_Joop Koopman:_ What do you make of the great interest in spirituality in the US, much of it in the form of the pursuit of, if not quasi-religions and movements, then a sometimes vague New Age-ism?

Sri Chinmoy: Spirituality in the United States is a very complicated matter. It is like the huge waves of the ocean: they go up and down. Perhaps a similar experience we get everywhere. There was a time thirty or forty years ago when the young generation showed much more interest in accepting and following the spiritual life. To my great sorrow, I do not see and feel the same inner urge today. I may be utterly mistaken. In no way am I criticising the young generation. I am one hundred per cent with them in their hearts and lives.

There is another factor. In those days, anything new that took place was supported by encouragement. The young people felt encouragement from deep within when they embarked on something new, challenging and illumining. But nowadays, it seems nothing significantly interests human beings in the way it did thirty or forty years ago.

People need new light and new consciousness. They want to come out of the old achievements, or you can say out of the quagmire of life, but they do not know which way to turn. They feel that the past has failed them. Now they are afraid of the future. They do not want to attempt anything new, precisely because uncertainty and fear loom large in their lives.

The love of the New Age movement was much more powerful in the past. Anything that is new, we should welcome. It may not remain or cannot remain new. If we want to achieve anything or become anything new, then we have to be very, very strict with our inner prayers and meditations.

Success depends on our determination and will-power. Progress depends on our surrender, inner and outer, to God's Will while we are praying and meditating most soulfully and serving humanity most lovingly.

Each moment presents itself to us with a new dream, a new reality, a new inspiration, a new aspiration and a new achievement.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Conversations with Sri Chinmoy, Agni Press, 2007
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