Question: What should the primary goal of our manifestation be at this time?

Sri Chinmoy: Dearest son, I have been telling you and telling you about the primary goal. The goal appears one year and the following year it remains the same. It is only to bring quite a few sincere seekers whom I can accept. My whole mission has become absolutely stagnant. I shall always keep the same philosophy: I do not want to have ten million disciples here on earth. Two hundred we have lost out of nine hundred. Some have left us before we have asked them to leave; some we have asked to leave. So we have come down to about seven hundred. This small number is the result of our lack of dynamic spirit, individually or collectively. It is my hope that you will use a dynamic spirit when you are trying to bring people. When new people come they bring a new flow, like a child or a new flower, and the old flowers become really happy; immediately they try to blossom. When there is a little child in the family, immediately the old ones get a kind of joy by talking to the little one and by teaching him. Joy has gone away from you people. Either spirituality has become something mental or there is nothing in it for you; there is no newness in it. Since you are not getting newness from your own spirituality, you need something that can give you joy and newness, or to which you yourself can give newness.

You don't feel that you are new any more; you are old. But you have to feel always that you are four years old, that you are younger than your daughter. Everything that she sees is new. For you, a whole year passes by and everything is old. Nineteen seventy-six will pass away for the lawyer in you and everything will be old, old, old. For your daughter, every second is new; for you, nothing is new. But if you can think that every second is a new reality, then it becomes a new creation for you.

Right now, I am begging all of you to give up everything and try only to bring more members into our family, in this area especially. We have only two hundred people in the New York area, but right now our whole mission depends on these divine American soldiers. God has blessed me or cursed me. He alone knows whether America is really a dynamo. America has to play its role. Our goal is not to have ten thousand people, but we need two hundred or three hundred more to bring into our Centre, into our reality. We have become lethargic, old. We have to bring more people to our family gatherings. For these gatherings the father will come in spite of sickness and millions of problems both in the inner world and the outer world. I have another world, which is the inner world. You have only an outer world. I have as many problems in the inner world as in the outer world. But I come to the gatherings and out of a hundred members in one Centre, only twenty or thirty will come; out of thirty, only five will come.

If we have new people, then it will be different. There will be new enthusiasm, new joy. I am not saying that the old people should be washed away; far from it. They are getting another opportunity to behave well and to do the right thing. You may say that you are not getting the opportunity, but here is another opportunity for you: just bring more people. This is first and foremost. I am begging everyone to do it. If you don't have the capacity to bring people, then pray and meditate. Let your face shine. Then, while you are walking, somebody will look at you and say, “Do you do anything special?” and you will say, "I am following a spiritual path." They will see it immediately. That is one way. The other way is to mix with people and try to bring them to a meeting, but not by telling them that ours is by far the best path. Just say, "We have the inner cry. Do you want to see our shop? We will sell you something or give you something that you will like. Do you want it? We are ready to give it to you. Come and see."

All the disciples who have been with us for more than a year have become fossilised. And the ones who have been with us for four or five years, what are they doing? When the old ones are not moving forward, the new ones immediately think, "This chariot is very slow." The new runners feel that you people who have been with us for some time are experienced runners. If you are all the time lying down in the field and not coming to the track to run, then these new people will say, "Perhaps they are right. There is no goal. They are stuck; there is no goal for us either. So let us lie down instead of going to the starting point."

First and foremost, let our goal be to bring two or three hundred sincere seekers. They will bring new life to our mission. Our whole mission has become stagnant, absolutely stagnant. The ones we have already are ninety-nine per cent dead. Physically you are eating and moving around, but spiritually most of you are absolutely dead. When you don't aspire, you are dead soldiers. Either you have to make your face shine and radiate so that the whole world of illumination will enter into your face, or you have to try to bring new seekers through selfless service. If you run nine thousand miles, you may think that this is dynamic movement on the physical plane. But how many steps have you taken with devotion or oneness in your consciousness? My children have covered nine thousand miles, but how many steps have been taken in oneness with me, with my heart and soul? God alone knows!

To all of you I am saying, please do this before the end of the year. Again, if this year does not play its role satisfactorily, then next year there will be another message. This year has been a total failure. Every year we have been failing like anything. Next year a new message is coming. This year will be like history and next year will have a new message, a new subject. This year if you fail, then again you will have no confidence next year. But if you pass in history, then you get the confidence to do well next year in geography. Once you do well, then you get the confidence, determination and self-sacrifice to do well again. So please bring new people, new life into the Centre. New life is what we are lacking so badly. Newness has gone away. You will feel newness when you are a child. For a child, at every second everything is new. For you everything is old, old. This is the difference. Every second has to come in front of us as a new reality. Then only we can make progress. Otherwise, we are dead.