Question: What does it mean when people talk about spiritual development? Does it mean that one's desires are demolished?

Sri Chinmoy: Spirituality deals with aspiration. There are two realities, we can say: desire and aspiration. When we use the term ‘aspiration’, it belongs to the spiritual world. With aspiration we liberate ourselves, we liberate others, we liberate everybody. With aspiration we are longing for the Infinite so that we can remain inside infinite Peace, Light and Bliss.

The other reality is desire. Desire starts in the mind. With desire we are trying to go from one to many — one house, two houses; one car, two cars. We are only heading towards more and more possessions. Each possession of ours is only binding us, binding us, binding us. We look around and see that someone has more possessions than we have, and so we try to acquire more and more. There is no end to our greed.

But when we deal with aspiration, we are dealing with the Infinite. At that time, we do not want to claim possessions as such. We want to claim only infinite Peace, Light and Bliss. Each time we want to possess something more in the material world, we are separating ourselves more and more from our friends, from our dear ones, from our relatives, from our brothers and sisters of the world. But, in the aspiration-world, each time we gain even an iota of light, we are increasing our friendship, our oneness, with each and every human being.

From:Sri Chinmoy,You belong to God, Agni Press, 2012
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/ybg