Question: Since so many people are crying for light, what spiritual qualities do the disciples lack that prevent us from manifesting the Supreme's Light and attracting more people to the spiritual life?

Sri Chinmoy: It is a question of the readiness and eagerness of the disciples who are working to spread or manifest the Supreme’s Light. Some of those who come to work on manifestation are ready and eager. Others are ready but not eager to work, and some are not even inwardly ready. It is like a class. Some students are no good at all; others are very good and a few are super-excellent. Yet they are all studying together in the same class and the teacher is giving them the same lesson. But until all of them become excellent, the teacher cannot be confident that his teaching has been successful.

Some people come just to have fun; they enjoy putting up posters and doing similar kinds of jobs. But when I look at them, I see that from the spiritual point of view they are only wasting their precious time. They are serving the Supreme in their Guru, and for that I am grateful to them. But if I am sincere, I have to say that their consciousness is not being elevated. They are not gaining anything spiritually because they have no intense sincerity and no devotion in their heart. Each time you put up a poster, you have to see twenty or fifty faces there. For each poster you put up, you have to feel that there are fifty hearts crying for light who are going to see this poster. But many of you are just working mechanically. In India, if someone works for four hours he gets a few rupees. In my case, I do not give you people money; I give you my love, my affection, my blessings. But in his heart of hearts, this Indian Master is not pleased with you because you did not have intense sincerity in your heart; you did not work with a pure heart, soulfully, devotedly and lovingly.

There are many other things that I also notice. I see how much purity you are carrying inside your mind, inside your vital and inside your heart. If there is no purity in your mind, for example, if your mind is thinking that someone else has a better job than you or is getting closer to the Master than you, then you are finished! Also, your inspiration has to be more pure. Many times when you are inspired to do something your inspiration is heavy — filled with carelessness, callousness and indifference. At least inspiration is there, but inside inspiration there also has to be one-pointed eagerness. Again, I see how much insecurity you are carrying. While you are working, many of you are thinking, “Perhaps Guru is appreciating so-and-so more than me.” So whom do you think you are fooling? You are not fooling me; only you are breaking my heart.

The Message has come from Above that 7,000 or 10,000 or 13,000 souls inwardly are crying for the kind of light that we can offer them at a Peace Concert. God’s Hour has struck. But the instruments that I have got are not spiritually or inwardly ready and eager. Unfortunately, I am a beggar, and beggars cannot be choosers. The divine in me is hungry and the divine in you is also hungry. But the divine in both of us is being fed such a small portion that our hunger is not being fulfilled. How long will the world remain in this kind of unaspiring consciousness?

It is like the Indian story about the king who asks his subjects to fill the pond with milk. Each one says, “If I put in water instead of milk, no harm! The others will put in milk and the King will not notice.” So in the end no one puts in milk. It is never you, but always somebody else who you feel should do the right thing. But that somebody else does not exist! Each worker is like a petal of a flower. Each petal is responsible only for its own beauty; it is not responsible for all the other petals. But if the flower is to have beauty and fragrance, then all the petals have to be beautiful and fragrant. So if each petal seriously tries to have the necessary purity, beauty and fragrance, then the flower will become perfect.

These things are needed to bring down peace in the way that we want to bring down peace. Others can bring thousands of people in their own way, but it is not for peace. A jazz musician or somebody else can get thousands and thousands of people, but their standard is totally different from ours. They can succeed because they are working on one level of consciousness, whereas we want to establish peace and divinity on another level.