Question: What is your relationship with your disciples based upon?

Sri Chinmoy: My relationship with my disciples is based upon love, concern and compassion. Each spiritual Master has the same relationship with his disciples. There is no spiritual Master who does not have concern for his spiritual children. He is like a father. Sometimes a father is strict and sometimes he is not. Some parents feel that it is through strictness that their children will make fast progress. Other parents may feel that it is through love that their children can make good progress. As a spiritual father, I have come to realise that love is undoubtedly the most powerful force, but that love and divine authority must go together.

There is a great difference between divine authority and human authority. Human authority is autocracy and dictatorship. Divine authority is based on the strength of inseparable oneness with the disciples. Because the Master has taken responsibility for bringing each disciple to God, he knows what is best for the disciple. An ordinary dictator or autocrat gets tremendous pleasure in lording his power over others. But the spiritual Master does not get any pleasure from his divine authority. It is only with deepest concern that he is acting for the disciples' own good. If he tells a disciple to do something, he knows that it is for the disciple's own progress. He says, "I will be one with you in your ignorance in order to take you to the Goal." Then the Master's divine authority encourages the disciple not to exploit his own soul's patience, or the patience of the Supreme, whom the Master represents.

So my relationship with my disciples is one of constant concern and love, and also divine authority. If you really follow my path, you will do as I tell you. If you don't like my path, you are at liberty to leave my path today. I will not compel you to stay with me. But if you follow my path and if you really want to make good progress, then along with my love and concern, I will also use my divine authority. If I see that you are wallowing in the meshes of ignorance, I will use my divine authority to compel you either to come out of ignorance or to leave my path.

My strictness is also a form of my divine concern. When I am strict with someone, at that time it is not punishment. I am only trying to bring to the fore the roaring lion inside the disciple, so that his ignorance will be destroyed. Because it is used in many forms, people may misunderstand it; but my disciples, my sincere and devoted disciples, know that when I use my divine authority, it is not my dictatorship; it is only my inseparable oneness with them.