Question: Is it possible to be spiritual and material at the same time?

Sri Chinmoy: In the beginning, partly we are spiritual and partly we are material. Then we get inner Peace, Light and Bliss and transform the material into the spiritual. But if we say that we have to become spiritual and neglect the material right from the beginning, that is impossible. The spiritual and the material go side by side in the beginning. At first the proportion may be, let us say, two per cent spiritual and ninety-eight per cent material. But there comes a time when the spiritual and the material are amalgamated, fused into one. At that time we see in the material world the real spirit, and matter is used for a divine purpose. Let us take, for example, a knife. With this knife I can stab someone and with this knife I can also cut a fruit and share it with others. If the spiritual enters into the material, if my spiritual life enters into my material consciousness, then my view of the material life changes. At that time the knife becomes a kind of help, an instrument for me to cut the fruit and share it with you.

Unless the spiritual light enters into the material world, the material world will remain blind. But if we have spiritual light in the material, then the material also becomes half spiritual. They are like two brothers. One brother is right now a little bit ignorant. But that doesn’t mean that we shall have to throw aside that brother. If we bring light into the younger brother, then he will also be of great help in fulfilling our mission.