His Smile-Absence nowhere

‘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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