Question: If they do not get joy from the battle, how can they expect ordinary human beings to get joy from the battle?

Sri Chinmoy: These souls are taking rest, but they will not be allowed to take rest indefinitely. Unlike realised souls, they will not be allowed to rest for a thousand years. Some high souls are allowed to take rest for fifty, sixty or a maximum of a hundred years. But more than that they cannot take; they have to come down. Usually, ordinary souls come back in six or nine years.

Even some of my disciples who are now in the soul’s world are begging, begging, begging to take another human incarnation, and they have not been there for eight or nine years. Here on earth perhaps they did not listen to me, and now they are promising me that they will become good, divine instruments. Do I have to believe that they will fulfil their promise?

Sometimes it happens that when ordinary people go to Heaven, they do not like it. They like this side. There they cannot feed their children, they cannot earn their living. They feel, what is the use of staying in the soul’s world? They are like camels. A camel eats thorns and then its mouth bleeds, but it continues to eat thorns. In the case of ordinary souls, many times God does not even have to tell them to take a new incarnation. They are eager to come back; they are ready to come back. They do not like to stay in Heaven. After six years, they are all ready to return to earth.