Question: What is the best way to establish joy in every part of the being?

Sri Chinmoy: The best way to establish joy in every part of the being is through constant gratitude to the One who is responsible for our having accepted the spiritual life. At every second we have to bring to our inner mind what we were before we became consciously spiritual. And, for a fleeting second, we can see what our friends of the past are doing now, where our former acquaintances are now. As soon as we see what they are doing, and what we ourselves originally were, then we will immediately notice the difference between our achievement of the past and our achievement of the present. No matter how far away the goal is, we can easily see the distance that we have already covered. Our so-called friends of the past have not yet started walking along the real road, but in us there is some aspiration, some inner cry, at least some awareness of a higher ideal and goal.

We can offer gratitude to God, or to our spiritual teacher, or to our path, or even to our own good qualities that prompted us to enter into the spiritual life. Again, we can offer gratitude to the inner cry that prompted us to walk along the right path, or to the achievement itself. Gratitude lies in self-giving to the Source, or to the One who has inspired us to see the higher reality and run towards the goal. We offer gratitude to the Source because it has created in us an inner urge to return to it and seek fulfilment there. And this fulfilment comes only in fulfilling the Source itself. So self-giving in various ways gives us total joy in every part of the being. There is no other way.