Question: Do all souls have the same potentiality?

Sri Chinmoy: Potentiality everybody has. God is like a potter. His material is always the same; but when He shapes it, it becomes so beautiful. Although one pot may not be as beautiful as another, the essence of both is the same: clay. Similarly, in spirit we are all one. But while God is moulding a soul we may say, "Why has He moulded that one so attractively, while this other one is so much less beautiful?" We have to know that it is entirely up to Him to decide how He wants to shape each soul. My essence, your essence, everybody's essence is the same. But in a particular soul we may notice something called conscious aspiration. It was destined that each person should have very limited freedom. That freedom started right at the beginning of creation, when the individual souls came into existence. Now we see that somebody has used his freedom for the spiritual life, somebody else has used it for music, somebody else for poetry. The original essence is the same, the spirit is the same, but the manifestation is different.