Question: Very often we go through suffering when we try to reach perfection because we have to overcome our imperfections.

Sri Chinmoy: Here you are using the term “perfection” according to your mental under standing. But from a spiritual point of view, perfection is progress. When I was a child, I had to learn the Bengali alphabet. In Bengali the letters are different, but let us call them the ABCs. When I learned the first letter, “A,” according to my mother I was perfect. Then, when I learned the other letters and finally the whole alphabet, she felt her child had achieved even greater perfection. Even though this child still had to go to kindergarten, primary school, high school and other places, since I was making progress, my mother felt that I was perfect.

In the spiritual life, let us say that yesterday I desired ten cars, ten houses, ten tennis courts. But now my desires have decreased and I want only five cars, five houses, five tennis courts. I have made progress, and this progress is my perfection. Then tomorrow I will want only one tennis court, and after a few days or a week it will not matter if I do not have even one. Although I like to play tennis, because of my spiritual progress I will say, "If it is God's Will, let Him give me a tennis court. If it is not His Will, then I don't need one."

Previously, God was not even in the picture, but now I am saying I want a tennis court only if it is God's Will. This is called progress, and it comes from decreasing our earthly desires and increasing our heavenly aspirations. In the world of aspiration, if I have doubt or any other bad qualities, I will try to decrease them and eventually illumine them. Anything that is undivine in me I shall try to decrease, and anything that is divine in me I shall try to increase. That kind of progress is called perfection.

Right now, let us say, I can meditate for only two minutes. Then gradually I learn to meditate for three minutes, five minutes, an hour. Like this, in the beginning I try to make progress according to my mind's way of seeing progress. But there will come a time when the divine within me, my Inner Pilot, will make me realise that it is not how long but how soulfully I meditate that is of paramount importance. God will tell me that it is better to meditate soulfully for seven seconds than to spend seven hours in front of my shrine thinking of what I ate in the morning or of what Russia and America are doing. So when I realise this, I will try to make progress in another way.

Perfection is not found at a particular height — like the top of a mountain. There is no end to the perfection we can achieve. What we consider perfection today is only the starting point for the higher perfection that we will strive for tomorrow. In the beginning, our idea of perfection is being able to meditate for one hour, so we try to increase our meditation time. But then we realise that perfection depends on how soulfully and powerfully we meditate, so we try to make our meditations more soulful. Finally we realise that there is no end to how soulful and powerful our meditation can become, and we see that there is no end to the progress we can make. So the only perfection that is real and perfect is continuous progress.