Question: Does the aspiration of the disciples affect the quality of your painting?
Sri Chinmoy: Fortunately it does not. To be very frank with you, nothing — nothing at all — can affect the quality of my paintings. But if a disciple is aspiring sincerely and devotedly, then the aspiration-flood that I bring down can intensify, purify, elevate and illumine his aspiration.Sometimes the disciples sit around me and in front of me with the lowest possible aspiration. If that lowest possible aspiration could affect the quality of my paintings, then my paintings would be worse than the worst. But my paintings are far above the disciples' aspiration-capacity.
But if the disciples aspire while I am painting and dive deep within, then they get more joy from my creation. Their high aspiration helps them to identify themselves with the essence and substance of my own aspiration or realisation which the painting embodies.
Sri Chinmoy, Service-heroes, Agni Press, 1978