Question: Sometimes when you ask me to do things, I do them, but definitely I could be a little more enthusiastic about it. How can I cultivate enthusiastic obedience?

Sri Chinmoy: Enthusiastic obedience you will get when you imagine that I am giving you the sweetest, brightest smile. Remember what kind of smile I give and what nice things I say to you when spontaneously and immediately you do something that I ask! In fact, you do not even have to see my face. Just look at your own face in the mirror when you do something happily, and again when you do something unhappily. In each case, your face will be a mirror of what my face looks like. When you do something cheerfully, your smiling face will be a perfect reflection of my own smiling face. And when you are doing something unwillingly, reluctantly, with utmost hesitation and slowness, you should feel that your solemn face is a reflection of my unhappy face. Immediately you can see, by looking in the mirror at how beautiful or how ugly your face looks, whether or not your Guru is happy.

Again, you can deceive yourself. If I ask you to do something, you can say, “You have asked me to do something, and I have done it.” Even if you could have done it a long time ago if you had been more enthusiastic, easily you can justify yourself and say, “As long as I have done it, why do I have to worry?” Yes, you have done it, but you have not got real joy from doing it and your Guru also has not got real joy. You and I will get real joy, immediate joy, boundless joy only if you do what I ask happily and immediately. Immediately and happily if you do something, then you will be swimming in the sea of delight and your Guru also will be swimming in the sea of delight.