Question: Do you have any advice for those who are giving talks for seekers?

Sri Chinmoy: If you want to give lectures on spirituality, you are not like a teacher at an ordinary school. At an ordinary school, after the teacher finishes his lecture on history, for example, he can do anything he likes. His history class has nothing to do with his personal life. But if you are giving talks on spirituality, you cannot separate your teaching life from your day-to-day existence. If you are a spiritual person, you cannot be one person in the class and then afterwards enter into the life of vital enjoyment. During the lecture, the seekers hear you talking about renunciation and God-realisation. Then afterwards, if they see you drinking in a bar or dancing somewhere, they will get the shock of their lives. They will become confused. What is worse, they will feel that spirituality is a hopeless case. They will think that the spiritual life is only a joke, and they will lose what little aspiration they had.

People who come to your lectures may not be sincere enough to follow a disciplined life. But they come to you with the hope of at least becoming better human beings. If, because of your behaviour, you destroy their aspiration instead of strengthening it, you are doing something most deplorable. You are responsible for those seekers. Even if they came to you only out of curiosity in order to learn what spirituality actually means, any misbehaviour on your part can destroy even their curiosity, not to speak of their aspiration.

It takes sincerity, enthusiasm, eagerness, purity and many other divine qualities to inspire others to enter fully into the spiritual life. It is not enough to give; you also have to become. If you give without becoming, then you can never succeed. So give and become; become and give. Then you will be a really divine instrument of our Beloved Supreme.