Question: If you work for a company and are selling a product, you are trying to get material gain for the company. How do you reconcile that and put your energies into it?

Sri Chinmoy: The important thing you have to know is whether or not you are participating in deception. Suppose you are selling sugar for a company, and you know that they have mixed something into the sugar to deceive the customers. Then, if you really want to be spiritual, you must not work for this kind of company. But if you sell something for what you call profit, that is not deception. If you buy something for two dollars and sell it for two dollars, then how are you going to earn your livelihood? You have to sell it for two-fifty or three dollars. Profit is not deception. But how much profit? If you buy something for two dollars and sell it for twenty, then you are just exploiting people. During the war, people knew that the price of things would go very high, so they bought things for six dollars that should sell for twelve dollars at most. Then they were able to sell them for ninety dollars. Just because something was unavailable and people wanted it badly, this kind of exploitation was possible. So you have to know if you are deceiving or exploiting your customer, and you have to strike a balance between exploitation and stupidity.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Politics and spirituality: can they go together?, Agni Press, 1977
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/ps