Question: Can you help me to leave the body as soon as possible, and help me to reincarnate in a place that is high and very cold, with plenty of fog and snow?

Sri Chinmoy: I have the power to do what you are asking me. But if I go to the Supreme with your petition, immediately He will laugh at me and say, “What kind of disciple do you have who, when he is just starting to open his eyes, wants to close them again?” Climate has nothing to do with God-realisation. Sri Ramana Maharshi and Sri Aurobindo were from South India, which has a very hot climate, but this did not prevent them from realising God. There are many aspirants living in caves far up in the Himalayas, in the eternal snows, who have not been able to realise God. The climate has nothing to do with it. It is the inner heat of aspiration that can bring God-realisation, not outer climatic conditions.

Tagore, our greatest poet, used to write six or eight poems daily. He once thought that if he could retire to a solitary place he could write much better poetry. So he left his house and confined himself to a solitary place in the mountains. While there, he was not able to write a single piece of poetry. He discovered that it is not the environment that is most important, but the inner inspiration.

God has chosen the conditions under which you are living your present life. It is like a play. The stage is set and the curtain has been raised for you to perform your part and advance in the spiritual path. Your present conditions are the best possible ones for your advancement. Now you want to leave the body and enter into a new body in a future incarnation so you can have an environment that you think will suit you best. But this kind of life would be worse than your present one because it is chosen by you, whereas your present life was chosen by God.

If your past actions of this incarnation are bothering you, I wish to tell you that my philosophy is “Past is dust.” Whatever you did a few years ago or even yesterday should not concern you. The past is not important. It is what you do from now on that can expedite your progress. Now you have a spiritual Master in a physical body to help you. And it is the present, and the future flowing into the present, that can give you liberation.