Question: Is there a place for any kind of feeling of competition in the spiritual life?

Sri Chinmoy: In real spiritual life, there is no competition. But there is something which is very essential, necessary, and inevitable, which we call progress. Let us say that you want to make progress; you want to transcend yourself. Now, if somebody else is with you, immediately his or your mind will think that you are competing. In the ordinary life, we compete with others to gain supremacy. But in the spiritual life, we are not in competition with others. We are always trying to transcend our own capacity; but while we are transcending our capacity, others may feel that we are competing.

We can think of ourselves as two halves: imperfection is one half and our sincere cry for perfection is the other half. One side is weakness, and the other side is strength. With our inner cry for perfection, let us run towards our destination. If the perfection-being reaches its goal before the imperfection-being, then it becomes fully illumined. When our being is fully illumined, if dark, ignorant forces come near the field of illumination, they are afraid. Before we reach the destination, they challenge us. But once we reach the illumination-destination, ignorant forces do not dare enter into us because they feel that they will be totally lost. They do not know that they will only be transformed and illumined.