Question: This celebration is so beautiful. I see so many open hearts and open eyes. But what do you say to those who are not fortunate enough to be in a community or an environment as harmonious and as loving as this?

Sri Chinmoy: When something is very pure and very illumining, we have to feel that this very thing is also all-blossoming and all-spreading. If a spiritual figure meditates in silence at the foot of the Himalayas and offers his goodwill, it immediately spreads and elevates the consciousness of the entire world. Similarly, if you have a good thought that is both illumining and fulfilling, it immediately blossoms.

Let us say someone has a beautiful, self-giving heart. When a good thought or a loving, illumining and fulfilling feeling enters into his mind directly from the inmost recesses of his heart, it does not have to be outwardly expressed. This inner message is so tangible, so powerful, that immediately it will go out and touch many parts of the world. Naturally, those who are consciously aspiring will receive infinitely more from this good thought than those who are unconscious.

If today you can consciously awaken or help some aspiring human beings to become better citizens of the world, then you are successful in a divine way. Let us say that you awaken somebody today. Then tomorrow, that person will be in a position to awaken others. In this way, the number of people who are awakening others will slowly, steadily and unerringly increase. Eventually they will build up a tremendous force that will inundate the entire world. At that time, even those who are now sleeping and snoring will be forced to awaken.

God is everything and God has everything. That is why we can say that God also has a mind. But God’s Mind is entirely different from our mind. Our mind knows only how to think ill of others. It gets malicious pleasure from negativity. But when God uses the mind, He only offers Revelation. Our minds are made of confusion, but His Mind is made of Revelation. Since we are praying to God consciously, devotedly and soulfully, one day we are going to have the same mind that He has.

I am an optimist. A God-lover is an optimist at every second, because he knows that God’s Wisdom created this world. God created the universe with the tremendous hope that His children, His creation, would become an exact prototype of Him. This was His Vision, and how can His Vision be wrong?

In our case, vision and reality are two different things. Sometimes our dreams blossom into reality, but most of the time our dreams remain in the dream-world. But God only deals with Vision, and His Vision and reality go together like the obverse and reverse of the same coin. If you look at the Vision, you are bound to see the reality inside it; again, if you look at the reality, you will also see the Vision.

So God’s Message of peace, happiness, delight and fulfilment cannot be separated from the creation. The creation embodies the message of divine fulfilment, for God must be fulfilled in and through His creation.