Those who work for me are also pleasing me. But the individual has to feel how much work he can do for me unnoticed and unappreciated. All your problems, everybody’s problems will be solved today if everyone can work without my outer appreciation. But you feel that you have done this for me and you have done that for me. So I have to smile at you and look at you. You call up one of the disciples and say, “Did Guru ask for me? Did he say anything? What did he say about me?” Soon I will simply tell them to say, “No,” even if I did ask about you. For how many months, for how many hours can you work without being appreciated by me? Others will appreciate you or others may not appreciate you. But if I do not appreciate you and if your friends also do not appreciate you and you still work, then that is your real achievement.
When you do something for me, my inner appreciation is immediate — immediate, I tell you. You people give me a gift on occasion. The moment I open up the gift, the moment I touch the box even, my blessingful gratitude goes to you. You don’t have to fulfil my request; the moment I ask you to do something, my gratitude immediately flows. You will perhaps complete the work two months later. I have not seen the results; I do not know whether you will bring me success or failure. I don’t know that you will ever do the job; perhaps you will bring me zero. But even then my gratitude goes to you.
Just because I have asked you to do something, that means that I have also given you the capacity. Without giving you the capacity, I will never ask you to do something for me. And the moment I ask, the moment I touch something, my inner gratitude flows. So the most effective way to please me is to work unnoticed. Always try to work without caring for appreciation. Inwardly you are being appreciated the moment you begin. There are many who work this way. When I ask them to work, they just work and then they go away. When they come and when they go, nobody knows. On some rare occasion perhaps I see them through the window, but they do not knock at the door.
This should be your attitude, not only when you are working at my house, but when you are working at other places also. If I ask you to work in Manhattan or elsewhere, you will do the job. But then you wait for appreciation or ask others if Guru has heard about it. Or through someone else you may inform me that you have done the work or that you have achieved this. You are feeling shy. Although you want the appreciation, admiration and glory, you cannot ask me for it directly, so you ask your intimate friends in some way to tell me. At that time I will smile and I will bless you. But I wish to say that you are not getting the same mark that you would otherwise have gotten. You may get practically zero. So there is no better way to please me than to work unnoticed, without appreciation. If you care for outer appreciation, you will never make any progress.From:Sri Chinmoy,A twentieth-century seeker, Agni Press, 1977
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