Questions and answers

Question: What is the main contributing factor to your faith, and how is it different from other faiths?

Sri Chinmoy: In the spiritual life, first of all, there is no competitive spirit; so I do not compare our path with other paths. Each path has its own value. Each path has a specific way to lead the aspirant to his destined Goal. Our path is the path of love, devotion and surrender; what we particularly emphasize is love, devotion and surrender to the Will of the Supreme. I cannot say in what ways this path is different from other paths because I am not familiar with other paths.

If somebody follows our path, then he tries to develop or bring to the fore his inner love, spiritual love. Unlike human love, which binds, divine love expands and illumines our consciousness within and without.

When we offer devotion, we are offering our one-pointed devotion to the Supreme, the Inner Pilot within us. In our ordinary human life, what we call devotion is nothing short of ignorant attachment. But divine devotion is totally different from attachment. Here we offer ourselves to the right cause, to the divine within us, so that we can grow into a sea of Peace, Light and Bliss.

The surrender that we try to achieve on our path is not the surrender of a slave to his master. The slave is always afraid of the master. He feels that if he doesn’t satisfy the master, then the master will do him some injury. There is always a sense of fear in the heart and mind of the slave. But in the spiritual life, when the seeker surrenders to his inner divinity, to the Supreme within him, he feels that he is surrendering to his own highest and most illumined existence. He is surrendering to his own highest part, to his highest height and inmost light.

This is the basis of our path in a nutshell. If I compare our path with other paths, then I enter into unfortunate controversies. Other paths can also be right and perfect. But the two main paths are the path of the mind and the path of the heart. Our path is a path of the heart. It is up to the individual seeker to decide which type of path will suit him, and then to follow one path. Ultimately, when a seeker reaches his destined Goal, there he will see that the seekers who have been sincerely following other paths have reached the same destination, the same Goal.