Sri Chinmoy

“Patience, increasing patience,Is all we needTo be victoriousIn the battlefield of life.”

“No matter how fleeting Your smile is,Your smile is the very beginningOf your wisdom-light.”

“Truth is in all,But love is all.”

“A moment's truthCan and shall make the world beautiful.A moment's peaceCan and shall save the world.A moment's loveCan and shall make the world perfect.”

“Meditation is silence, energising and fulfilling. Silent is the eloquent expression of the inexpressible.”

“Gratitude is the sweetest thing in a seeker's life- in all human life. If there is gratitude in your heart, then there will be tremendous sweetness in your eyes.”

“If you have true gratitude, it will express itself automatically. It will be visible in your eyes, around your being, in your aura. It is like the fragrance of a flower. In most cases if there is a beautiful flower, the fragrance will be there naturally. The flower and its fragrance cannot be separated.”

“True gratitude can never comeFrom the mind.It has to flow from the heartTo the mind, vital and bodyUntil everything that we have and areIs a sea of gratitude.”

“When your heart's gratitude comes to the fore, when you become all gratitude, this gratitude is like a flow, a flow of consciousness. When your consciousness is flowing, feel that this gratitude-flow is like a river that is watering the root of the tree and the tree itself. It is always through gratitude that your consciousness-river will grow and water the perfection-tree inside you.”

“Gratitude is pure happiness.Happiness is sure perfection.”

“My heart's gratitudeIs My life's plenitude.”

“The things that most deserve our gratitude we just take for granted. Without air we cannot live for more than a minute or two. Everyday we are breathing in and breathing out, but do we ever feel grateful to the air? If we do not drink water, we cannot survive. Even our body is composed to a large extent of water.But do we give any value to water? Every morning when we open our eyes, we see the sun blessingfully offering us light and life-energy, which we badly need. But are we grateful to the sun?”

“The most important and most significant good quality in our human life is gratitude. Unfortunately, that good quality we somehow manage not to express either in our thoughts or in our actions. Right from the beginning of our life, we have somehow learned not to express it. So we have the least amount of the very thing that we need most in order to become a better person.”

“Gratitude is the creative force, the mother and father of love. It is in gratitude that real love exists. Love expands only when gratitude is there. Limited love does not offer gratitude. Limited love is immediately bound by something- by constant desires or constant demands. But when it is unlimited love, constant love, then gratitude comes to the fore. This love becomes all gratitude.”

“True humility means giving joy to others.”

“Do notBlame the world.Find a solution.”

“What you powerfully holdIn your thought-worldWill make you eitherA street beggarOr a great king.”

“Hope is sweet.Hope is illumining.Hope is fulfilling.Hope can be everlasting.Therefore, do not give up hope,Even in the sunset of your life.”

“When I think good thoughts, I feel that man is not, after all, so bad.”

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

“Remain cheerful,For nothing destructive can pierce throughThe solid wall of cheerfulness.”

“Has your soul a special mission? Yes. Your mission is in the inmost recesses of your heart, and you have to find and fulfil it there. There can be no external way for you to fulfil your mission. The deer grows musk in his own body. He smells it and becomes enchanted, and tries to locate its source. He runs and runs, but he cannot find the source. In his endless search, he loses all his energy and finally he dies. But the source he was so desperately searching for was within himself. How could he find it elsewhere?Such is the case with you. Your special mission- which is the fulfilment of your divinity- is not outside you, but within you. Search within. Meditate within. You will discover your mission.”

“Yesterday I was clever,That is why I wanted to change the world.Today I am wise,That is why I am changing myself.”

“There are two ways to illumine anger. One way is to enlarge your heart. If you have been wronged, use your power of identification. Feel that it is you yourself, or an extended part of your own consciousness, that has done the wrong thing. The sooner you can rid yourself of the idea that somebody else has done something to you, the better off you will be.The second way is to think of perfecting yourself. When you stop thinking of perfecting others and only care for your own aspiration, you will be liberated from anger. Instead of looking around to see who is obstructing you or standing in your way, just pay all attention to your own self-discovery. When you have discovered your true self, you will see that there is nobody imperfect on earth. Everybody is perfect in you.”

“If we feel secureIn the depths of our heart,We shall not challenge anybody,For inner confidenceIs nothing short ofComplete satisfaction.”

“When you really have something to offer to the world, then you can become truly humble. A tree when it has no fruit to offer, remains erect. But when the tree is laden with fruit, it bends down. If you are all pride and ego, then nobody will be able to get anything worthwhile from you. When you have genuine humility, it is a sign that you have something to offer to mankind.”

“Beyond speech and mind,Into the river of ever-effulgent LightMy heart dives.Today thousands of doors, closed for millennia,Are opened wide.”

“Fear is a real enemy. What does it do?It buys our coffin long before we are destined to die.”

“Deepen your faith in yourself.Nothing will be ableTo frighten or weaken you.”

“Your mind has a flood of questions.There is but one teacherWho can answer them.Who is that teacher?Your silence-loving heart.”

“Meditation is like going to the bottom of the sea, where everything is calm and tranquil. On the surface of the sea there may be a multitude of waves but the sea is not affected below. In its deepest depths, the sea is all silence. When we start meditating, first we try to reach our own inner existence, our true existence- that is to say, the bottom of the sea. Then when the waves come from the outside world, we are not affected. Fear, doubt, worry and all the earthly turmoils just wash away, because inside us is solid peace. Thoughts cannot touch us, because our mind is all peace, all silence, all oneness. Like fish in the sea, they jump and swim but leave no mark. When we are in our highest meditation, we feel that we are the sea, and the animals in the sea cannot affect us. We feel that we are the sky, and all the birds flying past cannot affect us. Our mind is the sky and our heart is the infinite sea. This is meditation.”

“True inner joy is self-created.It does not depend on outer circumstances.A river is flowing in and through you carrying the message of joy.This divine joy is the sole purpose of life.”

“Friendship is peace... I shall not speak ill of you or try to ruin you; you will not speak ill of me or try to ruin me. On the contrary, I shall give you what I have: my love, my sympathy, my concern, my compassion, my total support of your cause, and you will do the same for me.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Not to give up under any circumstances should be the motto of our life: I shall try again and again, and I am bound to succeed. There will be obstacles, but I have to defy the obstacles.”

“Run and become.Become and run.Run to succeed in the outer world.Become to proceed in the inner world.”

“Death is not the endDeath can never be the end.Death is the road.Life is the traveller.The Soul is the Guide...Our mind thinks of death.Our heart thinks of lifeOur soul thinks of Immortality”

“If failure has the strength to turn your life into bitterness itself, then patience has the strength to turn your life into the sweetest joy. Do not surrender to fate after a single failure. Failure, at most, precedes success.”

“Man invents war. Man discovers peace. He invents war from without. He discovers peace from within. War man throws. Peace man sows. The smile of war is the flood of human blood. The smile of peace is the love, below, above.”

“If we can feel that it is not our voice, not our fingers, but some reality deep inside our heart which is expressing itself, then we will know that it is the soul’s music.”

“Hate is often an obverse form of love.You hate someone whom you really wish to love but whom you cannot love.”

“Love your enemy.It will not only puzzle him,But finally illumine him.”

“Death is not the end death can never be the end. Death is the road. Life is the traveller. The Soul is the Guide”

“Hope knows no fear.Hope dares to blossom even inside the abysmal abyss.Hope secretly feeds and strengthens promise.”

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

“Not by blaming the world, not by shunning the world, but only be loving the world can I have peace of mind”

“You must never forget that greatness does not guarantee happiness but goodness always does”

“World-peace can be achieved when the power of love replaces the love of power.”

“If we feel inwardly strong, we will have no need or desire to speak ill of others.”