God, Truth and Love

Because I love mankind, God loves me. Because I love God, Truth loves me. Because I love Truth, I really and truly love myself.

Why should God love me? I just said that God loves me because I love mankind. There is another reason, too. God loves me because I love His entire Creation. I know and feel that God can never be separated from His Creation. Creator and Creation are one, inseparable. When we appreciate the Creation, the Creator is pleased and satisfied. When we ourselves create something, produce something, build something, people notice our achievement and appreciate it deeply. We are pleased because it is we who have done it. Similarly, the universe is God's Creation. When we love the universe, we simultaneously love God the Creator and God the Creation; and both the Creator and the Creation will be pleased with us.

Because I love God, Truth loves me. Truth has no existence without God. God is the very breath of Truth. Truth and God are one, indivisible. On the one hand, Truth is another name for God. On the other hand, Truth cannot exist without God, whereas God can at each moment transcend Truth - earthly truth and heavenly truth, earthbound truth and heavenward truth. Even His own Transcendental Truth God can transcend at His own sweet Will. Although we can safely say that God and Truth are one, God alone has the power to transcend all truths, even the Truth itself. That is why Truth without God is helpless. But when we love God, Truth loves us because Truth is immediately fed by our aspiring soul. Inside God is the existence of Truth. In our very appreciation of God, Truth is fed and nourished. And Truth rightly feels that its unique message to the world can be spread only when we truly love its Possessor, God.

Because I love Truth, I love myself. A human being is the expression of Truth. He is not the expression of ignorance, falsehood, darkness and death. No, he is the embodiment, realisation and expression of truth - the lesser truth, the higher Truth and the Highest Truth. Each moment the divine Truth is transcending its boundaries in us. We see it, feel it and realise it when we live the inner life, the life of the soul. Because I love the Truth, I really and truly love myself. My existence and Truth are the obverse and the reverse of the same coin, which is the inner being or soul, the representative of the Supreme here on earth.

I love myself. What do I love about myself? Not my body. If I love my body for the sake of my body, tomorrow I shall be frustrated because there are millions and billions of human beings on earth who are more beautiful than I am. Naturally I will feel miserable. If I love my physical mind for the sake of my mind, tomorrow I shall see millions and billions of mental giants right in front of me, and my mental capacity will fade into insignificance. If I love my vital dynamism for the sake of my vital dynamism, then I shall see that there are millions and billions of people who are simply inundated with striking dynamism. Similarly, if I love anything else of my own, for its own sake, I am bound to be frustrated. I shall defeat my very divine purpose. But if I love myself just because God is expressing Himself through this body, vital, mind and heart, then I see that I am unique and peerless in the whole history of the universe, because no other Chinmoy is going to be created by God with the same capacities, same understanding, same experiences. Each individual can love himself just because he is a direct channel of the Divine. God wants to express Himself in each individual in a unique way. When we become consciously and fully one with God, we not only fulfil Him but we also fulfil ourselves. When I say that I really and truly love myself because I love Truth, it means that I consciously feel that Truth is constantly breathing in me, with me and for me.

My very breath on earth is the living reality of Truth. I love and adore myself at every moment - not because of my sound body, dynamic vital, refined mind and pure heart, but because God is inside me, God is utilising me, God is fulfilling Himself in me and through me. This is the sole reason why my body, vital, mind and heart are loved by me and must be loved by me. Each individual has to be surcharged with this supreme Truth. He should consciously feel that his life on earth is the outer manifestation of the Supreme's inner Breath.

Supreme, I am Thy Glowing Grace. I am Thy Golden Plow. I am Thy Vision's Kite.

- Sri Chinmoy, Eastern Light For The Western Mind