Dr. Davis: Is it all right if I share with you what I have been using as a mantra? Does it matter if I tell you?

Sri Chinmoy: It matters if you tell me in front of others. The mantra that you use, others should not hear. It is all right if you tell it privately to a spiritual master like me, for I can be always in tune with you; but others cannot. In India they say that if you share your mantra with others, its inner strength goes away. The mantra that you repeat is like your life-breath. You are repeating it millions and billions of times. It is part and parcel of your divine reality. That most sacred possession of yours represents your very existence on earth; it is not to be shared. Only you and God and the person who has blessed you with the mantra should know it.

Dr. Davis: But if I took the mantra from a book, does that still apply?

Sri Chinmoy: It is the same thing. Even if you got it from a book, that mantra is sacred for you. You are taking it very seriously in your life, and that automatically makes it sacred. Anything that we are serious about eventually becomes sacred in our life. Seriousness and sacredness go together. There are many things that you have read which you have not memorised or recited over and over again. But this one mantra you have selected. It is giving you immense joy and a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment. So this mantra has to be kept very sacred inside your heart; otherwise, it loses its power.

As soon as you share it with someone else, no matter how friendly that person is, immediately jealousy and other negative forces can enter. If the person with whom you share it is undeserving, he or she will ruin it for you. It is like dealing with a monkey. Let us say you have got a most beautiful flower and you are enjoying its beauty and fragrance. If you show the flower to a monkey, the monkey will just tear off the petals, because that is its nature. Similarly, if you reveal your mantra to people who are not praying and meditating, people who are restless and full of self-doubt, they will destroy its sacredness for you. As soon as they touch it, its beauty, its purity and its divinity will go away.

Dr. Davis: I did not realise that. You would think it would be just the opposite, that by sharing you can grow.

Sri Chinmoy: There are a few things that you can share; again, there are a few things that you cannot share. If from within you have acquired a constant supply of God’s Love, God’s Affection, God’s Compassion and God’s Grace, if you have a free access to this divine wealth, then you can and should share it with your dear ones according to their necessity. You can offer them inwardly your purest love and joy. But you should not outwardly share with them the secret way you are getting these things. This has to be very secret and very sacred; it is not their business. What you are giving them, they need. But how you have become a multi-millionaire in the inner world, it is not necessary for them to know.

Again, you have to know how much receptivity someone has. A five-year-old child can handle only one dollar. If you give him fifty or a hundred dollars, he will not know how to use it and he may throw the money into the street. The spiritual standard of your students right now is very limited. If you share with them your unlimited wisdom-light, it will just burst like a balloon because right now they are not ready; they are not mature. To a kindergarten student you cannot give a university course. No, first he has to learn the alphabet, the ABC’s. Otherwise, you will not help him at all but just confuse him.³