Question: What is your opinion about prophecy? Can the future really be known in advance?

Sri Chinmoy: When people make predictions, sometimes the predictions come true and sometimes they are simply wrong. Suppose your third eye is open and you know that somebody is going to die tomorrow. If you tell him that he is going to die tomorrow, you are doing him the greatest harm because the fear that you are creating in him today will immediately take away all his life’s joy, confidence and assurance. During his remaining hours, he will be dwelling already in the realm of death because of his fear. Even if your prediction does not come true, still the person is half-dead. What good does it do to tell him that he is going to die? This is not likely to have any good result.

Very often people make amazing predictions, positive predictions such as ‘you will be favoured,’ ‘you will become a great person,’ ‘you will become something wonderful and the whole world will acclaim you.’ When this kind of prediction is made we often see the malicious interference of the hostile forces. The person who has made the prediction has seen the truth, but his vision is not the vision of the Omnipotent; it is the vision of someone who has the capacity to see the truth, but not of the One who can create the truth, who can manifest the truth. When an ordinary person has the capacity to make predictions, he feels that he has created the truth; but that is not true. Only God has created the truth and only God has the power to nullify the truth or transform the truth. I personally do not like to predict anything, because very often we break the cosmic Law in predicting the future. We do not allow this future to be expressed the way it was intended by God.

A disciple once went to his Master and said that an astrologer had predicted he would die that very day. The Master concentrated on the disciple and said, “Yes, it is destined, but I will bring down the Grace of the Almighty and I will be able to save you.”

The disciple went back to the astrologer and told him, “My Master says your prediction won’t come true.”

The astrologer said, “I have made predictions hundreds of times and all my predictions have come true. If my prediction does not come true in your case, I will become your Master’s disciple; and if my prediction comes true, then your Master will have to come and learn astrology from me.”

The disciple told his Master what the astrologer had said, and the Master agreed to the bargain.

The day passed and nothing happened. So the astrologer went to the Master to become his disciple, and the Master explained to him: “Your prediction was absolutely true. Although there are people who make wrong predictions, your prediction was true. But I brought down the Grace of the Supreme for my disciple to counter his fate.”