Question: When we reach the Pralaya, how can the souls who have not attained the highest and are not pure blend into the Divine Purity if they themselves are not pure?

Sri Chinmoy: Pralaya is the dissolution or the final destruction of the universe. Now where is the destruction? You feel, Gauri, that when the Pralaya takes place, there will be souls who will remain unrealised, who will not realise God, that everything will be destroyed. But where will the Pralaya be? It will take place in the earth’s atmosphere, not in God’s Consciousness. There is no destruction in the Infinite Consciousness of the Supreme. In destruction we only see that a few trees are blown out or a hurricane has taken place, an earthquake has occurred and thousands of people have died. But this destruction is not the destruction of Consciousness. Although we say that the world is destroyed, it is not destroyed in God’s Consciousness. It is only destroyed, part of the world, in the physical, geographical sense, but not in the sense of God’s infinite and immortal Existence.

When a country is destroyed, you think that all human beings are likewise destroyed. No. Only the earth, the external manifestation is annihilated. But the beings go back to their Eternal Abode. That Eternal Abode is the Supreme’s Consciousness. There they have their own shelter. Then they can, at God’s own hour, be given the chance to come back to earth to fulfil God’s mission or their own self-realisation.

Gauri: When they come back, do they come all pure?

Sri Chinmoy: No, they do not come at all pure because purification has to take place here. However, they will not be destroyed because the soul is immortal. Purification and realisation — everything — has to take place here. Here is the field of experience; here they have to be purified; here they have to realise themselves. When we are speaking of the dissolution of the manifested cosmos, Pralaya, we have to be aware that destruction does not take place in Consciousness. It takes place only here in the manifested material world. A few million miles may be destroyed, but consciousness can never be destroyed. Human consciousness can never be destroyed unless it is the Supreme’s Will.