Question: In the future, will people always have to aspire like us? Or at some point will people no longer be born on earth?

Sri Chinmoy: People will continue to be born and evolution will also continue. We are human beings right now, not animals. But we have so many animal qualities: we quarrel, we fight, we have wars, we do so many undivine things. We actually strangle one another with our hatred and jealousy. But again, we claim that as human beings we are a superior species, we lead a higher life. But in what way? When we enter into ourselves we see that we are human animals. Still, we have made a little progress. We don’t want to remain ferocious animals. Among us, some people are really aspiring and crying for God. Eventually they will see the Truth and grow into the Truth. This is evolution.

We cannot say that after four hundred or five hundred years there will be no more animal or human incarnations. There will be animals, there will be people, but they will be more perfect. Now, out of ten thousand people, one person may aspire. But the time will come when it will be just the opposite. We will have made such progress that only one person out of ten thousand will not aspire.

We cannot say that there will be another type of evolution in which everybody will descend fully illumined to earth. No! I have worked hard for many years and centuries in order to realise God. Will someone else not have to work at all? Will God do everything for him immediately? No, everybody has to work. God’s Grace descends only when we work hard, when we aspire most soulfully. True, some people realise God when they are in their teens. You may say, “Oh, I have been meditating for twenty or thirty years, while he has meditated only for five or ten years. How is it that he has realised God?” But you do not know that fifty or seventy years ago in his previous incarnation he meditated intensely for many years. Similarly, the world is now imperfect and only gradually, gradually will it become perfect. It is not that at a fixed time the Light will dawn and all non-aspiring people will suddenly run towards the Goal. No! Evolution is a slow, gradual process.