_Question: Guru, if you are sincerely getting up and praying and meditating, why is it that the soul does not give you enough inner sweetness or encouragement to make you feel that it is worthwhile?_

Sri Chinmoy: Let us think of the farmer. When the farmer sows the seed, he has to wait for months to see the plant. Here also we have to wait. Why do we use the expression 'God's choice Hour'? We do not say 'my hour'. We are doing the right thing, but the choice hour has not yet come. We go to the village stove and we try to light it. Then we say, "I have been trying to light it every day. How is it that it does not ignite?" But when we turn it a little more, finally the flame comes.

The farmer sows the seed. Every day he is going to the field and watering, watering. Eventually he may become fed up. He will say, "What is this? If there had been something to germinate, by this time it would have germinated." This is our impatience.

But the highest prayer will say, "Perhaps God wants to give me something else. He is not fulfilling this particular desire of mine. Perhaps He has something else in mind, and if that very thing He gives, then automatically I will get my wish also." That wisdom we do not have. We should say, "He is not giving me this for my own good, but He will give me something else. When I get that particular thing, which I am not even aware of right now, then automatically my present desire will be fulfilled also."

Do we have that kind of patience? Do we have that kind of wisdom, the wisdom to be one with God's Will? No! Instead, we ask why God is not giving us what we pray for. We have to know that either we are doing the right thing, but the hour has not come, or we are not doing the right thing. Perhaps He will change our mind and tell us to offer some other prayer or do some other type of meditation. Or perhaps He will give us something which will fulfil all our prayers.

This has happened in everybody's life. In our life we will all see that sometimes one prayer or desire is not fulfilled, and we curse God! But afterwards He will fulfil another desire of ours that encompasses our previous desire. At that time He gives us much more. Some ordinary people pray for twenty or thirty dollars. They need it badly, very badly. Then what happens? They do not get it when they need it. They pray so hard to get that particular amount of money. Then, after three months or six months, although they were dying to get twenty or thirty dollars, they receive four hundred or five hundred dollars instead! God's Hour has come out of the blue in the form of an insurance policy, or somebody has returned money they borrowed, or something else has happened. It was their money, but they totally forgot about it or they did not expect it. At God's Hour it comes back. When they are in need of twenty dollars, they see two hundred dollars coming back. They had not the slightest idea that it was going to come, but somehow it came.

In your case also, this particular desire God is not fulfilling, or the time has not come to fulfil it. Your desire is to have twenty dollars, let us say, but at God's choice Hour He will fulfil your prayer in such a way that He will give you four hundred dollars. Then the first desire that you had is already automatically fulfilled.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Beyond likes and dislikes: illumining questions and answers, Agni Press, 2012
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