Question: In each era God manifests in a different way. We are entering into the Aquarian Age. I was thinking that since energy changes her form of manifestation in each era, even psychic energy changes. There is a complete transformation of the creation in each era. I would like to know how true my argument is now.

Sri Chinmoy: Each era signifies a significant promise, but each era has been unsuccessful in a sense because it has not completed (it has not been able to complete) the whole drama in the way God wanted it to be completed or fulfilled. We are trying, in this era, to raise our consciousness to the Highest and bring down the Highest into the lowest.

When we think of transformation in the terms of an era, we have to be conscious of one thing and that is evolution. We are in the process of evolution. This process will find its proper satisfaction or complete satisfaction only when our human nature is completely transformed. You have heard of the eras of the past and there will be a few more eras in the future. We have to know whether the changes or the transformations that we have made up until now are really noticeable, whether these eras have brought any progress.

The transformation that we are crying for is the transformation of our human nature and human propensities. At the same time, we cannot deny that the ordinary person is making some kind of progress. He is getting a better life, a more fulfilling life. He may be transforming or changing himself but this change need not be actually for the better, even though we are all proceeding towards a higher life. But if one is not aspiring, you will see that he will be caught in his ignorance-sea even though while living there, he may start learning how to swim. In the beginning he was sinking all the time in ignorance-sea, drowning; now he knows how to swim and slowly, steadily, in God’s own infinite time — God Himself knows when — one day he will be able to swim across the sea of ignorance and enter into the sea of knowledge.

So here we see again the play of an era. Human consciousness started to run towards the Light. Each era offers that opportunity to aspiring human souls, but what happens? That ignorance does not allow human consciousness to reach the Highest. Now we are marking time: one hour, two hours, three hours, four hours, but when we think of one hour, immediately we feel that in this one hour, we have to accomplish what we thought of accomplishing from the beginning. That is, we are standing still and yet we feel that in this era, we should accomplish everything that was not accomplished in all the past eras. Each era embodies a new hope, a new energy, a new will to accomplish the thing that has not yet been accomplished. But what happens? The promise is one thing, the fulfilment is another. There are various factors that do not allow the era to be fulfilled or to fulfil itself.

Now if you think of all the eras, according to our Hindu shastras, there are a great many, but right now we are in the Iron Age, they say. According to spiritual figures, this is the worst period. In this age, the world is going to be destroyed, it is said. When? Some say next month or next year. Some say tomorrow. But it is not true. What they call “destruction” will eventually be proved to be the transformation of human nature.

You were saying that each era is a promise towards a better understanding of Truth, but not even one era has fulfilled or has been able to fulfil its purpose. Here we are trying, but God knows how far we will succeed.

But what is going to happen? Ultimately, it may take a hundred years or two hundred, four hundred years or six hundred. It may take even thousands of years, but the Truth has to be fulfilled. Nobody, no hostile force, no undivine force can prevent Truth from being established. That is to say, Truth has to be established on earth and for that end, what is required from the earth’s consciousness is the total transformation of human consciousness. Unless and until our human nature is completely and totally transformed, the Truth may touch the earth-consciousness, but it will not be able to stay there permanently, because the earth-consciousness is not wide enough to hold the Truth. The vessel is not big enough.

So, to come back to your question, Pratyay. In this era, we are trying to raise the aspiring consciousness into the Highest and bring the Highest into the lowest of our nature, so the Highest and the lowest can have a meeting-ground where the lowest totally transforms itself and becomes fully illumined by the Highest. Then they will work together inseparably.