Question: What three qualities are most needed for survival on our spiritual path?

Sri Chinmoy: Most people want to know how to run the fastest, but you want to know only how to survive. All right. There is only one quality that we all need. To name three qualities would be redundant. Only one quality can solve all your problems — everybody's problems — and that quality is called a gratitude-heart.

God has brought you into this world from the soul's world, and He has given you the opportunity to manifest Him. There are still countless souls in the soul's region, but He has given you the golden opportunity to serve Him and manifest Him here on earth. And He has shown you the light. When you look around, you see that your old friends are still wallowing in the sea of ignorance. But you have entered in the spiritual life and have really become something. You can easily offer Him your gratitude heart for what He has already done for you, for it is not by virtue of your own will that you have entered into the spiritual life. Just think of what you were before you accepted our path and what you have become now. Immediately you will see the difference between night and day and you will be so happy. Again, you will see that the day can also become bright, brighter, brightest. Now it is dawn. Soon it will be proper morning. Then the brilliant noon will come. The earthly day is followed by night but the inner day does not have any night. There is only the infinite effulgence of ever-increasing Light. After the inner dawn comes the eternal, infinite Day that is filled with infinite Light and Delight. Now you are entering into this eternal Day. What you have already become you know, and that is satisfying to you. Now you can say that you want to become something even more. So God has given you something to become constantly, and that is your gratitude heart.

Every day count the petals of your gratitude-heart and open another petal. If you want to name the petals, they are simplicity, sincerity, purity, humility and so on. Constantly offer your heart of gratitude. That is the only quality that will help everyone solve his problems and also run the fastest. Gratitude embodies all the divine qualities in God's creation. If we are grateful, it is enough. When a child offers a smile to his parents, it is his gratitude-heart coming to the fore. Sometimes, when adults smile at a spiritual Master, they may not know the actual reason for their smile. But I wish to say that it is their gratitude-heart coming to the fore. Yesterday, Databir's mother came to the meeting. I was smiling at her and all of a sudden she smiled back. Databir asked her, "What do you feel?" She said, "I don't know. I just smiled." Actually, all of a sudden her soul came to the fore and offered its qualities, but she did not know it. She thought it was just a smile. I smiled at her, so she smiled at me.

So, good boy, you do not need three qualities to survive; you need only one quality to survive and to run the fastest, and that is a gratitude-heart.