Question: Sometimes I think that people in the past were much more advanced than we are today.

Sri Chinmoy: The world is in the process of evolution, so the present state is the most evolved. Then, after a few centuries, the world will be more evolved. Four thousand or five thousand years ago our ancestors might have done a few extraordinary things. But when it is a matter of general achievement or evolution, we are much more developed. Five thousand years ago, our forefathers made the sacrifices we read about in the Mahabharata, but the vision of the general masses was not as broad as it is now. What is worse, in those days they did not involve themselves with morality. Now we have the power to destroy; we have the atom bomb, the hydrogen bomb. At the same time, we have the United Nations for peace. We are making progress on both sides of the coin with both constructive and destructive inventions and developments, but we are trying.

You have to know that we don’t go backwards. In spiritual evolution, I am evolving, you are evolving, everybody is evolving. In the process of evolution we are all proceeding towards the Divine, towards the Ultimate. But this evolution is not like a straight line. Its movement goes in a spiral. So we may think that we are not making any progress, but we are.