Question: What is your view of the part of the Bible that says we should fear God's Justice?

Sri Chinmoy: You have to forgive me, but I cannot subscribe to that view. We must not fear God’s Justice and we must not fear God. If we fear God, we will never be able to reach God, we will never be able to get anything from God. If a child is afraid of his father, he will not be able to receive anything from his father. He will not even go to his father. If he sees that his father is so tall and robust and powerful, then he will not go to him. But if the child loves the father, even though the father has power and strength, the child feels that the father is not going to use it to strike him. On the contrary, the child feels that the father will use that power to protect him if he is in danger. The child feels that his father’s power is all for him. And he will be able to brag that he is so great, so powerful, because of his father’s strength. A child does not have even a dollar, but if he knows that his father has thousands of dollars, he goes and tells his friends, “Look, I am so rich; my father has so much money.” How he identifies with his father’s wealth!

Only through love do we become one. The moment we are afraid of someone, his reality and our reality become separate. I am your spiritual leader, but how am I going to give anything to you if you are afraid that it will just burn you? Reverential awe is one thing; fear is something else. In reverential awe you feel that someone is a little higher than you, so you have to behave well. God is infinitely better than you in every way, so you feel that you must have that kind of reverence. But deeper than reverence is love, true love. A child does not need reverence; he does not have to show reverence because he knows he has love, which is infinitely more effective. A child does not have to go and touch his father’s feet every second. No. The moment he shows his father his love, his heart, that is enough.

To approach God with fear or through fear is very unhealthy. We only love God. We feel that what our Father has, we also have. Unfortunately, we are still children; that is why our Father is unable to give it to us. The father does not give his vast wealth to a child. But when the child grows up, he gets what his father has and what his father is. If we can love God soulfully, then God will give us everything.

When a child is playing in the mud and then all of a sudden he is called, he is not afraid that his mother will beat him because he is dirty. He will go running to his mother and his mother will immediately take his dirt, his filth, as her very own. She will wash him in order to show others that her son is also very clean. We have to take God like that. No matter how many undivine things we do, we run towards Him and feel that with His Compassion He will just clean us immediately.