Gurudev could not just be loving, he could be equally firm!
In response to a despondent plea for guidance, Gurudev wrote this lovingly firm reply:
I read through your miserable letter indicating and clearly reflecting how you have managed to blast your life’s possibilities merely because of your unsteadiness.
To such an individual, life can only be a tragedy, reaching nowhere. To fulfill your great desires and visions, and in order to translate your ideas into action, you must have perseverance — to meet all challenges that might arise en route.
Never can the path of success be spread with carpets. This requires a lot of personal discipline in you. If you learn the art of wanting to fulfill every fancy in your life, you become a slave to your mind, and a slave can only struggle and never succeed.
In order to cultivate this willpower in you, you better start living a rigid life of taming yourself. One meal a day; give up coffee, tea; I do not know whether you are smoking, give up the consumption of every toxin.
Every day, go to the nearest temple, pray, and return. After one month of this regimen, start seriously studying the book Self Unfoldment, which is published by Chinmaya Publications. Study only about five pages a day and give a lot of thought to it.
So far, I was trying to hold a mirror to show you all your error in judgment. If you follow the positive system that I have now indicated above, it is a guaranteed path to come out of the mental cloud in which you are now lurking.
If and when you undertake this self-discipline, you may start writing to me every month of your progress and your difficulties.