Question: What is the quickest way to achieve self-control?

Sri Chinmoy: There are two major ways to achieve self-control. These are faster than other ways. First you have to have tremendous will-power. Determined will-power, you try to cultivate. Then you have to feel the necessity of the Grace. While you are feeling the necessity of the Grace, you have to feel that determined will-power is coming from the Divine Grace. First you can see them separately, your will-power, your determination, and God’s Divine Grace. Now you will feel that it is your will-power that is causing the miracle in you, that you are controlling yourself. This is what you will feel, but this is not fully true. What is actually true is that the miracle-power which we call the Divine Grace is operating through you, through your determined will-power. Otherwise what happens is that the human will-power which people use is very limited. Today I say, “I won’t do this; I won’t eat that.” This is my will-power, this is my determination. But tomorrow, I do the same wrong thing. I do that very thing. Though I said, “I won’t eat it,” I eat it. Though I said, “I won’t do it,” I do it.

Now the ordinary human determination that I had was also sincere. There are many people who have a sincere determination, but inside the determination, there was a lack of the Divine Grace. That is why they cannot continue their determination for a sustained period. So when you feel the necessity of the Divine Grace inside your will-power and when you feel that your will-power is operating so heartfully precisely because of the boundless power of God, which is manifesting itself in and through your limited will-power, then only can self-control be achieved very quickly and very completely.