Question: How is it that if the spiritual force is so strong, the world seems to be such a disastrous place?

Sri Chinmoy: The spiritual force is strong, but how many people on earth are accepting the spiritual force? How many people want it? Divine love is a spiritual force, the mightiest force. But how many people want divine love? People want love in order to possess someone or something. The love that possesses is not divine love. The world always thinks of "I". Each individual thinks of "I", "I", "I". How many individuals can soulfully feel oneness? The moment we transform "I" into "we", we will see that the world is automatically changed.

The divine forces always give us the message of unity, but we do not listen. God has given us all a tongue; so we just talk and talk and talk about spirituality instead of trying to practise it. For those who have not realised the Truth, their talk is just talk. In my case, I have realised the Truth, but even when I talk, I can only give you a very small portion of my realisation. When I give talks, I am only convincing your mind of the basic truths of the spiritual life. But when I meditate, at that time I can give my peace, my love, my blessings, my spiritual power. When it is a matter of peace, light and bliss, you can receive them only through meditation. The spiritual force can only be achieved through inner silence, through meditation.

So to come back to your question, out of billions of people on earth, how many people are aspiring? We have a few spiritual Centres and other Masters have Centres, but still there are billions of people on earth who are not aspiring. The number of people who are not aspiring is infinitely greater than the number who are aspiring. So the divine force is there, but it has to be accepted, welcomed and embraced. First a few people will accept the spiritual force, but eventually everybody will accept it. Then the undivine hostile forces will be outnumbered and illumined. Most of the world now has accepted undivine forces rather than the natural, normal divine force. We should try to feel that the divine force, the divine light, is the normal, natural force, and the human forces, the physical forces and the other undivine forces that we have accepted are abnormal and unnatural.