Question: Guru, how can I keep my aspiration intense?

Sri Chinmoy: Only think of the first day that you saw me. When you came to New York and saw me for the first time, you experienced such joy that perhaps you thought that either you had realised God or you were about to realise God. That was the experience. Every day when you look at my Transcendental picture, try to have the same type of experience. Feel that you are seeing someone whom you have known eternally in the heart of your heart. Every day try to have that feeling of newness with the everlasting Reality which you experienced three years ago. One who realises God is at once most ancient and ever new. So, while you look at the Transcendental picture, if you can feel the same thrill, the same joy, the same aspiration, then easily you will be able to maintain your standard. The aspiration is not actually the same, for here we believe in the process of self-transcendence. But you have to start with the joy that you got the first time you saw me in my highest meditation, and from there you transcend, transcend.
Sri Chinmoy, Aspiration-Tree, Aum Publications, 1976