Question: When you bring down Peace and Light to us, do you have to go into nirvikalpa samadhi?

Sri Chinmoy: No, I do not have to go to any particular state of consciousness to give you something. All spiritual qualities are inside me, in the spiritual heart. The spiritual heart is infinitely larger than the universe itself. The whole universe is inside the spiritual heart. When I want to offer Light I may look up, and you may think that I have gone very high, beyond the heart. But the heart is like a globe which encompasses the whole universe. Inside the heart is the plane for love, the plane for light, the plane for peace. Each plane is like a different house. Some planes have a little of everything, and some planes are specialised. But all are inside the heart, which is where a spiritual Master lives, and from there he brings everything.

One has to develop the spiritual heart. Everybody does not have the same capacity. Everybody has potentiality, but it must be developed. It is not like our oneness with God, which is something we all possess equally but have misplaced. No, the capacity of the spiritual heart is something we actually have to achieve in the process of evolution. Gradually it grows from a seed to a plant to a huge banyan tree, as our oneness with God increases. With unconscious oneness we enter into the world. Through the process of prayer, meditation, love, devotion and surrender, we develop conscious oneness. The heart develops from the consciousness of a child to the consciousness of the eldest member of the family, who knows everything that the father knows. When we have developed the spiritual heart, at that time we come to realise our identity with the Mother and Father of the universe.