Question: What do you remember as being a difficult problem you had to overcome on the road to God-realisation?

Sri Chinmoy: To be absolutely frank with you, in my case I didn’t have the kind of difficulty which other Masters have had. In some cases for six months they had a dry period and they could not meditate. Sometimes the lower vital forces attacked them. Sometimes the cosmic forces, even the so-called divine forces, the gods and goddesses, tried to prevent the Masters from surpassing them. But I followed the path of the heart, which I am now advocating. I always acted like a sweet child both inwardly and outwardly, and if one is a child, a real child, then he is liked, appreciated and encouraged by all. From a child we don’t expect anything.

The Supreme in me wants to remain always a child, to be always in a childlike consciousness. This is what I always say to my students, too. If one remains childlike, not childish, he makes progress. At twenty or twenty-four years of age the human mind becomes fossilized. It doesn’t want to receive anything new or know anything more. But a child feels he knows nothing. At every moment he can learn something new. At every moment he learns from you, from others. Newness is his life.