Question: I don't think I receive prasad soulfully.

Sri Chinmoy: In your case, most of the time when you come up you have two problems. One is shyness. You feel that if you make a fast movement, if you just grab the prasad and go, then everybody will appreciate your fast movement. You have heard that some people don’t leave me soon enough after I give them prasad, so when you come near me, you get a kind of shyness. Then, a stupid guilty consciousness comes. Fear comes and you try to cover that fear. Sometimes you give me a smile; sometimes you just run away from me so that the thief will not be caught red-handed. You look at my face and run away. I say, “For God’s sake,” but what can I do? Some people, when they come to me, they give me all their frustration and all their lower forces.

One question you people have not asked. It has happened that, on my birthday, for example, the whole day somebody is praying to God. His mind is very pure. Then, when that person comes to me for prasad, immediately wrong forces, lower forces, will attack. He comes with the hope that Guru will be very pleased. All day he was absolutely pure. But when he comes to me, wrong forces attack and he feels, “Master is seeing how bad I am,” and he feels miserable. Here the answer is, don’t associate with those forces. All day you have prayed and meditated, so just feel that this is a golden opportunity: “Master has seen everything. Now out of his compassion, he won’t allow these forces to remain in me.”