Question: It is the Christian belief that because Christ died on the Cross, we will all reach salvation after our death. What is your view of this?

Sri Chinmoy: When the Christ was on the cross, he became inseparably one with humanity’s suffering, bondage and ignorance, and these things he carried to the highest world. At that time humanity was at a particular stage of development. But the creation has not stopped; God is still creating. As long as creation is taking place, ignorance continues to reappear.

When we speak of God granting us salvation, we are speaking of salvation from sin. Let us say that we have got salvation and we no longer have sin. But that is not enough, for sin is not the only wrong force that we have inside us. It is only one aspect of ignorance. We have many bad qualities, and they all need to be transformed into good qualities. We have to grow from our earthbound desire-life into the vastness of our real Self. For this, we have to be completely liberated from ignorance. In our philosophy, we do not use the word ‘sin’ at all. We speak only of bondage or ignorance. Because we have ignorance, we have to pray and meditate so that Christ’s Consciousness will descend into us and liberate us.