Question: Do false Masters believe that they are true Masters?

Sri Chinmoy: Ninety per cent of the false Masters believe that they are true Masters. But again, there are ten per cent who know that they are false yet continue deceiving others because it has become a habit. When their sincerity comes forward, they feel how they have deceived the world. But by then, it is too late because they are seventy or eighty years old and for their whole life they have deceived the world. So what can they do? In their next incarnation they shall have to start from the very beginning praying and meditating and trying to be sincere.

Again, there are some spiritual teachers who accept disciples and have an ashram for a few years. Then they come to realise that they are not realised, so they give up teaching and they become spiritual seekers. In India it has happened that a few Masters said that they had realised God and then got quite a few disciples; but when they saw some disciples sincerely praying and meditating, they saw with their own eyes that these disciples were going far beyond them. These Masters were sincere enough to again start praying and meditating most soulfully. But false Masters are not sincere. They tell many lies. If you tell a lie twenty times, then you can convince your physical mind that that very thing is the truth. If you tell the same lie over and over again, then you totally forget that it is a lie. In your conscious mind it becomes a reality.