Interviewer: Let Me Ask You About Spirituality....

Interviewer: Let me ask you about spirituality. I don’t know so much about Gorbachev, but can I assume that you are admiring him from a spiritual point of view, the way that you admire Mother Teresa and the Holy Father?

Sri Chinmoy: Spirituality has two wings. One we call aspiration, and the other we call dedication. With our aspiration, we pray to God. With our dedication, we serve Him. In the case of the Holy Father and Mother Teresa, we see that they are aspiring. They are praying every day to God. Again, they are also dedicating their lives to humanity.

In Gorbachev’s case, the whole world can see and feel how many things he has done to serve mankind. He may not pray to God early in the morning like Mother Teresa or the Holy Father, but his very life he has dedicated not only to Russia, to the Soviet Union, but to the entire world. Now he is in Turkey; last week he was in Argentina. He goes to so many places. Why? They invite him because they see something very special in him. They see that he has light. That is why each country adores him. Again, a prophet is not honoured in his own country, so he lost the election very badly. But wherever he goes, people appreciate him. They see that he sincerely means what he says. For him world peace is a reality in his life. His dedication aspect we accept as part and parcel of the spiritual life. He may not pray in the Christian way, like the Pope or Mother Teresa, but he is getting messages from within, and he is trying to express and reveal these messages to the world at large. That is why, for me, he is truly spiritual.

Interviewer: Did you say, “He who serves, prays?”

Sri Chinmoy: Certainly! We serve others because we see them as the embodiment of God. God manifests Himself in and through each human being in a particular way. In a family each and every one may have a different vocation: one will be a doctor, another a musician and so forth. But they are one family. In the evening they come and eat together. Each individual is unique in his own way, and this uniqueness has to be utilised for the betterment of the world.

It is absolutely true that he who serves God is also praying, and in the same way, he who prays is also serving God. Let us say that someone is praying inside a cave in the Himalayas. If he becomes a good person, there will be one less undivine person on earth. In that way, the person praying in the Himalayan caves is also serving humanity.

Again, he who is offering his service is also praying in a special way. An unaspiring person will not dedicate his life even for a fleeting second. A good person will dedicate his entire life. This dedication is nothing other than aspiration. One who embodies light cannot be separated from one who offers his light to the world at large.