Question: Why is darkness impermanent and light permanent?

Sri Chinmoy: Light is permanent precisely because our Source is all Light. We come from Light, in Light we grow and through Light we fulfil our inner task. God is the eternal Source and we are His children. God-realisation, the flood of infinite Light, is our birthright. The more we go deep within, the easier it becomes for us to realise that there is something within us which is everlasting. Right now we are enveloped by darkness because we have been sleeping for a few years or a few incarnations. But a day will come when the infinite Light will dawn in us and make us feel what we truly are. Since our Source is God, who is all Light, eventually we also have to grow into Light. It is the Creator who has created us and eventually we have to grow into His very image.

What is Light? Light is Delight, and Delight means nectar. This nectar is immortal. In one of our Upanishads it is said that all human beings come into the world from Delight. Again, Delight is Light, God the Light. We grow in Delight, but we do not see or feel the Delight right now because we are living the surface life in the meshes of ignorance. But we shall continue to grow and, at the end of our journey’s close, we shall again enter into the effulgence of Delight. We came from Delight, we grow in Delight and, at the end of our journey’s close, we shall retire into Delight.

This experience of Delight we get only when we meditate. When we meditate, we get inner peace or peace of mind. Delight is visible, palpable and tangible only when we have peace of mind. Unfortunately, the modern, intellectual, doubting and sophisticated mind does not care for this kind of Light and Delight. It cries for outer information or it cries to achieve the Truth in its own way. But even while achieving the Truth, it negates the Truth. The mind sees the Truth for five seconds and then, when it is about to achieve the Truth, it doubts the possibility and potentiality of the Truth. Then who is the loser? It is the mind. But if we live in the heart or in the soul, which is within the heart, then we identify ourselves with the Light and immediately we become the Light. At that time there is no doubt; there is only a flood of certainty.

So if we can live in our inner existence even for one minute a day, we will see Light and feel Light in abundant measure. When we feel Light, we will feel the possibility of growing into the effulgence of Light. Our inner sun, which is infinitely brighter than the physical sun, will dispel the ignorance-night of millennia. Let us try to go deep within and enter into our inner sun, our cosmic sun. There we shall see the infinite, permanent Light waiting for us and crying for us. It needs only our conscious approval and co-operation to come to the fore.