Part I

SCA 1120-1121. Questions asked in Bukittinggi during the Christmas trip, January 1988.

Question: At the start of the spiritual life, sometimes the Supreme will give the seeker a small experience of the goal, which gives the seeker inspiration. Then that vision becomes vague. Why is this?

Sri Chinmoy: There is something called beginner’s luck. All of a sudden you start playing a new game and you find that you are playing so well. Then for a few years you try to get back the same experience. You ask, “What should I do to recapture the same experience?” In this case, the answer is, “Practise the spiritual life.”

God is so clever! He wants to create interest in us right from the start. If the seeker were not successful in his first attempts to meditate, he would say, “Oh, spirituality is not meant for me.”

But if you have a good meditation, you will say, “Once I had such a nice meditation. Why did I get it? Did I practise spirituality at that time?”

Here God is showing us His unconditional Compassion. God is saying, “Let us go half-and-half. You aspire and I will show you my Compassion.” If you give up, God will not be the loser. He showed you that it is possible to have that joy. So you have to continue, continue, if you really want God, if you really want to follow the spiritual life. Otherwise, if God gives you the experience a second time, you will not value it. Like a child playing with money, you will discard it. The parents are giving the child lots of money and he is only wasting it. Then he has to work very hard to get back the same amount.

God is not unkind. Only He is saying that in order to get joy from the spiritual life, how hard you have to pray, meditate and discipline yourself. You have an inner Goal. That Goal will not come to you and stand in front of you. You have to come to the Goal. The Goal says that it has to be won. If you really love God, then wherever He is, you have to run towards Him.

So do not be discouraged if you do not get the same high experience you got when you first started following the spiritual life. God took the trouble of coming to us. We must also take the trouble to go to Him.