Part I — Questions and answers

Question: Guru, many years ago I told you that my father had an unusual experience. You said that it was a very high experience, but my father did not value it. When somebody gets a very high experience like this from God, does God not know that the person might not be ready for it, or might not take it the right way?¹

Sri Chinmoy: Some seekers pray to God again and again, “Give me a high experience.” God knows perfectly well that they may not use the experience properly. A little child begs and begs his mother to give him a dollar. The mother knows that her child is not going to use the money wisely or value it. Instead of buying some proper food with the dollar, perhaps the child will get some candy. Poor God, poor mother! Their children are begging and begging. To stop them from begging, God and the mother give their children what they want. But again, the children may not value it.

If God wants to give millions and billions of experiences to human beings, He will not look to see whether those particular individuals are going to use the experiences properly. Let us say I give you a mango. Either you can eat it all by yourself, or you can give pieces of the mango to others. I am not responsible at that time. In the same way, God is not responsible. Common sense says that if a high, lofty experience has descended upon someone from Above, that person will be so happy, so pleased, so thrilled. But sometimes, if you put something very beautiful and expensive, like jewellery, in front of a child, he feels that it has no value. He just grabs it and throws it away. Again, in the famous story about Hanuman, he saw that Lord Rama was not present in the locket he had received, so he threw it away. It was such an expensive locket, but he threw it away. This was Hanuman’s devotion to Lord Rama!

Many times people get high experiences, but they do not value them, they do not value them. Again, some people get simple, ordinary experiences, but they feel that those experiences are very high, from a very lofty region. They value those so-called minor experiences. Because they value the minor experiences, God becomes very pleased, and then He gives them very high experiences.

This world is so complicated! The day God created the world, complication began, because God created the mind, also. How many times do we use our heart to see the reality in its own way? Very rarely.