Part VII

Question: Guru, have all the people who used to meditate for hours and hours in previous lives reincarnated?

Question: Are they consciously meditating now, or are they more involved in modern life?

Sri Chinmoy: Some of them have not turned to modern life. They are still in India and other Eastern countries, where they are praying and meditating. Again, some wanted to enlarge their experiences and go slowly in their spiritual life. That is why they are now in America and other Western places. Others felt that whatever they had already received was more than enough, so now they could take incarnation in the West. And some, even after achieving partial God-realisation, felt that science is better than spirituality! Their theory is that if science does something great, immediately millions of people will get the benefit. They do not realise that in one second the goodwill of a spiritual Master can affect thousands and millions of people.

I am here cutting jokes with you, but in one second I can send a little bit of goodwill with my occult power and spiritual power, and it will immediately spread. Science cannot do that. That is why Swami Vivekananda and others used to say, “From the top of the Himalayas if a spiritual Master sends goodwill for a few seconds, it will cover the length and breadth of the whole world.” Science can drop the atom bomb, but only one or two towns it can destroy. The world is so vast. How many atom bombs will be needed to destroy the whole world? But in the inner world, in a few seconds goodwill immediately enters into the souls of millions and millions of human beings.

This is one hundred per cent true, but you have to come to the level where you can see it and feel it. There are many, many things which we cannot prove to others unless they come to that level. A nurse will know the capacity of a doctor, but what do I know about medicine? Spiritual Masters have attained a certain height. As soon as they send goodwill from that height, it spreads everywhere. Sri Ramana Maharshi used to say that in one second he sent his goodwill and it covered the whole world. He was not imagining this, and he was not fooling himself.

I know that even when I am relaxing with my disciples, if I send goodwill, in a few seconds it goes to everyone, no matter how many souls are alive on earth. And if you are of a different standard, and you want to send goodwill to the other world, immediately it goes to the other world also.

Just yesterday the newspaper was showing the surface of Mars. I was reading the newspaper in a relaxed way when I saw it. It was not my mental hallucination, but while looking at the photograph for perhaps a minute, I was seeing so many beings! Still man has not landed there, but the picture had been taken. This planet looks like such a beautiful place, with greenery, like the surface of the earth. When I concentrated from my porch, believe me, how many beings were voraciously eating my light! ‘Voraciously’ is the right word.

Was this my imagination? Sri Ramakrishna would say no, this was not imagination; it was absolutely true. Sri Aurobindo would say it was absolutely true. But ask somebody else, an ordinary man, and he will say it was my mental hallucination; it was worse than imagination. Whom to believe? When I am concentrating, I am seeing something, just as I am seeing you here. If somebody else says, “No, he did not see anything,” then what am I going to do? Let that person be satisfied by saying that I did not see anything.

After all, I am the one who ate the mango. If I ate the mango and I enjoyed the delicious taste of the mango, but you say, “No, he did not eat the mango,” that is fine with me. Now I am eating this pancake, and you people happen to be here, so that is why you believe me. But in the case of people who are not here right now, some may believe me; some may not believe. Am I losing the taste of what I have eaten because so and so does not believe it? No!