Question: What is the most effective way to see the divine in others?

Sri Chinmoy: We see the divine in others once in a blue moon, and the divine in ourselves we see a little more frequently. But when doubt starts, we can't see the divine in others or in ourselves. The most effective way to see the divine in others is to see at every second the divine in ourselves, in every cell of our body, in every breath that we consciously take in. Now, the reason that we are divine one moment and then become undivine the next moment is that we separate one second from the next. But this we should not do. If this moment we feel that we are divine, or that our husband or wife is divine, then we should not wait for the next moment to bring another type of experience. We should try to pull this experience, lengthen it, rather than try to have another experience. We have to think of this experience as a train, and allow the train to go from one station to another station without stopping at any place. The experience should go from one second to another in a continuous movement.

Many times we have good feelings about our brother and sister disciples during high meditation, for example, but that meditation we don't preserve or make dynamic. We have a good meditation but then we forget about it. But instead we should try to start with that same experience the next time we meditate. It may go farther, deeper, higher. Once that journey begins, once we see the divinity in others, this experience should be like a train, a non-stop train, and we should try to see more divinity inside others.

There is also another way to see the divinity in others, and that is always to think of the Source. There is something in you that wants you to see divinity in others. If you try to trace that thing, you will see that it is not the physical, the vital or the mind. The physical in you cries only to sleep for a few more hours. The vital in you wants only to dominate the world and lord it over others. The mind wants to find fault with the rest of the world. But something inside the physical, the vital and the mind is prompting you and inspiring you to see the divine inside others. If you search for the thing that is inspiring you, you will find that it is the inner cry coming from your soul. This inner cry constantly wants satisfaction, and satisfaction comes only in devotion, only in oneness, only in seeing the divine in yourself and others and becoming devotedly and unreservedly one with it.