Question: How long will you be staying here: a week?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, I will be staying one week; then I shall have to go back to New York.

I am not flattering you. All of you are sincere and at the same time, dedicated. My humble request is to please have confidence in yourselves. If you have got a Guru, well and good. If you don’t have one, or you don’t need one, do not be at all disturbed. The first thing is to have confidence in yourselves, that you are God’s child. Say, “I am God’s child. I have to realise God. There is no alternative.” If you have a Guru, well and good. If you don’t, what can you do? If you don’t need one, that is also alright. But confidence you must have, saying, “How can I stay, how can I live without God-realisation, without seeing Him?

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God is our Eternal Father and we are His eternal children. It is only a child that can make progress, not the one who is learned. He will be in his own mental world. But the child knows and feels that he has much to learn and he wants to live in God’s consciousness, which is limitless. There is no limit to our knowing and learning. We are all a drop, a tiny drop in the vast ocean of God’s infinite consciousness.

If it touches our mind that we should live a spiritual life, then only will we, one day, begin to do it. Otherwise, if we don’t think of the very idea that we should try to live a better life, a spiritual life, then we will never start the spiritual life. If we want to bathe in the sea, we may not jump into the sea right now, but we have to go, at least, to the seashore and stand there and observe the waves. If we don’t leave our room and stand before the sea, then we shall never enter into the sea. So at least let us start our journey and then one day we shall reach our Goal.

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If I have a father and a mother and if I am in prison, I must break through the door and go to see my parents. Similarly you know that our father and mother is God. And we have to break asunder all ties of ignorance and go and rush towards God. If we go one step forward, we will see that He has already come hundreds of steps towards us. So my request, my sole request is to please, all of you, have confidence in yourselves. You are God’s children and you have to bring Him to the fore. He is already within and you have to reveal Him.