Question: How do you feel about all the environmental concerns that seem to be surfacing now?

Sri Chinmoy: The very nature of earth is to cry, cry for purification. First it starts with a cry for simplicity, because earth has been polluted by complexity. Previously, hundreds and thousands of years ago, earth was very simple. Now human beings have corrupted the earth. On the one hand, machinery and technology have helped the earth considerably, but on the other hand, they have considerably taken away the pristine beauty, purity and divinity of Mother Earth. As soon as I see the soul of the earth, I see the soul is crying and crying because of the loss of its inner divinity, which is far, far greater than the gain in outer achievements. Earth has lost many, many divine qualities which it had from the beginning of creation. Again, earth itself is to be blamed to some extent. Earth also was tempted in the beginning to seek the new, the development of science, the development of the mental faculties, of the mind’s capacities. Then earth saw, to its extreme sorrow, that although these developments definitely helped a little, many extremely, extremely good qualities of earth were being lost by allowing the outer achievements to dominate the inner life.

The very nature of Mother Earth is to cry. One kind of cry is aspiring to become inseparably one with God the Creator. But at the same time earth has another cry to regain the invaluable things that it has lost over the centuries.