Question: What is behind your interest in Russia? How do you think you can help us? How do you see the future of Russia?

Sri Chinmoy: I am a truth-seeker and a God-lover. Starting five or six years ago, while praying and meditating, I began to feel in the depths of my heart the heart of Russia, and I would be in touch with the soul of Russia. Since then, I have been praying and meditating for the Soviet Union. For me, the Soviet Union was a reality itself and even now I see it as a reality itself. What the political world has done or is going to do with the Soviet Union is another matter. But when I pray and meditate, I still feel the Soviet Union visible and palpable in the world of aspiration.

When I think of today’s Russia, immediately I try to become one with the source — the Soviet Union. When I say ‘Union’ in ‘Soviet Union’, immediately I feel enormous strength in my body, in my vital, in my mind, in my heart and in my soul. What politics has done to the Soviet Union we all know. But what spirituality thinks of the Soviet Union and how spirituality regards the Soviet Union, and will forever regard it, is a different story.

It is like a song that has not been completely sung. The idea of a Soviet Union was a beautiful, most melodious song. Unfortunately, the singers were prevented from completing it. But this same song, which is the song of oneness, will be sung in a different way in the near or distant future. Your country may not be called the Soviet Union, but the oneness-heart of the large, larger, largest existence of Russia will definitely be a reality. And this larger oneness will definitely take place. It is God’s Vision for everything to expand — not militarily or politically, but psychically — by virtue of a oneness-heart. It is this expansion of Russia’s oneness-heart that we can see in the inner world. It is our fervent desire to bring this inner vision or realisation to the fore so that the whole world can see the true reality.

So the future of Russia, from the spiritual point of view, is bright, brighter, brightest. Why? Precisely because the Soviet Union received light in abundant measure in the inner world and is still receiving light from Above. Sometimes when one seed does not properly germinate, we may not get the proper plant or proper tree. But each day light is descending and creating new seeds — seeds of aspiration, seeds of dedication, seeds of hope and seeds of promise. In that sense, the seeds that are going to one day bear fruit are already in the ground, and more are constantly being planted through the Grace of the Almighty.

For me, a new Soviet Union is the future tree, and Russia is only a branch. It may be the strongest or largest branch, but it is definitely just a branch. Right now this new Soviet Union, this larger Russia, is just a seed. We cannot deny the existence of the seed just because we do not have the capacity to see it. But in the near or distant future, it will grow into a giant tree, a tree of oneness, and Russia and the other countries around it will be branches of that tree.