Steve Powers: If I drop a hammer on your foot, will you feel suffering or will you feel delight?

Sri Chinmoy: If I remain in an ordinary consciousness, then I will feel it as suffering. But if I am in a divine consciousness, then either I will take it as delight or I will take it as an experience of God in and through me.

At the age of eight or nine I had a serious operation. I told the doctor I would like to watch the operation. The doctor said it was a serious operation, but I said, “No!” Right before the operation I put a very concentrated force on it, and during the operation itself I was smiling at the doctor. The doctor was horrified. On the strength of our concentrative power, we can transform suffering into delight itself if it is God’s Will. And again, if we want to experience the suffering and take it as an experience, we can do this. But if we do not transform suffering into delight, and if we do not take it as an experience of God in and through us, then it will hurt us deeply.