Sri Chinmoy Quotes

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.

Judge nothing, you will be happy. Forgive everything, you will be happier. Love everything, you will be happiest.

Peace begins When expectation ends.

Be sincere in your thoughts, Be pure in your feelings. You will not have to run after happiness. Happiness will run after you.

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

Just one smile Immensely increases the beauty Of the universe.

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

Do you want to change the world? Then change yourself first. Do you want to change yourself? Then remain completely silent inside the silence-sea.

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.

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.

Death is not the end Death 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 life Our soul thinks of Immortality

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

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 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.

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.

Do not Blame the world. Find a solution.

Not to give up under any circumstances should be the motto of our life: we shall try again and again, and we are bound to succeed. There will be obstacles, but we have to defy them. So do not give up, do not give up! Continue, continue! The goal is ahead of you. If you do not give up, you are bound to reach your destined goal.

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.

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

Do you want to make progress? If so, then take each problem not as a challenging rival, but as an encouraging friend of yours, who is helping you to arrive at your ultimate destination.

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

Be kind, be all sympathy, For each and every human being Is forced to fight against himself.

I begin by imagining The impossible And end by accomplishing The impossible.

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.

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

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

Instead of telling the world What it is supposed to do, Why don't you immediately do it yourself? In this way, I assure you, Your happiness will be surprisingly multiplied.

If we feel secure In the depths of our heart, We shall not challenge anybody, For inner confidence Is nothing short of Complete satisfaction.

The inner light actually comes from the soul; it is already inside us. The moment we can have free access to our soul, we will see that this light is coming to the fore to permeate our whole outer existence.

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

I love my enemies for two reasons: they inspire me to recognise my weakness. They also inspire me to perfect my imperfect nature.

Wherever you go, go with inspiration and aspiration. Whatever you do, do with love and concern. Whomever you see, see with purity's beauty And responsibility's glory.

Daring enthusiasm And abiding cheerfulness Can accomplish everything on earth Without fail.

When we encourage others With no personal motives, We raise high, very high, Humanity's progress-standard.

Never worry about things That you are unable to change. Change your own way Of looking at truth,

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

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

Remain cheerful, For nothing destructive can pierce through The solid wall of cheerfulness.

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

Have little, Need less: This is the way To inner peace. Surrender is a journey From the outer turmoil To the inner peace. Peace Is in inner awakening, And this inner awakening We must share With the rest of the world.

Hope abides; therefore I abide. Countless frustrations have not cowed me. I am still alive, vibrant with life. The black cloud will disappear, The morning sun will appear once again In all its supernal glory.

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

Unless and until we have peace deep within us, we can never hope to have peace in the outer world. You and I create the world by the vibrations that we offer to it. If we can invoke peace and then offer it to somebody else, we will see how peace expands from one to two persons, and gradually to the world at large. Peace will come about in the world from the perfection of individuals. If you have peace, I have peace, he has peace, and she has peace, then automatically universal peace will dawn.

True humility means giving joy to others.

Every day there is only one thing to learn: how to be honestly happy.

Now is the time to make good use of time. Today is the day to begin a perfect day.

Look at your heart-flower and smile. You will be able to solve your most pressing problems.

If you want to understand yourself, Then do not examine yourself. Just love yourself more sincerely, More soulfully And more self-givingly.

Truth is in all, But love is all.

Every second a seeker can start over, For his life's mistakes Are initial drafts And not the final version.

The word "impossible" is only in the mind And not in the heart. If we can remain in the heart, There will be no end to our progress.

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

To make the fastest progress, Be an absolutely cheerful Hero-warrior And take both victory and failure As parallel experience rivers Leading to the sea Of progress-delight.

To follow the crowd Is to miss The destination.

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.

Gratitude is pure happiness. Happiness is sure perfection.

I meditate So that I can inundate My entire being With the omnipotent power of peace.

Not what happens to you But how you accept it Is of paramount importance.

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

No matter how fleeting Your smile is, Your smile is the very beginning Of your wisdom-light.

To succeed in any field, Our enthusiasm-eyes must sparkle And our enthusiasm-hearts Must dance.

When you are right, everything around you is right, for the beautiful flow that is inside your heart has the capacity to spread its fragrance of oneness-light all around you.

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.

My heart's gratitude Is My life's plenitude.

True gratitude can never come From the mind. It has to flow from the heart To the mind, vital and body Until everything that we have and are Is a sea of gratitude.

What you powerfully hold In your thought-world Will make you either A street beggar Or a great king.

Do you want to be happy? Then make your life as soulfully simple As sleeplessly breathing.

A moment's truth Can and shall make the world beautiful. A moment's peace Can and shall save the world. A moment's love Can and shall make the world perfect.

Wait for tomorrow To think tomorrow's thoughts.

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

Patience, increasing patience, Is all we need To be victorious In the battlefield of life.

No price is too great to pay for inner peace. Peace is the harmonious control of life. It is vibrant with life-energy. It is a power that easily transcends all our worldly knowledge. Yet it is not separate from our earthly existence. If we open the right avenues within, this peace can be felt here and now.

If we have a simple existence, we shall feel how happy and how fortunate we are. There are some people who are of the opinion that simplicity is almost tantamount to stupidity. But simplicity and stupidity are like the North Pole and the South Pole. One can be as simple as a child and, at the same time, one can have boundless knowledge, light and wisdom.

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

In between your failure-tree And your triumph-tree, The tree that is growing Is known as your patience-tree.

The language of the heart Is the only language That everybody can understand.

Tell others When you love them. This will really make their lives Worth living.

Deepen your faith in yourself. Nothing will be able To frighten or weaken you.

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

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.

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.

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.

Love the world. Otherwise, you will be forced to carry the heaviest load: your own bitter self.

Not the power to conquer others But the power to become one with others is the ultimate power.

Real joy means immediate expansion. If we experience pure joy, immediately our heart expands. We feel that we are flying in the divine freedom-sky. The entire length and breadth of the world becomes ours, not for us to rule over, but as an expansion of our consciousness. We become reality and vastness.

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.

Silence is not silent. Silence speaks. It speaks most eloquently. Silence is not still. Silence leads. It leads most perfectly. Silence awakens the sleeping seeker in me. Silence enlightens the aspiring seeker in me. Silence fulfills the self-giving seeker in me.

You can purify your existence by feeling deep within yourself a beautiful rose or lotus, or any other flower that you like. A flower is all purity. Try to identify yourself with the consciousness of the flower or with the purity of the flower. Today it is imagination, but if you continue imagining for five days, or ten days, or a month or two, then you are bound to see and feel the flower within you. First you may feel it, then you are bound to see the existence of the flower, and then automatically the fragrance and the purity of the flower will enter into you to purify you.

A simple man will have only what he needs, and he will know the difference between what he needs and what he wants. We feel that whatever we want, we desperately need. But before we possess the world, to our wide surprise we see that the world has already possessed us.

Your soul has a special mission. Your soul is supremely conscious of it. Maya, illusion or forgetfulness, makes you feel that you are finite, weak and helpless. This is not true. You are not the body. You are not the senses. You are not the mind. These are all limited. You are the soul, which is unlimited. Your soul is infinitely powerful. Your soul defies all time and space.

It is only through meditation that we can get lasting peace, divine peace. If we meditate soulfully in the morning and receive peace for only one minute, that one minute of peace will permeate our whole day. And when we have a meditation of the highest order, then we really get abiding peace, light and delight. We need meditation because we want to grow in light and fulfill ourselves in light. If this is our aspiration, if this is our thirst, then meditation is the only way.

In the inner life, if there is no sincerity, nothing can be achieved. And to whom are you being sincere? You are being sincere to yourself. You have a higher reality and you have a lower reality. When you become sincere, immediately you pull your lower reality up to your higher reality. Just like a magnet, your higher reality pulls up your lower reality so that it can take shelter in the higher reality.

Peace is something tangible. It silences the outgoing energy of the mind and feeds the aspiring heart. Peace is not merely the absence of quarreling and fighting. True peace is not affected by the roaring of the world, outer or inner. This sea of peace is at our command if we practise the spiritual life.

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.

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?

To simplify your life, just think of yourself as a four-year-old child. Try to imagine the way he thinks of reality. If you have to talk to someone about a so-called complicated matter, see how you can simplify it. No matter with whom you are talking, feel that you are a child and that person is also a child. When a childlike quality comes into your life, everything automatically becomes simple.

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.

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.

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.

When you see that a person's defects and bad qualities are so obvious, try to feel immediately that his defects and bad qualities do not represent him totally. His real self is infinitely better than what you see now. On the other hand, if you really want to love humanity, then you have to love humanity as it stands now and not expect it to come to a specific standard. If humanity has to become perfect before it can be accepted by you, then it would not need your love affection and concern. Right now, in its imperfect state of consciousness, humanity needs your help. Give humanity unreservedly even the most insignificant and limited help that you have at your disposal. This is the golden opportunity.