Question: How Can A Man Achieve Will...

Question: How can a man achieve will power-I mean the strength to go forward on the spiritual path?

Sri Chinmoy: There are quite a few things one has to do. You are using the term "will power" in the spiritual sense, so I am telling you from the spiritual point of view how you can develop and increase will power. First of all, you must mix only with spiritual people. It is true that everyone is God's child; we are all God's children. But God is not asking you to mix with everyone. He is asking you only to mix with those whom you feel are spiritually aspiring. By sitting beside an ordinary person, you may get pleasure. But by sitting beside someone who is spiritually aspiring, you will get divine joy, because his inspiration is increasing the divine strength inside you. Will power is in all divine qualities. In joy also there is tremendous will power. So you will be able to increase your will power by mixing with people who are spiritual.

Here is another way. You know that you eat twice or three times a day. Eating energises your body but it does not energise your soul; it does not fulfil your soul's mission on earth. For that you have to spend a few minutes two or three times a day in meditation.

Then you have to constantly ask yourself one thing: do you want God or do you want ignorance? Both are standing right in front of you at every moment and you must make a choice. You know and everybody knows that one cannot serve two masters. So when these two masters stand in front of you, you have to decide immediately which one you want. If you choose God, then you must come to Him and enter into Him. And each time you find that you have come out of a divine consciousness, you have to enter into it again. If you can re-enter into God's Consciousness faithfully every time you come out of it, then eventually you will reach the point where you will not come out of it and enter into ignorance anymore. A day will come when your conscious choice of God will be permanent and you will be totally merged in God forever.

As you begin your spiritual journey, always try to feel that you are God's child. Early in the morning you can soulfully repeat, "I am God's child, I am God's child, I am God's child." Immediately you will see that whatever is dark, impure and ugly in you will go away. Later in the day, when ignorance comes to tempt you, you will feel, "I am God's child. How can I do this? I cannot enter into ignorance." By repeating, "I am God's child," you will get abundant inner strength and will power.