Question: If we disavow aggressiveness, must we also disavow the normal way of life?

Sri Chinmoy: Unfortunately I do not see eye to eye with you. You need not be aggressive in order to lead a normal life. If one has inner love from the heart, and inner peace of mind, then one doesn’t need the life of aggression. Sincere spiritual people pray and meditate, so God is bound to look after them, to do the needful in and through them. If we cry to God for Light or Truth, or if we seek God in our hearts, He will do the needful for us. He will always give us inner strength. Inner strength is infinitely more powerful than any aggressive quality or the so-called human capacity that we have.

Spiritual life means the life of normality. If we pray and meditate sincerely, we are trying to establish a free access to the divinity within us. This inner divinity is normal and is what we should claim as our own. When we claim our outer selves as our own we are mistaken, because at that time we are trying to stick to something abnormal. But when we practise the spiritual life, we must lead a normal life. According to the spiritual life, only God is normal; we are abnormal. Since God is normal, we have to please Him in His own Way and be normal like Him. God is for normal people, and when we realise that God is normal, our meditation becomes spontaneous and natural.