 1997↩︎
Sri Chinmoy, The oneness of the Eastern heart and the Western mind, part 2, Agni Press, 2004↩︎
Sri Chinmoy, Earth-bound journey and Heaven-bound journey, Agni Press, 1975↩︎
Sri Chinmoy, Professor-Children: God's reality-Fruits, Agni Press, 1997↩︎