Question: If we are the object of gossip, how can we not be affected and remain in a high consciousness?

Sri Chinmoy: Simply think of yourself as an elephant. Vivekananda used to say that it is like an elephant going to the market. The elephant’s goal is bananas. Dogs are barking and barking, but the elephant has no time to pay any attention to the dogs. The elephant goes to the market and there he gets bananas and eats to his heart’s content. Here also, your goal is to dive deep within or to do something to manifest God. If people are saying unkind things, why do you have to pay attention? Just go forward, like the elephant.

The thing you have to develop is poise. Your Guru has many good qualities, but his best and by far the most important quality is poise. If I did not have poise in my inner world, by this time I would have gone to Heaven thousands of times. You cannot imagine the amount of suffering that I carry inside my heart. But inside me there is a shield, and the name of that shield is poise. It is because of my inner poise that I am still alive. Is there anybody who does not need poise? Again, some people mistake callousness for poise. In their dictionary callousness and poise are synonyms. But in my dictionary, callousness is not synonymous with poise. It is something else.