Question: You have been singing Jiban debata at every concert. Has the soul of the song made progress because you have sung it so many times?

Sri Chinmoy: In the case of Jiban debata, it is not like that. I sing that song for a very special reason. I try to become inseparably one with the audience, with all the human beings that are there. And I cry to God on behalf of all of them for His Forgiveness. The individual souls of the audience I take as collective — one unit, one individual. Then I pray, most soulfully I cry on their behalf for Forgiveness.

If you can ask God for Forgiveness every day, you purify yourself. The word ‘forgiveness’ carries purification. Whether God has forgiven us or not is up to Him, but if we can pray to God for Forgiveness, immediately it purifies our heart. We can pray to God for Forgiveness for the things we did today or yesterday or even for the things that we will do in the future. It is not a joke. It is absolutely necessary. Good seekers do not know what will happen in the future. The next moment they may commit a Himalayan blunder. Right now they are in a very good consciousness, so they pray to God, “Please forgive me now for the things that I am going to do tomorrow.”

You may laugh. You do not believe that you are going to make a great mistake tomorrow. But this prayer is absolutely essential. If you ask God to forgive you for the mistakes that you will commit tomorrow, it is like saving money and putting it in the bank. Then, when you really do something wrong, God will see the balance and you can take the money back. Many, many seekers do this. They pray to God for His future Forgiveness. You know yourselves how your consciousness can change. Early in the morning you may be divine. Then, in two hours’ time, you become undivine, your consciousness descends.

If you ask God to forgive you for your future mistakes, then when you do make a mistake you will see that your forgiveness-prayer is negating the mistake. But you do not do that. We always stay in the past. We pray to God, “Oh, yesterday I told a lie. Save me, save me!”

But yesterday is gone, now something else is coming. So let us also pray for tomorrow. Prayer is not only for the things that we have done wrong in the past. Prayer also means to look forward. When we pray, we are trying to remove the obstacles that are ahead of us. Already the ones that are behind us we have fought with. Whether we have won or lost, God alone knows, but we do know that our prayer-life and meditation-life are carrying us forward. There if we can have God’s Forgiveness, then immediately the way forward will become easier for us.

The past, present and future are all at God’s Command. He knows whether or not we are going to make a deplorable mistake in an hour or not. So the best thing is to ask for His Forgiveness. And also, if we can ask God for Forgiveness for future things, then God sees and feels whether we really mean it. He sees whether we have taken His Forgiveness seriously. Otherwise, we go on thinking that we are perfect. Then, all of a sudden, when we do something wrong, we cry, “God, save me! Save me!”

We must come to the point where we can say, “I am not perfect. I can at any moment make mistakes. So the best thing is to ask for God’s Forgiveness. If God forgives me today for tomorrow’s mistakes then already I have nullified tomorrow’s problem by using my wisdom today.” This is absolutely true. Tomorrow’s mistakes can be nullified if you cry to God today for His Forgiveness.