Question: We would like to organise a seminar on meditation, but I have been very slow in learning to speak Thai.

Sri Chinmoy: Why do you have to kill yourself learning Thai when someone can translate for you? I have become a very, very, very close friend of President Gorbachev. I thought of studying Russian, but God knows how long it would take me to learn it. And he is not going to learn English. But our friendship can still grow and expand. By appreciating and bringing forward the divine qualities in one another, we are serving the world in a very special way. I have received about ten letters from him highly appreciating our peace activities. In the last one he said, "Your profound wisdom and vast compassion are a matter of my deepest admiration." To say this he didn't have to learn English. And for me to understand it, I did not have to learn Russian.

You know our philosophy so well. Your feelings can easily be expressed to the Thai people by the Thai disciples. In no way am I discouraging you from learning their language. But rather than spend three or four hours a day studying, I feel it would be better for you to give more emphasis to spreading our light.

This is the year of newness. Special Blessing-Grace is going to descend from our Beloved Supreme. Now is a golden opportunity for new flowers to blossom in our centres and for the old ones to become eternally new. When a flower is blossoming, it has a special freshness and a special fragrance. So when you are dealing with the members of your centre, if you can make all of them feel that they are together blossoming, then your centre will also blossom.

I have said that all my students — no matter how many years they have been with us — should feel that they have been on the path for only a few days. When someone feels that he has been following the spiritual life for only four or five days, his mind remains pure and he has the inner eagerness to make progress. Otherwise, a superior feeling comes. Sometimes it happens that people who have been leading a spiritual life for twenty or twenty-five years are not making progress any more because they are not renewing their oneness with God's Will every day. Because they live in the mind, they have become complacent about their spiritual life. But if they can live in the heart, then they will remain in the world of aspiration and dedication, which is ever new.

You have been living in Thailand for three years. But if you can make yourself feel that you have been here only for three days, then you will derive so much inspiration and aspiration from your inner being and you will be able to receive much more light from Above.