Question: Guru, how can we become a perfect student in the inner and outer school?

Sri Chinmoy: You can become a perfect student in your inner and outer school if you feel that your inner and outer school are of utmost necessity at your present stage. The outer school is right now giving you the message of information: what the world looks like, what is happening in the world. The world of information is right now of paramount importance in your outer life. Then again, the inner world is also of paramount importance. The inner world is bringing you the message of illumination. From the outer life you are getting world-information, and from the inner life you are getting world-illumination. If right now you feel that it is necessary that these two should go together, it is like two friends walking along the same road. But a time comes when one friend becomes tired and says to the other, "I cannot go any farther. I am totally exhausted. Now I depend entirely on you. So please carry me on your shoulders." The information-friend becomes tired, and takes the help of the illumination-friend. So the illumination-friend says, "All right, you come with me; you stay inside me." In this way the illumination-friend carries the information-friend to the destined goal.

You have to have this kind of feeling: that you are cherishing inside yourself two friends, and because they are friends, and because they are needed right now for God's purpose, they will walk together. But a time will come when one will grow exhausted and take shelter in the other, in the one that can lead you to your ultimate destined goal. If you have this kind of awareness of the reality, then as a student you can be perfect in your inner and outer life.