Question: From the spiritual point of view, is India's poverty a blessing or a curse? Is poverty there to keep India simple and pure?

Sri Chinmoy: It is true to some extent that poverty keeps India's simplicity and purity. But the real purity that is needed to realise God or to become inseparably one with God's Will is something infinitely more than what can come from poverty and simplicity. Just because one is poor, we cannot say that one is also pure. There are many poor people on earth who are unbearably impure. Poverty may help a little because at least the poor are not wallowing in the pleasures of material wealth. But whether material wealth is a blessing or a curse depends on how we utilise it. We can use a knife to cut a fruit and share it with a friend, or we can use a knife to stab someone. Material power and material wealth are like that. If they are used for a divine purpose, they are a blessing. If they are used for undivine purposes, then definitely they are a curse.