Question: Do you think that one needs a certain material basis before one can be spiritual?
Sri Chinmoy: It is necessary that a material basis exists here on earth. But if we do not use material wealth properly, then we will be going back to the animal kingdom. Here in the West, if we don’t wear proper clothes, if we don’t take showers, if we don’t eat material food, earthly food, then how are we going to live on earth? So whatever material actions are beneficial to our existence we shall perform. The things that are not helpful we are going to transform, so that eventually they can also be an added help to our feeling of universal oneness.
Sri Chinmoy, The doubt-world, Agni Press, 1977