Question: Are the souls of your bird drawings created equally, or do the souls of the more elaborately drawn birds have a different quality than the ones that are quickly drawn?

Sri Chinmoy: It depends on the soul’s receptivity. When a disciple has a birthday, for example, I will very often invite him to sit in front of me to meditate. Sometimes I look at the individual for a long time because he is receiving so much. Then I am so happy, but my happiness you will not be able to see on my face. On other occasions I am only exercising my patience with the hope that after five or ten seconds the person will receive an iota of my light. In the end I am smiling, but you will not know if it is because the disciple received or only because I am showing compassion and hiding my sad face.

There is no hard and fast rule about the amount of time it takes me to draw a bird. I may take only four seconds to draw a bird because that bird has tremendous receptivity, and after four seconds it satisfies me immensely. Or I may take many seconds to draw a bird because it is receiving so much light from me. Again, I may take half a minute to draw a bird, but if there is no receptivity, then it is useless. So the souls are not equal. Unfortunately or fortunately, some birds come with more potential. Or you can say they come from a somewhat higher or a somewhat lower world. They are not all coming from the same plane.

For a few days recently I was drawing my birds on white paper, and sometimes it happened that each page had a different receptivity. You will say, “O God, how can a blank page have receptivity? Receptivity is only inside the bird-consciousness.” But that is not true; even the paper can have receptivity. Sometimes after drawing only six birds on a page, I see vividly that I do not need to draw any more. I am satisfied because the receptivity of the blank sheet is enough. Again, sometimes I do twenty birds because I see there is more receptivity on the page. Still other times I am not satisfied with the receptivity of the page, so I keep on drawing and drawing. It is not until I draw twenty, thirty or forty birds that I am satisfied with what I wanted to give to that particular page.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Sri Chinmoy answers, part 8, Agni Press, 1997
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