Question: When you first came to the platform this evening, before you began to speak, you, I presume, meditated a bit. What exactly were you doing? Were you receiving any feeling from the people here this evening?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes. I did quite a few things. First, when I stood up here I personally entered into a very high plane of consciousness. To be very frank with you, it was not my highest plane of consciousness. My highest plane is infinitely higher. But I did go very high. Then I tried to enter into the aspiring souls. Here, most of you are aspiring. I tried to raise you to your divine heights. When I saw that some of you, not all, had responded to my inner call, I felt that the time had come for me to speak. At that time your souls became in tune with my soul. Then, even if I had not spoken a word, if I had not said anything at all and just meditated with all of you here for about half an hour or forty minutes, my purpose in coming here would have been served, perhaps even in a more convincing way. There the communication would have been more meaningful and successful. But unfortunately I have come here to give a talk. In silence, spiritual Masters do infinitely more meaningful and significant things than they do through speech. On the one hand we try to elevate the consciousness of the seekers; on the other hand, it is we who bring down the consciousness in inviting questions. We bring it down, but this is unfortunately unavoidable. People come to listen and we try to offer our light. Again, as I said before, it is to convince the physical mind that we do this; we talk and answer spiritual questions. I entered into a high plane of consciousness, and from there I tried to elevate the aspiring consciousness of the seekers here. When I saw that they were in tune with me, I started talking.