Dr. Kuznetsov: I feel that Russia has suffered more than any of the other countries in the world. And yet Russia was never a country that did not believe in God. Russia was a country that always believed in higher things.

Sri Chinmoy: I fully agree with you. We will be making a mistake if we try to separate higher principles from God. As we have said, God the creation and God the Creator cannot be separated. So in your Russian consciousness you did not use the term ‘God’. But you did believe in higher principles, higher realities, higher worlds — a life higher than the ordinary. It is not necessary to use the word ‘God’. You wanted to be better human beings. You wanted to become good. Goodness itself is God. You wanted to grow into something higher. That height is nothing but God.

In English we use the word ‘God’. In Bengali we use the word bhagaban. In Russian you use something else. But we cannot separate the qualities from the subject. You touch water and you feel the essence of water. The consciousness of water enters into you. You do not have to use the term ‘water’. It is one thing to talk about water and another thing to touch water and feel the essence.

In Russia you wanted to experience God by touching God-consciousness. Kindness, purity, simplicity, self-giving — all these things Russia does have. Are they not God’s attributes? We cannot separate the attributes from the One who embodies them.

Good qualities are like the fragrance of a flower. The flower is offering its fragrance, which embodies kindness, goodness, compassion and aspiration. How can you separate the fragrance from the flower? We may call it a flower; you may call it fragrance. But we know that the fragrance and the flower must go together. If there is a flower, then there is fragrance. If there is fragrance, then there is a flower.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Sri Chinmoy answers, part 28, Agni Press, 2000
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/sca_28