Question: Once a person becomes your disciple, how does the spiritual enlightenment start? We come here to meditate with you once a week, but what else is required?

Sri Chinmoy: When one becomes my disciple, one automatically feels the necessity of leading a disciplined life. Before one becomes a disciple of mine, he does many silly things. Previously he considered these things normal and natural. But after he has accepted me, these things become unnatural, abnormal. After one becomes my disciple, one tries to conquer his weaknesses and to get rid of his imperfections.

Through his meditation with me or on my picture, the disciple derives considerable strength from me, from my consciousness. Then it becomes infinitely easier for him to conquer these negative qualities.

When one becomes a disciple, one feels a kind of inner assurance. Of course, it depends on how sincerely the disciple accepts me. In a class, someone is first and someone is last. The best and the worst study in the same class. But when the examination is over, the one who has studied hard naturally procures the highest marks. In the spiritual life also, he who works very hard spiritually, inwardly and outwardly, with dedicated love, devotion and surrender to the Will of the Supreme, naturally makes the fastest progress. So everything depends on how sincerely one has accepted the spiritual life or our path, how much importance he gives to his life of aspiration and realisation, and how soon he wants to reach the Goal.