Part III

Question: How can I know if I am executing God's Will or I am fulfilling my own ego?

Sri Chinmoy: When you fulfil the demands of the ego, immediately you will feel that you are the lord of the world or that you are going to become the lord of the world. You are bloated with pride, and you feel that the rest of the world is at your feet. Once a desire of yours is fulfilled, immediately you feel, “Oh, my desire is fulfilled; I have become something, and the rest of the world will not achieve what I have.” Always there will be a feeling of superiority when the ego is fulfilled.

But when you execute the Will of God, the question of superiority or inferiority does not arise. At that time you feel only your oneness. You feel that God has appointed you or that God has accepted you as His chosen instrument, and that He is acting in and through you. No matter what you achieve — even if it is something very grand, extraordinary, unusual — you will not have any sense of personal pride. On the contrary, you will feel extremely grateful to God that He has chosen you to fulfil Himself in and through you. There is no pride; there is only a feeling of expansion. To execute God’s Will means to achieve something. When you achieve something, you feel an expansion of your consciousness. But when you fulfil the demands of your ego, at that time you feel totally separated from the rest of the world. You are the lord and the rest of creation is at your feet. So, in this way you can know the difference between the two.