Questions and answers

The following questions were asked after Sri Chinmoy's talk "Five Soulful Friends" in Honolulu, Hawaii on 14 March 1980.

Question: I need aspiration. How can I get it?

Sri Chinmoy: Aspiration you have, but you need more. How can you have more aspiration? You can have more aspiration if you sincerely feel the need for it. When we lead an ordinary life, we want to increase our material possessions, our earthly possessions. Because we cry for earthly possessions in the outer life, eventually we do get them. Similarly, if we want to increase our aspiration, we have to cry inwardly. If we have the inner hunger, the inner cry, then it is bound to be fulfilled.

Look at a flower. When you look at a flower and appreciate the flower, what is it that you are appreciating? You are appreciating the beauty of the flower. The beauty of the flower is carrying God’s Aspiration, God’s Vision, God’s Compassion — many, many good qualities — and that is why you are soulfully appreciating it. But the same beauty that you are appreciating in the flower is also inside you. So when you start appreciating the beauty that you have within, when you start appreciating the aspiration that you have within, at that time your aspiration is bound to increase.

Another thing you can do is imagine that you have a small flame, a tiny flame, inside your heart. Just visualise it. What is this flame doing? It is trying to climb up. It is trying to illumine the unlit part of you. If you can appreciate that flame, then your aspiration will increase.

If you give me something, and immediately I appreciate it and appreciate you, then the capacity of that thing increases, and your own capacity to give also increases. Your daughter garlanded me, and I appreciated it. I thanked her and bowed to the Supreme in her. If I hadn’t paid any attention to her, then the joy that she got from garlanding me she would not have got. Each time we appreciate something, we expand that thing and increase its capacity. If you can imagine inside you a flame that is burning, and if you can appreciate it, then that flame will increase, and its capacity will also increase. Eventually it will become big enough to illumine your heart and your entire being. So, in order to increase your aspiration, please appreciate the burning flame inside you. While you are appreciating it, you will see that your inner cry is increasing.