Question: Sometimes disciples push and shove in order to be closer to you. I know they do it because they want to get more light from you, but it seems like such an unspiritual way to behave.

Sri Chinmoy: When you come to a Master, do not look around to see who is sitting beside the Master or who is the Master’s closest. You came to the Master to be in the Master’s Universal Consciousness, not to be in the world of competition. The competition-world will fail you, but the Master’s oneness-world will save you. Those who establish their oneness with the Master’s will and manifest the Supreme in their Master are the ones who will become supremely chosen instruments to offer the Master’s light to mankind.

Sometimes a disciple inwardly tells the Master, “If you care for so and so, then I will punish you by leaving you. He is such a bad person that I do not want to be around him.” Many people have left the spiritual life because they felt that their Master was giving more importance to people they considered bad than he was giving to them. In my case also, quite a few excellent seekers have left our path because they remained in the world of competition and tried to become close, closer, closest. But when they saw that they were not becoming close or closer or closest, they disappeared. Those people wanted me to please them in their own way. Inwardly they said, “I have done so much for you, but you do not care for me and do not think of me.”

I always do what is best for the disciple’s spiritual progress, and a true disciple will have faith in the Master. A true disciple does not care whether he is outwardly close or outwardly far away from the Master, so long as he can serve the Master in the Master’s own way. Only those true disciples give me joy, because they are part of me and I am a part of them. They are the ones who really love me and really understand me, and their only goal is to manifest the Supreme in me on earth.