Question: Once you were joking that you gave a disciple bad advice. How could an Avatar do something that is not right?

Sri Chinmoy: Avatars come into the world. They cannot drink divine nectar all the time. I think I have enjoyed nectar, whereas my disciples have not. In the absence of nectar, I have to enjoy drinking juice. Ordinary human beings like juice, and Avatars also enjoy juice. In this case, “juice” means “jokes.” All spiritual Masters like to cut jokes!

One cannot be serious twenty-four hours a day. If a spiritual Master is serious twenty-four hours a day, nobody will go near him. Nobody will be able to go near him because he is in another world. Sometimes, all of a sudden, I become very serious. At that time I become unfathomable for you. But when I look at you and cut jokes, then you feel that I am alive.

My advice is never to compare my life with your life. I am not boasting. My life was like your life many, many hundreds and hundreds of years ago. I have a human body, but I am something totally different, totally different. My soul, my heart, my physical body, my life is God-made, God-moulded, God-shaped. It is totally different from other human beings.

A spiritual Master’s outer life people may judge, but there is no difference between his inner life and his outer life. In your case, they are totally different: your outer life is one thing, and your inner life is something else. In my case there is no difference between my inner life and my outer life. While I am speaking seriously or sternly to someone, I do not lose an iota of my divinity, I tell you. But if you scold someone, you go down, down the hill. This is the difference.

Never be discouraged with the spiritual life! I am begging you never to give up hope. Bring to the fore your promise, the promise that you made when you joined the path, the promise that you would make fast, faster progress to realise God. That should be your goal. Again rekindle the flame of aspiration inside you. Never give up, no matter what your present standard is.

There were some spiritual Masters of the highest calibre who, for one month or six months, could not meditate. They openly told their disciples, in order to encourage them, “I myself was not able to meditate for quite a few months.” Again, some spiritual Masters, out of sheer compassion, told lies to console their disciples; but some said, in all sincerity, “I myself have gone through that desert-life, with no aspiration, no inspiration.” Never give up, never! If you have descended, so what? If you climbed up the tree and now you have descended, again you have the capacity to climb up to the top of the tree and stay at the top.