Question: What is the spiritual value of the earth?

Sri Chinmoy: Those who accept life, those who accept Mother Earth as something real, feel that they have a bounden duty to perform here. This duty is nothing other than conscious realisation of God. Unconscious awareness of God everybody has. But a seeker becomes consciously aware of God’s Presence. He meditates on God and gradually his own consciousness develops to such an extent that he feels God’s Presence constantly, everywhere. He feels that it is his bounden duty to reveal God’s Presence, which he feels and which he sees with his own heart and his own eyes. Finally, he feels that he has to manifest his realisation of the highest Truth. This manifestation has to take place here on earth and nowhere else. Realisation of the highest Truth has to take place here and manifestation of the Truth, the highest Truth, the ultimate Truth, has to take place here on earth.

A real seeker, a sincere seeker, is a divine hero. He has to fight against teeming darkness and he has to fulfil God’s Will here on earth. Otherwise, earth will remain earth and Heaven will remain Heaven. There will always be a yawning gulf between earth and Heaven. This earth of ours must be transformed into Heaven, into a place of Joy, Peace and Delight.

We must not negate the body. The Indian spiritual Masters who did not care for the body at all said, “Meditate, remain in the other world, realise God and then leave the body.” But if you love God and if you really want to serve God, then here on earth is the golden opportunity to manifest Him and fulfil Him. If you get your realisation and you say to God, “I don’t want to work for You. I am tired, exhausted, totally exhausted; now I want to take rest,” God may allow you to take rest. But the real divine hero will say, “I have worked hard, but now I wish to offer the fruits of my realisation to the world at large.” Then God will say, “Work on earth. Do it.”

Our path is the path of acceptance. Acceptance of what? Acceptance of this material world. While operating in matter, Spirit has to sing the song of Immortality. The material life and the spiritual life must run together. The material life can be perfected only by listening to the inner dictates of the soul. We have to accept the world as it is, but we must not think that the world has completed its task. No, far from it. We have to work and work for the earth-consciousness. We have to free it from limitations, imperfections, bondage and ignorance.