Steve Powers: I think one of the callers was asking, in effect: if I become sensitive and mellow and spiritual, will I not get eaten up on the street by the sharks? Do you know what I mean by that?
Sri Chinmoy: I know. If I am one with you, then how can you destroy me? Just because I am not one with you, you can do some harm to me. Oneness is strength. When we identify ourselves with a higher reality, how can we be destroyed? How can we be devoured? A child identifies himself with his father. The father is strong; he is a man of knowledge. The child feels that nothing will harm him because his father is there. On the strength of his oneness with his father, the child feels he is quite safe; he can go anywhere he wants to because he has a father with wisdom, strength, capacity. So here also, if one practises spirituality, then one is consciously identifying oneself with the highest omnipotent Power. So how can we be devoured in the street? Identification solves all our problems. If we identify ourselves with a higher Source, a higher Reality, we have to know that this higher Reality definitely has enormous power, boundless power.
Sri Chinmoy, Truth's fountain-melody, Agni Press, 1992