‘My God-Hunger-Cry’ prayer for Feb. 1
“I meet my Lord everywhere
His Smile-absence nowhere.”
Sri Chinmoy
This is indeed a very encouraging prayer-poem which embodies a
Universal Truth that even the serious religions claim. I remember when
I was studying for my Confirmation, a Catholic Sacrament which is
performed when one is a teenager, we had to study a number of
questions and answers.
The first question was: “Where is God?” The answer was: “God is
everywhere.”
To this day, many decades later, I remember only that answer and I see
it reflected in all of Sri Chinmoy’s writings and activities. He
really brings that Reality into practise and inspires us to discover
it in our own lives every day, not just as an answer to a question but
as a Truth to be experienced on a personal and practical level.
Sri Chinmoytakes it a step further in this daily prayer by also
telling us that not only is our Lord, or the Supreme, or God,
everywhere but also His Smile is there too. This not only gives us
hope but makes us realise that the Creator created this Reality for
happiness and joy. Smiling seems to be a Universal expression of a
very happy and pleasant experience of human beings.
A real smile comes from deeper inside us and manifests on our face as
an expression of that joy we all have. Feeling this smile everywhere
is indeed a special experience we get when we are going deeper in our
lives to discover and experience this Reality and its Creator, or our
Lord and His or Her or Its Smile.
I know that I certainly can use this reminder everyday in a world that
outwardly is not easy to always remain happy about when we forget
these sublime Truths that Sri Chinmoy reminds us of daily. I am glad
that I could start the day with this significant positive and happy
approach to life just by reading a few lines of poetry which are
extremely meaningful and at the same time practical.
Sri Chinmoy’s tenth talk in the ‘Everest-Aspiration’ series of 100
talks given in July 1977 is called, ‘Smile, Love and Claim’.
After reading this talk one cannot help but to go through the day
smiling. But just to mention the first paragraph is enough here to
understand the value of this sublime talk about smiling:
“Smile, my friends, my soulful friends, smile. Let us smile. True,
this world of ours is full of suffering and excruciating pangs, but
this is no reason why we should not smile. We must smile in order to
unburden the world’s suffering-burden. We must smile in order to
diminish its untold pangs…”
Recently I was visiting orient. The people there had such sweet and
sincere smiles. It truly made my trip much more enjoyable simply
because people were smiling in a very pure and sweet way naturally.
Many of them did not have accumulated wealth or many worldly
possessions and they definitely were not `spoiled’. But the sweet
smiles that generated from their pure hearts and manifested on their
sincere faces were very uplifting and a valuable experience indeed.
So today we are reminded by Sri Chinmoy where this experience of
`smile’ comes from and just how pervasive and valuable it is. I will
try to take that message with me in my daily activities today and
certainly try to bring my own smile to the fore and see it reflected
in this whole creation of ours.
Smilingly,
Arpan
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