Sri Chinmoy quotes:

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

Impossibility is a dictionary word.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

Your defeats in life's battlefieldWill soon be ending,Because your mind is no longer indifferent To your heart's spontaneous enthusiasm.

I shall now call myself;I shall now call.In the forest of my heart, seeing myself,I shall love myself and love myself.I shall be my own quest,My absolute wealth.The journey of light supreme will commenceIn the heart of freedom.

The language of the heartIs the only languageThat everybody can understand.

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

Your defeats in life's battlefieldWill soon be ending,Because your mind is no longer indifferent To your heart's spontaneous enthusiasm."

O my mind,Make your speech egoless.Then everyoneWill appreciate, admire and adore you.

Love is never afraid of fear. Fear is always afraid of love

If you want to remain always happy, Always perfect and always fulfilled, Then always keep inside your heart A pocketful of sweet dreams.

We must see that God operates not only in us but in others as well. God also operates in our so-called enemies. But these are not our real enemies. Our real enemies are doubt, fear, anxiety and worry. When we do not cry to perfect others, but only try to perfect our own lives, then we will have joy.

If you have inner peace, nobody can force you to be a slave to the outer reality.

Inside each one of us is a beautiful flower garden. This is the garden of the soul. With each lesson we learn, the garden grows. As we learn together, our individual gardens form a tranquil paradise.

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.

In the spiritual life the easiest way to conquer ego is to offer gratitude to God for five minutes daily. If you cannot offer gratitude for five minutes, then utter it for one minute. Offer your gratitude to God. Then you will feel that inside you a sweet, fragrant and beautiful flower is growing. That is the flower of humility.

The beckoning Hands Of God's hopeful Smile Will, without fail, one day greet The fruitful cries Of man's prayerful heart.

There comes a time in the seeker's life when he discovers that he is at once the lover and the beloved.

Prayer and meditation are my inner secret and my outer secret. My muscles are next to nothing compared to the muscles of the professional bodybuilders and weightlifters. It is because of the strength of my prayer-life and meditation-life that I am able to accomplish these feats of strength.

What is meditation? Meditation is our conscious awareness of something vast and infinite within us. Meditation grants us Peace, Light and Bliss.

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.

When you invent something, there will always be people to criticise. God's creation is full of critics, but has God given up His creation because of the critics?

To deliberately criticise another individual may cause an indelible stain on the critic.

Lack of harmony comes when I feel that I know how to do something better than you. Lack of harmony is the song and dance of superiority. Because everybody feels superior, disharmony at every moment is entering into our lives.

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.

I do not give up, I never give up, For there is nothing In this entire world That is irrevocably unchangeable.

One who has an inferiority complex can never be really humble, but can only have false modesty or false humility.

Forgive, you will have happiness. Forget, you will have satisfacton. Forgive and forget, You will have everlasting peace Within and without.

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.

If we live in our oneness-heart, we will feel the essence of all religions which is the love of God. Forgiveness, compassion, tolerance, brotherhood and the feeling of oneness are the signs of a true religion.

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

All athletes, without fail, are potentially great and good. A great athlete is a little man tirelessly inspired.

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

I do feel there are countless people on earth who do not believe in the inner power, the inner life. They feel that the outer strength and the outer life are everything. I do not agree with them. There is an inner life; there is spirit, and my ability to lift these heavy weights proves that it can work in matter as well.

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.

Where love is thick, faults are thin. If you really love someone, then it is difficult to find fault with him. His faults seem negligible, for love means oneness.

What do we mean by the word 'wisdom'? Usually we mean something superior to knowledge, something deeper. In the spiritual world, the word 'wisdom' is not used in that way. Here wisdom means Light, illumining Light, transforming Light. That which illumines our unlit consciousness is wisdom. That which transforms the finite consciousness into the infinite Consciousness is called wisdom.

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.

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.

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

Do not try to entrap others with your haughty knowledge. To your wide surprise, they will entrap you with their lengthy ignorance.

Spirituality is man's conscious longing for God. Spirituality tells us that God, who is unknowable today, will tomorrow become knowable and, the day after, will become totally known.

My soul-bird loves my body-cage Only when it is kept fit, Pure and absolutely immaculate.

If hope is just a mere wish, if it is just like making friends with fantasy, then consciousness will not respond to it. But if it is something significant, like a vision that is trying to blossom inside the heart of an individual, then consciousness will be elevated.

Miracles do happen in every human life.

Before the final curtain goes down On my life, I shall say to my Mother-Earth, "My gratitude-heart is all for you, All for you."

If peace is not In Nature's beauty, Then where is it, where?

Love is hope. Hope is nectar.

Never give up hope! Hope ultimately succeeds.

A spiritual life means: It is now or never.

An unaspiring person always complaints. There is no end to his complaints. He bitterly complains even when the blessings of opportunity knock at his very door.

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.

If you do not find peace inside your own heart, then you will not find it anywhere else on earth.

Peace does not mean the absence of war, peace means the presence of harmony, love, satisfaction and oneness. Peace means a flood of love in the world family.

A perfect society is built upon mutual trust. Character is the source of that trust.

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

I do not compete with anybody else; I compete only with myself. You saw my capacity a few minutes ago. Now I am competing with myself. When I do weightlifting, my body is my world. If I can improve myself, if I can go beyond my previous achievements, then that is my goal. My own previous record is always what I am competing with.

Gratitude is pure happiness. Happiness is sure perfection.

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.

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.

God is beyond definition. But according to one's own vision or receptivity, one will define God in one's own way. Some will say that God is all Love. Others will say that God is all Power. Each one will see God according to his own necessity, his own receptivity and, finally, according to the way God wants him to see the ultimate Truth.

A gratitude-heart Is to discover on earth A Heaven-delivered rose

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

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.

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

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

Just one smileImmensely increases the beauty Of the universe.

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

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

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

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

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

I am very happyBecause I have conquered myselfAnd not the world.I am very happyBecause I have loved the worldAnd not myself.

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

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

Every second a seeker can start over,For his life's mistakesAre initial draftsAnd not the final version.

Peace beginsWhen expectation ends.

Your heart must become a sea of love. Your mind must become a river of detachment.

You fool, You have been dangling For such a long time! When will you seize the opportunity Or feel the necessity To untangle the taut knot Of your bondage-life?

A moment of self-giving lifecan conquer the sorrowsof many long years

And in self-giving we become really happy. Real humility is the expansion of our consciousness and our service.

The joy of a self-giving life Can neither be measured Nor be expounded.

Some seekers will do anything for their Self-realisation - except work for it.

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

Silence is the nest and music is the bird. The bird leaves the nest early in the morning and returns to the nest in the evening. Similarly, in the spiritual world, divine music comes from the inmost soul of Silence.

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.

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.

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 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.