Question: Guru, how can we increase our aspiration and keep it steady?

Sri Chinmoy: To keep your aspiration high, steady and constant, three things are required: faith in yourself as a seeker; constant faith in your Master’s judgement; concern for what is done, not who does it — that is, has the task been accomplished? Who accomplished it is not the question.

In your case, you have faith in me in abundant measure, but you do not have as much faith in yourself as you should have. If one does not have enough faith in oneself, then it is extremely difficult to maintain the purest or highest type of faith in the Master all the time. The purest and highest type of faith in the Master has to be continuous and constant; and for that one has to have complete faith in oneself. One has to feel, “I am destined to manifest the Master. I am destined to take continuous part in the Master’s cosmic Lila.”

Then every day you have to see whether the needful is done, not who has done it. Unfortunately, when we see that a particular individual has accomplished something, we feel as if we had nothing to do with it. You may say, “Oh, the Supreme has appointed him to do this and not me. I am worthless. I am useless. I cannot do anything.” Then immediately you start criticising yourself and belittling yourself, which is wrong. If a fellow disciple has done something divine, then please feel that you yourself have done it. Your aspiration is equally responsible for his manifestation of the Divine. When something is manifested, if you feel that your aspiration had something to do with it, then you maintain tremendous aspiration. Each individual seeker should feel when something is achieved on the physical plane that he or she is equally responsible for the divine victory. Our joint victory lies in the manifestation of the highest aspiration.

Early in the morning when you start meditating, try to make yourself feel just for a minute that today you will be able to manage without eating a morsel of food, without drinking even a glass of water — that without eating or drinking anything at all you will be able to survive for a day, even for a week. But you must feel that if you do not aspire well, if you do not meditate well, then in the evening death will come and capture you. Death means the destruction of your aspiration, not the physical death. Annihilation will capture your aspiration if you do not meditate well. If you take your morning aspiration very seriously, then automatically your aspiration will remain high. Always give aspiration its due value.

Then a tremendous power will come out of you. The thing that determines whether you live or die is your aspiration and not your material food. You have to feel that aspiration is responsible for your earthly evolution and your heavenly achievement. When you are wanting in aspiration, you don’t exist. Aspiration is the only reality in your life. With this feeling, automatically you will be able to maintain your highest aspiration twenty-four hours a day.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Aspiration-Flames, Agni Press, 1974
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/af