Question: You said that the human in us is scared to death when it sees vastness. Could you explain this a little more?

Sri Chinmoy: When the human in us does not have any illumination, when we see vastness we are immediately frightened by it because it is something totally alien to us. It is completely outside the bounds of our experience. But when we aspire and the divine in us begins to come to the fore, we see some Light, at least a tiny ray of Light, within us. And because we have an iota of Light within us, then we see that the infinite Light of the vastness in front of us is like a friend or a relative. Now we are in darkness, and we do not dare to claim Light as our own. But if we have a little Light, then we feel that eventually we can grow into the infinite Light. If I have one dollar, I feel that if I try then I can get much more. But if I don't have even a dollar, then I feel that money is simply beyond my capacity to attain.

A child has very limited strength, limited knowledge, limited power. But he feels his identity, his oneness, with his father and knows that his father's capacity will eventually grow into him. If his father has material wealth, then he will also have material wealth in the course of time. Because of his oneness with his father, the child knows his wealth and claims it as his birthright. So when we establish some sense of oneness with the Vast, with the Light which is our Source, we feel that the boundless Reality of Peace, Light and Bliss is going to be ours.

Our heart of insecurity will not remain always a heart of insecurity. If every day we pray and meditate, then Light will descend into our heart. First a little Light descends, then more Light, then vast, boundless Light. With our inner Light we can approach the Light that is around us with no fear at all. For what we see around us is a manifestation, a projection, of what we have within. There is nothing which we cannot claim as ours, for our root is God. If our root is God, the omnipresent Reality, then we shall not be afraid of anything.

Right now we identify with ignorance, and feel that God is somebody or something separate from us. We feel a yawning gulf between our existence and God's. Because we have not tried to go deep within, our own reality is a stranger to us. Naturally we are afraid of this reality since it is a stranger. But once we go deep within we see that our reality is not a stranger. It is only a manifestation of the one Reality, and that Reality is the Supreme, the Source within us.