Question: Whenever I get unhappy, it generally has to do with my attachment, concern and worry about my children.

Sri Chinmoy: I am answering this question on your daughter’s behalf. You should convince yourself that fourteen years ago your daughter didn’t exist. Fourteen years ago for her also you didn’t exist. And you will go to the other world before her. Where is the proof that you were together five hundred or five thousand years before? Your daughter is just like a mango that you have plucked from a mango tree. You will not keep it forever. After sixty or seventy years when she goes back to the source, you will not be able to claim her. We can claim only those things that are with us permanently.

Now let us be practical. If your daughter had not accepted the spiritual life, we could say that she would have stayed with you another four or five years and then she would have left your home. Now you should feel that you have given her to the Supreme. In this way you can convince yourself not to worry about her.

Do you get any benefit by worrying? No! You only kill yourself and at the same time the forces of worry also enter into her. Then more undivine forces will enter into the situation. Your worry is not a divine force. You may feel and your daughter may feel that you have every right to think of her, but if you go on worrying too much, this worry itself is an undivine force. If your daughter is not at home and you are worrying, then like a bullet your worries enter into her. At that time your worries will not enter into her as worries; they will enter into her as something unpleasant. She will feel a stomach upset or some other physical disturbance. When our worries or anxieties enter into others, very often they do not enter in the same form; they take some other form.

So when you worry or you are angry, your unhappiness will enter your daughter in some other form. She will not be angry with you at that moment, but your worry will create unpleasantness for her. There are many parents who are terribly worried about their children. I wish to tell you that you will really be happy only on the day you feel you are not indispensable to your daughter. The Supreme alone is indispensable. The moment you have that feeling, you will have happiness. You are one hundred per cent responsible for offering goodwill to your daughter, who is dearest to your heart. You are under obligation to offer her goodwill at every moment. But to worry and be angry and upset does not help at all in our spiritual life.