Question: How can one increase one's inner drive, one's aspiration?

Sri Chinmoy: There are various ways to increase one’s inner drive, inner urge. If one is absolutely a beginner and is eager to enter into the spiritual life, then the first thing one has to do is pray to God. His prayers should be very simple, very sincere and spontaneous. Prayer is most effective in the early stages of spiritual life, and it is prayer that will increase the inner urge in a would-be true seeker. At the beginning, when one is just curious or a little bit sincere, we cannot call that person a real seeker. If one is a step ahead in the spiritual realm, he will not be satisfied with the rest of the world or even with himself. He wants a better creation in himself, and in the world at large. Then he has to feel the necessity of the fulfilment of God’s Will on earth and of taking a conscious part in fulfilling God’s Creation. Such being the case, God is bound to give him an additional amount of inner urge. Then, if a time comes when he feels that he can exist without everything, but not without God – when he has such inner strength that he does not need mother, father, brother, sister, wife, children – when the aspirant comes to that state where he needs only God, he becomes the real pride and real instrument of God. At that time, automatically, his aspiration is increased in boundless measure from deep within.

I wish to say, in answer to your question about how one can increase one’s inner drive, that in general one can do it just by accepting the life of sincerity and the life of dedication, the life of absolute surrender. If one has a Master, then one has to be absolutely sincere to the Master. Sincerity is the safeguard. If one has dedication, then his dedication has to be total and complete to the Master; and if one has surrender, this surrender has to be implicit and unconditional. Then you will see that automatically, spontaneously, this inner drive will increase. But if one does not have a Master, what should one do? He has to go deep within and try to feel the Inner Pilot. The Inner Pilot will speak through his conscience. He may not see the Inner Pilot – to see Him, the Supreme, is a very rare experience – but the Inner Pilot is always ready to act through one’s conscience. And if one listens to the dictates of his conscience, then naturally his aspiration is bound to increase.