Question: How can we sustain enthusiasm and freshness in our training?

Sri Chinmoy: We can sustain freshness and enthusiasm by having a sense of a clear, meaningful and fruitful goal. If we keep in mind this meaningful and fruitful goal, then enthusiasm and freshness will automatically dawn. If we value the goal, then the goal itself will give us enthusiasm and freshness. We are not aware of our goal’s conscious eagerness to help us reach it. We think that the goal that is ahead of us is indifferent to us: if we can come to it, well and good; if we cannot come to it, the goal is not going to come to us. We feel that the goal is something stationary. But it is not like that. In our case, the goal is always progressive, and this progressive goal is more than eager to help us.

The mother will stand at a particular place and wait for the child to come crawling or running toward her. But the mother is not only waiting to see; the mother has tremendous eagerness for the child to come and reach her. Finally, if the mother sees that the child is trying but not succeeding, at that time she will come running toward the child. Similarly, in the inner world the goal actually comes toward the runner. If we value the goal and feel that the goal is something worthwhile, if we feel that it has tremendous, boundless things to offer us, then naturally the goal itself will inwardly help us. The goal does not want us always to feel that it is a far cry; it wants us to reach it.