Question: Do you believe that the year 2000 and this time that we are alive is very special?

Sri Chinmoy: From the ordinary point of view, it is special. From the spiritual point of view, this very moment is special. Every second is special. Inside every second, God’s infinite Compassion is blossoming forth, and God’s Love for us we are bound to feel.

Many people say that after four years [in the year 2000] the world will have a new life. But “after four years” is the future tense. It is now the present. How are we going to accept the future now? How do we accept the sun early each morning? We can wake up and look at the sun, pray and invoke its light, its illumination. Again, we can remain fast asleep. It is the same sun, the same light. Somebody is utilising the sun for his own illumination, while others are sleeping and paying no attention to the sun.

We have to value each moment. The fleeting moment is bringing us the message of the Infinite: the infinite and immortal Love of God, the immortal Peace of God, the immortal Compassion of God. The future grows in the soil of the present today. Today if we do not invoke the light from Above, or if we do not bring to the fore the light from within, then days will run into weeks, weeks will run into months, months will run into years, and years will run into centuries and millennia.

We have to prepare ourselves. “Tomorrow” is not going to give us anything. “Four years later” will not give us anything. We have to prepare ourselves to receive the light today. We have to prepare ourselves to give what we have and what we are. What we have is our love of God, and what we are is God’s instruments. We have to increase our love of God in infinite measure. Then, consciously, at every moment, we shall have to try to abide by God’s Will. Our preparation is of paramount importance. We have to use time properly in God’s own Way. Otherwise, time will not come and help us.

For a sincere seeker, the message is always “here and now, here and now,” and not the remote past or the distant future. If we want to please God, then we shall see that to please God is to please our-selves. By pleasing ourselves only, we will not be able to please God. But by pleasing Him here and now, we are going to please ourselves without fail.

According to my inner philosophy, the future has to be invoked by today’s prayer, meditation and self-giving. Otherwise, the future will come as usual, and perhaps it will seem meaningless or useless. But where is that future? It is in the immediate feeling of our divine reality within us. The year 2000 will perhaps be of no avail unless we are fully prepared to offer ourselves now to the light that the future has and is for us.

We have to prepare ourselves. This is the only message I can give. Otherwise, nobody – not even God – is going to give us anything. Our preparation is of supreme importance. Again, we know it is He who prepares in and through us; we can do nothing. He is at once the seeker in us and the inner Guide, the inner Light. We are aware of the undeniable fact that He is the One who is inspiring us, He is the action in us, and He is the One who is acting in and through us.

To come back to your question, let us only pray to God to make us worthy of His Light. This Light we have to get from Him as soon as possible – not by hook or by crook, but by offering Him our heart’s ever-climbing cries.