Question: How can we know when we do things wrong?

Sri Chinmoy: Very often we do not know that we are doing something wrong until after some time. On rare occasions, when undivine desires compel us to do something, we feel that the soul is speaking to us. At that time, we are so much attached to our vital desires that we feel that it is the light that is compelling us to act. Then, after a few months or a few years, we realise that we have made a mistake, that it was not the soul but the vital that instigated us. Again, in spite of knowing that we are doing something wrong, many times we continue to do it because we feel that the pleasure-life is more important and more fascinating than the life of joy. But eventually we have to come to perfection.

Each so-called mistake takes us one step ahead. We can see that perhaps two years ago we were quarrelling and fighting and leading an animal life. Let us think of our animal incarnation, or even what we were ten years ago. But now we are aware that God is evolving in and through us.

If one is brave enough to accept his weaknesses and seek to overcome them, he makes the fastest progress. But people are not like that. We want to cover our weaknesses. In spite of knowing that flattery is very bad for us, when people do flatter us, we like it. But the Supreme never becomes sad, because He knows that sooner or later He will be given the chance to help us transcend our weaknesses and grow into perfection.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Warriors of the inner world, Agni Press, 1976
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