Part II — Questions and answers: University of Maine

Question: Is there a possibility of complete fulfilment in this world?

Sri Chinmoy: It depends on what kind of fulfilment you are referring to. If it is fulfilment of our teeming desires, then we shall never be fulfilled. Today if one desire is fulfilled, tomorrow we will have another desire, and the moment that desire is fulfilled, we will have yet another desire. If we expect fulfilment in life through desire, then we shall never be fulfilled.

But if we follow the other road — the road of aspiration — even if we get just an iota of Peace, Light and Bliss, we shall feel a real sense of fulfilment. And as we grow inwardly, our Peace, Light and Bliss increase. When we take exercise daily, we gradually develop our muscles and become strong, stronger, strongest. So also in the spiritual life, when our aspiration — our inner strength — is built up, there comes a time when we get Light, Peace and Bliss in infinite measure and feel total satisfaction and fulfilment in our life.

If we accept the life of aspiration, sooner or later fulfilment is bound to come. But as long as we wallow in the pleasures of ordinary life and feel that desire will be able to satisfy us, then we cannot know fulfilment. Our human desires will never be totally fulfilled. They must be transcended. Desire does not have the capacity to free us. On the contrary, the very nature of desire is to bind us, for desire itself is bound; whereas the very nature of aspiration is to free us, for aspiration is always free. That which has freedom can eventually free us, but that which has no freedom but is only a slave cannot offer us anything.