Question: We sometimes ask God to respect our privacy, which He does immediately and graciously. Then, when we invite Him back, He seems nowhere to be found. Have we hurt His feelings?

Sri Chinmoy: We cannot hurt God. It is our undivine part that is hurting the divine in us. The divine in us is sad because the undivine is not responding to the light. When we are in a divine consciousness, we say, "God, come, come!" And when we are in an undivine consciousness, we say, "God, do not come, do not come!" So we are exercising our sweet will and trying to turn God into our slave. God never gets hurt, but we should not treat Him that way.

We have to be wise. When we are in a divine consciousness, let us invite God to come and give us more capacity, so that we can please Him more. And when we are in an undivine consciousness, instead of asking God to remain farther than the farthest from us, if we are wise we shall pray to Him, "Please, please come and save me, illumine me, so that I do not make the same deplorable mistake again." Always we have to invoke or invite God — either to come to our rescue when we are doing something undivine, or to give us more capacity to please Him when we are in a divine consciousness. That should be our attitude.