What should I do for work?

When I was going to graduate from high school, I was approximately 16 or 17 years old. I had just come to the Centre, and I asked Guru what I should do when I finished high school. After he asked me a few questions about the things that I enjoy doing—which at the time was just art and writing—he encouraged me to study journalism because he felt that it would be very useful to his mission if someone could write for the media.

And so that's what I did. I studied journalism and public relations. I was hired by the university when I graduated. I worked for about eight years in that field, doing photography and journalism within a university.

Of course that was a long time ago, and since then over the years, I have done various things. I worked in the printing industry because in the Puerto Rico Centre we used to print Guru’s books. It was from years of printing Guru's writings that I learned all about that world of printing presses. Eventually I was able to also work in the outside world in that kind of thing.

I must say that we were so fortunate to be able to have Guru physically there to tell us and guide us outwardly as well as inwardly of what we should be doing in our life. That's a supreme blessing.

About this subject of when we are at a place in our life when we want to know what we should do next or what kind of work we should do, Guru has given some very specific advice about this. First of all, Guru has said that before we do anything we should always meditate and ask for inner guidance and supreme guidance. But he also said that if you want to make a decision in a field that you are going to have work in, simply imagine yourself doing that thing and observe how much joy you get from it. In that situation you would use your heart to choose that which gives you the most joy. That is Guru’s advice as far as what to do next in one's life. That is very good guidance.

Your Master's inner guidance

Whether you are meditating
In your Master’s physical presence
Or somewhere else is unimportant.
No matter where you are,
If you think of your Master
And meditate soulfully,
You are bound to get his inner guidance.
And this inner guidance,
Which is his inner oneness with you,
Will last forever and forever.

Sri Chinmoy 1

• 1. Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 57, Agni Press, 1983