Question: Will the process of striving for perfection ever come to an end?

Sri Chinmoy: It will never come to an end because God Himself does not want to end His Cosmic Game. What today we feel is the ultimate perfection, tomorrow we will call the starting point of our journey. This is because our consciousness is evolving. When our consciousness evolves to a higher level, our sense of perfection simultaneously goes higher. Let us take perfection as an achievement. When we are a kindergarten student, our perfection may be found in playing games. But from kindergarten we go to primary school, high school, college and university. And even after we have got our Ph.D., we may still feel there are many things more that we have to learn. Then we will study further and enlarge our consciousness still more. If the child thinks that a Master’s degree or Ph.D. will always remain unattainable, then he is mistaken.

Similarly, the spiritual ladder has quite a few rungs. If we do not step onto the first rung, then how can we climb up to the highest rung? We start with inspiration, and from there we move on to concentration, meditation and contemplation. And these three words — concentration, meditation, contemplation — are included in one word: aspiration. We start with inspiration and continue with aspiration. There is no end to our aspiration, and there is no end to our achievement of perfection.