Question: What does it truly mean to serve the Supreme in others?

Sri Chinmoy: You can serve the Supreme in others, but why do you use the term 'in others'? Right now, you are still wanting in oneness. As long as there is a sense of separativity, you have to acquire more aspiration before you can feel that there is somebody else whom you have to accept as your own.

First is 'I.' Only I exist. You don't exist. When I am in the desire-world I need only my own fulfilment. Then there comes a time when I have to admit that you also exist. When I have accepted your existence, what remains to be realised is oneness. First I will tell you to stay in the street, while I live in a house. Then, I will say that you also should have a good house, like me. Finally comes oneness, and this oneness is founded upon our already established oneness with God.

First I have the sense of separativity. I as an individual am the body, vital, mind, heart and soul; and you as an individual are the body, vital, mind, heart and soul. I still find it difficult to claim you as my own or to see you as my own. So there has to be a connecting link, and this connecting link is the Source, the Supreme. When we aspire, we come to realise that we have a Source and that others also have the same Source. If we do not know who He is, then it will be simply impossible for us to unite ourselves. But right now we do need somebody to connect us. As long as I know that you are His creation and that I also am His creation, I can invoke the Creator to make us inseparably one. But if I have already established my oneness with you, and you have already established your oneness with me, then we don't need a third person to tell us that we are one.

The mind is not allowing us to feel that we are the self-same reality. But if we remain in the heart, then we will never speak of serving the Supreme 'in others.' We will speak of serving the Supreme in ourselves, in our own aspiring consciousness. In the heart we are inseparable, but in the mind we are more than two; we are many. If we live in the mental world, we feel that we are serving the Supreme in many. The mental world will always offer the message of separativity, whereas the psychic world will always offer us the message of oneness, inseparable oneness.