Question: Guru, are we aware that we are attacking you in the inner life?

Sri Chinmoy: Oh yes, many times people are aware; again, many times they are not. But most of the time people are aware when they attack me. The human mind is like that. This moment I am your best friend, the next moment I can be your worst enemy. In five minutes time, somebody can be your best friend and, if you have a fight, he can become your worst enemy. During the day, how many times do I become the best friend and the worst enemy of the disciples? Suppose I deprive somebody of something and give it to somebody else. The person who gets it immediately says, “Oh, he has fulfilled my desire just to keep me quiet. He has given me a piece of candy so that he can give real divine Nectar to so-and-so.” And the one that did not get it at all feels, “Oh, all the Master ever gives me is talk.” But he has to know that if today he gets one cent, then tomorrow he will get five cents and the following day he may get a dollar. It is like that.

If you get, I am bad; if you don’t get, I am also bad. There is no way I can make the disciple feel that it is for his own good that I am giving him something or that I am not giving him something. How people can misunderstand. They feel that if Guru does not give something to them, it is proof that he does not care. They say, “Since I have not got anything today, I must not expect anything more from him in the future.” This is their logic. Only when one has made unconditional surrender will one see that everything I do is for his own good.

I find it so difficult to smile at people sometimes. Immediately they ascribe some motive to it. Sometimes disciples feel that if I smile at them, then it means that I want something from them. I am in a very good mood, so I smile. But someone immediately thinks, “Oh, I have so much money, and he wants to have a very large share. That is why he has given me a smile.”

It has happened many, many times that I am afraid to smile at certain individuals because if I smile, it is misunderstood. If I smile, immediately you think that I am expecting something from you in return. Then, if I don’t smile, you think that I am displeased or that I am not smiling because you have not given me anything. But whether you have pleased me more or not may have nothing to do with it.

From:Sri Chinmoy,A twentieth-century seeker, Agni Press, 1977
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/tcs