Question: When I meditate and I force myself to go deep within, something inside me accuses me of trying to reach God for myself and not for God’s sake.

Sri Chinmoy: Well, you have to know that that thing inside you is absolutely right. Your soul, your purest soul, will always tell you that if you want to realise God, it has to be to please God and not to please yourself. I have been constantly telling people that if they want to realise God in their own way, it is useless. Of course that is better than not wanting to realise God at all. Millions and billions of people are sleeping and snoring, spiritually. At least the people who want God for themselves are not sleeping. But you have to know why these people want to please God. Why? Because they feel that God will then give them something to make them happier. Now they are unhappy. They feel if they please God, He will use His power to make them happy.

But the real aspirant says, “I don’t want happiness, I don’t want anything. I only want what God gives me. I love Him wholeheartedly; it is His business to make me happy or to make me miserable, to give me joy or to give me frustration. I want to please Him in His own Way. If He wants to give me all kinds of problems, if that is His Will, then let Him give me millions of problems. I shall shoulder them and remain happy. But if He wants me to be free of problems, so that I can think of Him and meditate on Him all the time, then I shall be equally happy.”

A real seeker will try to please God in God’s own Way. He will say: “If God wants me to be in perpetual hell, I will remain there because that is what He wants. But if He wants me to be in the Transcendental Heaven all the time, that is where I shall be.” A real devotee, a real disciple will say: “Master, Thy Will be done and not mine; never.”