Question: Sometimes when I have good experiences, or when I feel touched by nature or anything good, my mind tries to express it either in poetry or painting or some other way. But doing so seems to rob me of the experience itself.

Sri Chinmoy: Here you are making a mistake; you are acting like a child. When you get the experience, you are like a child who has got a candy from his mother or father. Then, when it is in his hand, he tries to share it with others. This is very good. Let him share; let him give a small portion to others. But let us say that the child has a very liberal heart. He has three or four friends and he gives everything away. Then he still feels hungry. When you have something, it is good to share it with others. But the best thing is to first try and increase the quantity of the thing. While you are having this good experience, try to keep it for a long time: an hour, two hours, three hours or a few days. In this way you will have accumulated a lot of candy. Then, while you are expressing it, you will not feel like a beggar.

When you express something, it is going out of you, and you have no means to replace it. You are scattering everything and then you are lost. Since you don't have the capacity to replace it, you are completely emptying yourself. Yes, you may have a very good heart, a very liberal heart. But you also have hunger, your own eternal hunger, and your own hunger you have not been able to satisfy. So if you can maintain or strengthen your experience for a few days or a few weeks, then when you try to express it and share it with others, you will not lose everything. You will have a continual and permanent access to the world of experience. So let it be permanent. Once you become permanent in your experience or realisation, then if you start giving it to others, you won't miss it or lose it. That is why they say that before you become a real Yogi, before you fully realise God, it is not advisable to give your inner wealth to others. It is not that you are a miser; only you are giving and giving and have no way to get it back. There is a Source, and you have to establish a connection with the Source. Then, no matter how much you give, you will not feel that you have lost anything.

In the ordinary life, a kindergarten teacher is enough for a kindergarten student. If you have gone to high school you can easily teach a five-year-old, because you have more education than he does. In the spiritual life, unfortunately, it is not like that. In the spiritual life, he who is your student is not only a student but also a bundle of ignorance. Although you may be an inch higher than he is, or although you may have started your spiritual life two days, two months or even ten years before he did, if your realisation is not solid or concrete and you try to teach that person, then the ignorance of that person will overpower you. Then, if you lose, who is going to gain? That person needed spiritual help, true, but you didn't have enough capacity to illumine him. So you have lost and he also has lost. But if you had waited for some time and accumulated more inner wealth — more peace, light and bliss — then, when the time came, you could have given and, at the same time, kept the residue. Then you both would gain.