Question: Many good soldiers have fallen. How can I be assured of staying in your boat for the entire incarnation?

Sri Chinmoy: Just because many have failed, you cannot say that you have failed. And just because many have fallen in the battlefield of life, you cannot say that everybody will fall. Many people fail the school examination, but others go on to the higher classes, and still others come afterwards to study in the same school. What is of paramount importance is your own faith in yourself and in the Lord Supreme. If you have faith in the Supreme, if you have faith in yourself, then the question of falling does not arise. But if you have very little faith in the Supreme, then naturally you will fall. If you have little faith in yourself, then immediately you will fall. If you have only a little faith in the Supreme, you may fall tomorrow; but if you have little faith in yourself, then you will fall at this very moment.

So, it is always advisable to have faith in yourself and to have faith in the Supreme. If you have faith in the Supreme, constant faith, continuous faith, ever-illumining and ever-fulfilling faith, then only you can be assured that you will not be asked or compelled to leave our boat. It is your own inner cry and your own faith in yourself that will solve the problem. And it is your faith in the all-loving Concern of the Supreme that can save you. Only be brave, be brave — not in the military way, but brave in your devotional attitude to the Supreme, in your unconditional approach to the Supreme’s Compassion. Then you can rest assured that you will remain in my boat for the entire incarnation.

Sri Chinmoy, Dipti Nivas, Agni Press, 1976