Question: Is the earth planet like a final stage for perfection? Do we have to go through the other planets first and then come here?

Sri Chinmoy: The earth is the only place to realise God. To other places, humans go as visitors, as you would visit your friends’ or relatives’ houses. According to what your own inner affinities are, you might like the place and stay, or else complete this incarnation and go back there. But there you do not make any progress. You do not meditate there or do anything to further your spiritual evolution.

This is the world where you have aspiration and where you practise meditation. No soul, no human being is able to realise God on other planes; only here on earth. That is why an Indian poet said, “Man above all.” No one is superior to man because man is tomorrow’s God and God is today’s man, concealed but not revealed. Man is tomorrow’s God revealed, whereas God is today’s man concealed.

When the soul aspires in other worlds, it gets experience. Aspiration is itself an experience. But manifesting the divine fruits of aspiration can only take place here on earth. Here alone is the field for manifestation and here alone realisation can be had. Realisation is the culmination of the soul’s evolution and it can only be had here on earth. The planet earth represents and embodies spiritual evolution. The soul incarnates in a human body in order to give liberation or realisation to human beings and at the same time the soul manifests the Infinite and the Highest.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Earth’s Cry Meets Heaven’s Smile, part 3, Aum Press, Puerto Rico, 1978
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/ech_3