Question: What do you say while you are praying? To whom are you speaking? Have you ever prayed for others, for the world, for peace? How have you done this?

Sri Chinmoy: When I am praying, I am communing with the Highest Absolute. I speak to Him either like a beggar to an emperor or like a child to his grandfather. I started praying and meditating — you can say unconsciously — at the age of four or five. But since the very beginning of my conscious spiritual journey, I have been praying to the Supreme not only for my own perfection in life but also for a oneness-world founded upon inner peace. At this point in my spiritual journey, all my prayers are for others, for the world, for peace.

Then again, in the highest sense, there is no separation between myself and ‘others’. After I attained my own conscious union with God, I came to realise that there is only one ‘person’, and that is my universal oneness-life.

So when I pray, automatically I include in my prayer all human beings on earth. And when I meditate, that too is for the benefit of all the souls in God’s entire Universe. Once you have established your oneness with God’s Will, it is extremely easy to meditate soulfully, powerfully and unconditionally for God’s Will to be executed in and through each human being on earth.