Question: How can we keep our aspiration strong when we are far away from you?

Sri Chinmoy: There are quite a few ways to keep your aspiration strong. You can read my writings and sing my songs. These are easy ways, but the easiest, most effective way is to feel that my presence or my existence on earth is your only friend. You will not depend on yourself: not on your mind, not on your vital, not on any part of your existence. Only you will depend on the Grace of the Supreme, which I embody. You have to make yourself feel that you exist precisely because the Supreme operates in and through me unreservedly and unconditionally on your behalf, with boundless love, boundless concern, boundless compassion, boundless light and delight. If you feel this kind of reality within you no matter where I am, and if you feel me constantly in your heart, then the disciples cannot create any problems for you. I am the rose and the disciples are the petals. If you like the rose, appreciate the rose, admire the rose, then the petals that comprise the rose you have to appreciate. Rose and petals are inseparable. So, take me as the rose-reality, and let the rose inside your heart grow petal by petal and offer its fragrance. If you can feel that this rose-reality is your only reality and that I am all the time growing inside your heart, then you will depend only on my guidance, inner and outer. Your mind may say, “What does Guru know about this thing? I know better because Guru has not dealt with this kind of situation.” But I do not deal with the mind. I deal only with the soul. And your soul naturally knows better than anybody else on earth.