Question: What happens in the inner world and also in the outer world when we disobey the Supreme in you?

Sri Chinmoy: Disobedience delays your journey. If you are supposed to arrive at a particular goal in a certain amount of time — let us say, four hours — because of your outer disobedience, the journey may take twenty hours or forty hours. But if you disobey the Supreme in me in the inner world, it may take forty years. If inwardly you do the wrong thing, and if that inner disobedience continues, it may take even a lifetime for you to complete that particular journey. Outer disobedience will delay your progress by a few days or a few weeks or a few months. But inner disobedience may delay your progress indefinitely. If inwardly you are disobeying the Supreme in me, you have to know that something is very wrong in your nature. Then, even on your deathbed you will not be able to do anything, no matter how much you are crying and crying. So inner disobedience is infinitely, infinitely worse than outer disobedience.

There are so many types of disobedience. If I tell my ‘best disciple’ to come at a certain hour and he comes late, that kind of disobedience is not very serious. When there is outer disobedience, God is more lenient and He forgives quickly. But when there is inner disobedience, God does not forgive so quickly. Very often He has to use His Justice-Power, because inner disobedience is almost an incurable disease. But eventually that disease has to be cured.

About your inner disobedience only you know and I know, only your soul knows and my soul knows. Before the wrong forces attack people, sometimes I see that they deliberately open the door to these forces. Knowing that a storm is coming, I can leave my door open and enjoy the storm. Then my room is completely destroyed. In the spiritual life also, sometimes I know that people are going to do something wrong even before they do it, because I see the forces attacking them. Sometimes I watch to see whether they are going to allow these forces to attack them, or whether they are going to fight against these forces. I observe whether they will allow these monkeys to come and bite them, or whether they are going to threaten the monkeys so they cannot bite.