Question: Why have your ideas attracted so many people here and also in so many different parts of the world?

Sri Chinmoy: It is all a question of inner hunger. I was hungry to eat eggplant, let us say, so I ate. I enjoyed the taste of eggplant so much. Then I saw that there are many people who wanted to taste this eggplant. So I said, “Come, I will show you who prepares this food.”

I have prayed and meditated, and I know the subject a little better than my students. I learned the subject, and now I am trying to help them learn it also. I am not the light, but I know a little more than they do about where the light is. So they all come to me hoping I can help them see the light. It is like someone who is an accomplished marathon runner. If you are an accomplished runner, then you can help me learn to run. You can go ahead and inspire me, and I will follow you.

In my case, my students from all over the world have joined me or I have joined them. It is the same thing whether they have come to me or I have gone to them, because my students and I are one. When my prayer-life entered into their hearts and when their aspiration-life entered into my heart, at that time there was no Germany, no France, no England, no Russia — nothing. It does not matter what country they come from. When we pray and meditate, we try to become one with God’s Will. For God’s Will to enter into the hearts of people living in different countries is not a difficult task.

When I open my human eyes, I can see next to nothing — and what little I see, immediately the mind divides. That is because the mind is all division. But if I use the heart, which is all oneness, at that time I do not have to know whether you are Russian or French or British. As long as I feel warmth and love inside your heart, that is more than enough. When we use the heart, at that time there is no Germany, France, Italy or Switzerland. At that time we are all one. My students and I are trying to live in the heart. When we live in the heart, we see the whole world as a oneness-home.