Question: Does humanity's interest in the performing arts help the world's progress?
Sri Chinmoy: Dance, theatre and music are meant to help the world’s progress. Aspiration is bound to be followed by realisation, and realisation is bound to be followed by manifestation. If the performers do everything with a divine attitude to inspire and elevate the audience in some way, then certainly it helps the audience’s progress. Otherwise, the wrong motive of the performers and the wrong motive of the audience cannot be of any help to the world’s progress. Again, the inspiration that the audience gets today must be expanded tomorrow to a higher and deeper truth, which we call aspiration.
Sri Chinmoy, Art's life and the soul's light, Agni Press, 1974