Question: Is love the purest form of gratitude and, if so, can love and gratitude be the fastest way to perfection?
Sri Chinmoy: No, love is not the purest form of gratitude. Devoted surrender and unconditional oneness are the purest forms of gratitude. Love is very complicated: there is human love, divine love, animal love. Again, even divine love sometimes is mixed up with vital demands. But when there is a constant, inseparable and unconditional surrender and oneness, this is undoubtedly the purest form of gratitude. And this gratitude is undoubtedly the fastest way not only to perfection, but to perfect Perfection.
Sri Chinmoy, Service-heroes, Agni Press, 1978