Question: What is the difference between your path and the Sufi path?

Sri Chinmoy: The Sufi light and the path that we follow are similar. The Sufi path is a path of love, and ours also is a path of love. I am not well-versed in Sufism, but I can tell you about our path. In our path, the divine lover tries to become inseparably one with the supreme Beloved. But it will be a mistake if we say that we always remain a divine lover and the Beloved always remains the Beloved. The lover divine and the Beloved Supreme play hide-and-seek and change their respective roles. The lover cries for the Beloved then the lover becomes the Beloved. When the lover cries for the Beloved and the Beloved gives him a smile, the lover’s satisfaction dawns. He is fulfilled. Again, when the Beloved sees that the lover is crying for Him, for their total oneness, at that time He is satisfied and fulfilled. But this cry that He wants to see in the lover is not the cry of inferiority. No, it is only the feeling of inner oneness expressed in another form. It can be expressed through smile and also through cry. The cry and the smile are like the obverse and reverse of the same coin. When there is a cry from the earth-consciousness and a smile from the Heaven-Consciousness, God the Revealer is complete and God the Fulfiller is complete.