Question: Why did we go from light to darkness when we took birth?

Sri Chinmoy: Actually we did not go from light to darkness when we entered into the world. It is a very complicated matter. Each birth is part of the process of evolution. Each person has a soul. The soul enters into matter and from matter it aspires. Mother Earth has the inner urge, the aspiration to be one with the Highest, the cosmic Self, and eventually all human beings on earth will become one with the highest Spirit. This is an evolutionary process leading towards perfect Perfection.

Some will say that God is everywhere, God is inside us and likewise God is inside a thief. When He is not in creation but beyond creation, He is all Light and He enjoys the Light of the Beyond. But when He enters into manifestation, He wants to enjoy Himself in a million ways. The cosmic Self wants to fulfil its cosmic play in each individual and in each creature here on earth. For that, evolution is proceeding.

Our soul is all light. But on earth the atmosphere is not aspiring. When somebody takes birth the first thing he sees is ignorance and illusion all around. In the highest plane we are all perfect, but now in the material plane, we are experiencing the play of ignorance. During our meditation we raise our level of consciousness a little, and find ourselves hundreds of miles above the bed of thorns. Yet, if we remain only where our meditation takes us, above the thorns, and if we cry for perfection, our cry is only partially fulfilled. We are not eating the full fruit. God is inside everything. He must be realised in the material plane also. In the deepest philosophy what we call night is not absolutely night. There is some light there also. A person who is realised naturally has more inner light than a person who is not realised. The world will say that the unrealised person is all ignorance because he has not realised God. We are always comparing someone with somebody else. What is really happening is that we are growing from little light to more light, to abundant light, each according to his own understanding and capacity. What we call night is also light in an infinitesimal form. It is because we are marching forward that we see the difference between effulgent light and darkest night. Strictly speaking, in everything there is light, but our human understanding makes us see both light and darkness. But from the highest point of view we should always feel that we are marching from light to more light, to abundant light.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Reincarnation and evolution, Agni Press, 1977
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