Question: What does it take to become a perfect disciple?

Sri Chinmoy: To become a perfect disciple only one thing is needed and that is unconditional surrender. Right now, you do not know what God’s Will is. You will pray for yourself, your daughter, your son, your husband. That is absolutely the right thing. You have to pray and pray and pray. Then a day will come when, from within, you will get a message that you have prayed enough for the members of your family. God will say, “Enough, enough. You have prayed enough. Now I will take care of them in My own Way.” At that time, you have to have faith that He will take care of them, even if your mind is saying, “Oh, God is taking care of them in His own Way? Everything is going from bad to worse!” But until you get that message, you have to pray and meditate most sincerely.

Again, it may happen that while you are praying and meditating most sincerely, most devotedly, God will fulfil your prayers. But do not think, “Just because I am praying sincerely, God has to do it.” God has to do it eventually, but God has His own time. Our time is not God’s time.

Many times it happens that if we do not get results from our prayers, we blame ourselves, which means indirectly we are blaming God. Either we say that God has not given us the capacity to be more sincere or more self-giving, or we say, “How sincere I was, how soulful I was! How is it that my prayer was not sanctioned?” But why should our time and God’s Hour be the same? He can have His own time. He is the Supreme Boss.

Let us say that perhaps at eight o’clock your boss has asked you to come so that he can give you some job. Then when you go there, he is reading the newspaper and not paying any attention to you. You came at the time he told you to come, but he is not ready for you. When this boss is God, He will be so pleased that you came on time, but it is His business whether to give you the job at eight o’clock or much later. He has in mind a fixed hour, which means whenever He wants to. You will be waiting at the door until He tells you to do something. That is His choice Hour.

So you continue to pray and meditate. Either your prayers will be fulfilled in the course of time or you will get an inner message. Kindly pray for yourself, your daughter, your husband and your son. They also have accepted the spiritual life, so they are reducing your burden.

Unless we become unconditionally surrendered at every moment, we cannot please God. We have to do it happily, cheerfully, soulfully and self-givingly. Otherwise, that surrender is no surrender. It is the surrender of a street beggar. If you want to become a perfect disciple at every moment, you must become unconditional. You can even do japa by repeating to yourself, “I want to become an unconditionally surrendered disciple.” Then automatically you will become a perfect disciple.