Question: Christ said in the Gospels that he was about his Father's business. He said this to his own mother when she went out and looked for him. Is this what you are trying to bring out — that if the soul knows it has a mission and it meets with opposition from the parents, it must calmly put the parents aside, not unjustly so, but because it must fulfil something, even though the parents don't understand?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, if the soul is conscious of its mission, then God is first, not the father or mother. While fulfilling God, you will see that the parents are automatically fulfilled. If the parents have to be considered first, if you want to please your parents first, then you will never be able to fulfil God. In such cases, when the soul is determined to fulfil its mission, the first thing is to please the inner Divinity God. When God is pleased, automatically your parents will be pleased in an inner way. But if you start with your parents, if you want to satisfy your parents’ outer demands first and then go to God, you will see that you can never satisfy your parents. Their demands will be countless. God will not be at all dissatisfied if you want to think of your parents, but do not expect that you will ever be able to satisfy them in an outer way. They are caught by ignorance. When you try to satisfy ignorance, there is no end to its demands. Ignorance says: “Do this, do that, do this…”

If you can satisfy God, your parents will eventually be satisfied because you will be satisfying the light. Once light is fulfilled, everything is fulfilled, because with light there is no demand. Light is a spontaneous growth and a spontaneous fulfilment, whereas darkness is a constantly devouring hunger. Darkness only crushes and destroys. Light only expands and fulfils.