Question: How can we avoid crying for outer attention?

Sri Chinmoy: First of all you have to know that you are my spiritual daughter; you are not a beggar. If you were a street beggar, then at every second you would have to cry to somebody to give you a banana or some rice or some other food. But you have to feel that you are not a beggar woman; you are my spiritual daughter.

If you play the role of daughter, then oneness will come. You will say, “Right now I am young, so I am not fully conscious. But when I grow up I will get my Father’s love, delight, spirituality, perfection and light.” If the father has a car, the child will tell his neighbour, “It is my car, my car.” Then a day comes when the car really does belong to him. So in order to avoid crying for outer attention, you should play the role of a daughter and not the role of a beggar. A daughter does not cry for attention because she has established her eternal and inseparable oneness with her spiritual father. But a beggar does not want to establish oneness with the owner of the house. So if you feel that you are my true daughter, then you won’t need outer attention.