Beauty is my body’s purity.
Beauty is my vital’s humility.
Beauty is my mind’s serenity.
Beauty is my heart’s magnanimity.
Beauty is my life’s sincerity.
As a seeker, when I develop these divine qualities, I become all beauty. A child is beautiful, a flower is beautiful, a flame is beautiful. When I have a childlike heart, God talks to me. When my life becomes a flower of gratitude, I get the opportunity to sing with God His universal Song. When my life grows into a climbing flame, I play with God and take conscious part in His cosmic Game.
Beauty is in giving. Beauty is in receiving. Beauty is in giving and giving alone. Beauty is in receiving and receiving alone. When I give, I see that before I have given anything, Heaven is already smiling through my offering, my self-giving. When I receive, I see that earth is smiling in and through me. When I give and give, I see that God the divine Pilot is offering Himself to aspiring humanity in and through me. When I receive and receive, I see that God the infinite Compassion is entering into me and expanding my earthbound consciousness, finally transforming it into the Heaven-free Reality.
When I invoke the soul and become one with the soul, I have the capacity to reveal the Source at God’s choice Hour. At that time, I have a most significant message to offer to my brothers and sisters of the world:
Vedaham etam purusam mahantam…
I have known this Great Being, effulgent as the sun beyond the boundaries of tenebrous gloom.
When I have attained this capacity, my own soul shines with the effulgent beauty of that one great Being.
When I invoke the heart, become one with the heart and try to offer the wealth of the heart to the world at large, I see a new beauty growing within me and flowing around me. At that time my message is:
Twameva mata pita twameva…
Thou art the Mother.
Thou art the Father.
Thou art the Friend.
Thou art the Comrade.
Thou art Knowledge.
Thou art Wealth.
Thou art my All.
Thou art my Lord Supreme.
This message that I offer to the world is founded upon my heart’s oneness with my Inner Pilot. This is the sweetest and, at the same time, the most convincing feeling of inseparable oneness with the Inner Pilot. When I establish my inseparable oneness with my Inner Pilot, I feel Him as my Mother and Father of Eternity: as my Friend and Comrade from time immemorial; and as my Lord Supreme, my All. This is the beauty of the heart that a seeker embodies, reveals and manifests here on earth.
When I invoke the mind and become one with the mind, I offer the wealth of the mind on the strength of my soulful prayer.
Aum bhur bhuvah svah . .
This is the Gayatri Mantra, the prayer for the mind, for the illumination of the mind. This is India’s peerless mantra or incantation. All the other mantras of India are derived from this one. This is the loftiest prayer that the Indian seers of the hoary past realised and offered to aspiring humanity.
We have already discovered beauty in the soul, beauty in the heart and beauty in the mind. Now we have to discover beauty in the vital. When beauty in the vital dawns, we become energetic, dynamic, progressive and fulfilling. At that time we pray to the Supreme to inundate our vital with power infinite, power divine, the power that builds, not the power that breaks; the power that energises us, the power the vital needs for the full manifestation of divinity on earth. The message of divine power which I offer to the world is:
Tejo joh si tejo mayi dhehi…
Thy fiery spirit I invoke.
Thy manly vigour I invoke.
Thy power and energy I invoke.
Thy battle fury I invoke.
Thy conquering mind I invoke.
This power in the vital is the beauty of the vital for the manifestation of God here on earth. I also try to invoke the body-consciousness and become one with the aspiring body in order to discover beauty in the body. For this, I pray to the Supreme to grant me sound health and an aspiring body. This is the prayer of my body:
Tach chaks ur debahitam …
May we, for a hundred autumns, see that lustrous Eye, God-ordained, arise before us …
In this case a hundred years means an infinite or indefinite expanse of time. If we have a long life of aspiration on earth, then we can realise God, reveal God and manifest God. We need a long life of aspiration, dedication, devotion and surrender. This is the beauty in the body and of the body, for the soul and for God, the Supreme.
If we want to discover more beauty here in the earth-consciousness, we have to realise what is essential and what is not essential. Another most significant message of the Upanishadic seers is:
Neti neti
Not this, not that.
Ignorance, no! Darkness, no! Bondage, no! Limitation, imperfection, no! We do not need them. We need faith, courage, humility, purity, sincerity and all the divine qualities. We renounce the unillumined parts in us and invoke the parts that are illumined, the consciousness that is illumined. Not this; not the ignorance which we now claim as our very own and which claims us as its very own, but light, the light that claims us as its very own and the light that we are going to claim as our very own.
There is also a supreme Beauty. The supreme Beauty is in our conscious, inseparable oneness with the Supreme. This supreme Beauty we discover on the strength of our conscious, constant and unconditional self-giving. When we dare to say, “Not my will, but Thy Will be done, then we can also say, “I and my Father are one.” When we sincerely say, “Let Thy Will be done,” at that time the supreme Beauty reveals itself in and through us. And when we say, “I and my Father are one,” at that time the supreme Beauty finds its complete manifestation on earth here and now.
I have given a short talk on beauty. Now my students and I will sing a Bengali song on beauty.
(The translation of Sri Chinmoy’s song, which he sang with his students, follows:)
Sundara hate sundaa tumi
Nandana bana majhe…
You are beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful,
Beauty unparalleled in the garden of Paradise.
Day and night may Thy Image abide in the very depth of my heart.
Without You my eyes have no vision;
Everything is an illusion, everything is barren.
All around me, within and without
The melody of tenebrous pangs I hear.
My world is filled with excruciating pangs.
O Lord, O my beautiful Lord,
O my Lord of Beauty, in this lifetime even for a fleeting second
May I be blessed with the boon to see Thy Face.
University of Montana
Missoula, Montana
April 23, 1974