Chapter 13. Your Daily Meditation: Food for the Soul

If you want to see the Face of God, then you must at least spend some time every day with His chosen instrument: your own heart.

AN APPOINTMENT WITH GOD

If you are serious about your spiritual life, then you have to meditate at least once a day. If you are very enthusiastic, you can meditate three times a day—early in the morning, at noon or during your lunch hour, and in the evening. Your morning and evening meditations can be for a longer time, for fifteen minutes or half an hour, whereas your noon meditation can be as short as five or ten minutes. If it is not possible to feed your soul three times a day, then please feed it at least once. Feel that the soul is a little divine child. If you don’t feed the divine child within you, it will not be able to grow and manifest your inner divine qualities and your soul’s possibilities.

It is better to meditate well just once a day in the morning than to sit five or six times a day with your eyes closed and just have pleasant thoughts drifting through your head. Each time you meditate you have to feel that you are offering your life-breath to the Supreme and bringing to the fore your soul’s light. Only then is your meditation worthwhile. If you feel that you can meditate soulfully only once, early in the morning, then that is enough. You have to see your real capacity, sincerity, willingness and joy. If inspiration is there, that means that you have received the sanction from the Supreme, and you will run very fast. Some people meditate during their lunch hour or when they have a coffee break in the office. That is excellent. But please meditate first thing in the morning also. If you start by doing the right thing early in the morning, then you will be inspired all day.

Morning meditation is best

If you meditate in the morning, you will find that your meditation will be most fruitful. Before the sun rises, the earth-consciousness is not yet agitated. The world has not yet entered into its daily turmoil. Nature is calm and quiet and will help you meditate. When nature is fast asleep, the animal in us or our unillumined consciousness also sleeps. At that time we are still in the world of energising and fulfilling dreams, from which reality can grow. That is why the awakened aspiring consciousness can get the most out of early morning meditation.

Once the day dawns, Mother Earth becomes divinely energetic or undivinely restless. Especially in the West, because of its present dynamic nature, there is some feeling of irritation in the cosmos or in the outer nature. These restless qualities of the world do not have to enter into you, but usually they will. When people move around, immediately their vibration enters into you, no matter where you are. The air, the light, everything around you becomes permeated with the vibration of human activity and human anxieties. The world is standing in front of you like a roaring lion. How can you enter into your highest meditation in front of a roaring lion? But if you can meditate before the world awakens, when the cosmos is still and people around you are taking rest, then you will be able to have a deeper meditation.

Meditating during the day is very difficult. In the evening, meditation is also a little difficult, because for eight or ten hours you have been in the hustle and bustle of the world. During the day you have met with many unaspiring people, and unconsciously their undivine thoughts and impure ideas have entered into you. So unless you are inwardly very strong, you will have assimilated many unaspiring and uninspiring forces from the world. Therefore, it becomes very difficult to meditate in the evening with the same hope and freshness. If you take a shower before meditating, it will help. If you associate with spiritual people, it will also help.

In the morning all these undivine forces and experiences are out of your memory, at least for a while. During the time that you sleep, all the impurities that have come into you from others are washed away. During the hours that you are sleeping, your soul, like a divine thief, is silently observing you. An ordinary thief will steal something from you, but this divine thief will only give and give. If you need peace at one place, your soul will put peace there. The soul acts like a mother, who comes into the child’s room in secrecy, early in the morning, to prepare for him the things he will need during the day. At night while you are sleeping, the soul gets the opportunity to do what is necessary for you. But during the day, when you are absorbed in the activities of the outer world, it is extremely difficult for the soul to give and for you to receive. For all these reasons morning meditation is the best.

Evening meditation

If you cannot meditate in the morning, the evening is the next best time, because in the evening at least the atmosphere is becoming calm and peaceful. At noon nature is wild and restless, so your meditation may not be very deep or intense. But in the evening nature is preparing to rest and it does not disturb you. When you meditate in the evening, you can look at the setting sun and try to feel that you have become totally one with cosmic nature. You can feel that you have played your part during the day most satisfactorily and, like the sun, you are going to retire.

In the evening you are tired, and you feel that the whole world is also tired. But there is a slight difference between the world’s approach to the truth and your approach. When the world is tired, it will not aspire. It wants only to rest. But you feel that your tiredness can be overcome by bringing more light and energy into your system. When you pray and meditate, at that time new life and new energy enter into you and refresh you.

A fixed time is important

Whether you meditate in the morning or the evening, it is of paramount importance to have a fixed time for your meditation. Even an infant will cry for his mother’s milk at a fixed hour. If you own a store, if you always open the door at nine o’clock, then others will have confidence that they can come at nine o’clock and you will really be open. Everything has its own hour. Your inner being and your Inner Pilot, the Supreme, always observe. If you stick to a particular hour, then the Supreme has confidence in you. The Supreme says, “At this hour he is not loitering around; he is meditating. If I offer him something at this hour, he will definitely be there to receive it.”

You and God should agree to a certain hour for your daily meeting. When He comes at that hour, if you are fast asleep, He will forgive you. If you are not there tomorrow, again you will be forgiven. But you will not be able to excuse yourself. Your oneness with God will not allow you to forgive yourself. Your soul will cause you such pangs that you will feel miserable. Your soul’s love for the Highest is very important to you. When your Eternal Friend is coming, the host wants to be ready. The human mind is a very treacherous thing. Left to itself, the ignorant, obscure mind will try to prevent you from doing the spiritually correct thing. It will find many excuses to keep you from fulfilling your soul’s wish. But if your aspiration is sincere and intense, the discipline of having a set time to meditate will help you fight against the lethargy and waywardness of the mind.

Suppose you want to meditate at six-thirty. This is your chosen hour. If you get up at seven, your own lethargy and idleness will take away all your inspiration. On the one hand, your lethargy will try to justify itself. It will enter into your conscious mind and say, “Oh, I came home very late; that is why I could not get up.” Or, “For the last six days I got up at six-thirty. Since God is all kindness, today He will forgive me.” There are so many ways your mind can justify getting up late. But even if you came home late, that doesn’t mean that you won’t do first things first. The first thing is meditation; the first thing is God.

Once you start your journey, if you do not keep moving toward your goal, then you are lost. You may think, “Today I am tired, so I will stop here and rest. Tomorrow again I will go on.” But you have to know that ignorance is more alert than your own aspiration. Once you start justifying yourself, there is no end to it. Regularity will tell you that the goal is real. But if you are punctual, immediately a kind of dynamism and movement is there. Your regularity is like a motor. Because you have a motor, you know that at any time you can drive. Punctuality is when you actually turn the key and start the motor. With regularity you get only a vague idea that you will do it. But with punctuality, you actually do it.

If you are regular and punctual in your meditation, you will notice your own progress. If you can meditate sincerely and soulfully at a fixed hour every day, a time will come when you will become an expert. At that time, you will be able to meditate while doing anything, and you won’t need a fixed hour. Eventually you will be able to meditate twenty-four hours a day even though you are talking to people and doing your multifarious daily activities. But for that you need many years—perhaps many lifetimes—of practice.

Q&A

Question: How can anyone find time to meditate in the course of a busy day?

Sri Chinmoy: We have twenty-four hours at our disposal, and we find time to do all kinds of things during the day. What prevents us from thinking of God for five or ten minutes a day? We have time to eat, we have time to sleep, we have time to mix with our friends, read the newspaper or watch television. We have time to do whatever we consider necessary. So when it is a matter of God, how can we say that we don’t have time?

God is crying for us to think of Him. If we really care to please Him, we will find the time to think of Him and meditate on Him. But if we don’t consider God important in our life, then we will always be too busy.

Question: Is there a certain hour in the morning that is most conducive to meditation?

Sri Chinmoy: The very best time to meditate is between three and four o’clock in the morning. This is the Brahma Muhurta, the Hour of God. No matter what your standard is, even if you are a complete beginner, you will encounter very little resistance if you meditate at this time.

The Westerner who goes to bed at twelve o’clock or one o’clock cannot expect to be able to meditate at three or four o’clock. If you want to meditate at four o’clock, you should go to bed by nine or ten the previous evening. For someone who has just entered into the spiritual life, seven or eight hours of sleep is essential. If you start sleeping only three or four hours just so that you can get up at four o’clock, it will tell upon your health. Spiritually you will derive no benefit, because you will not be able to meditate properly when you are exhausted, and the body will stand as an obstacle to your inner progress. After you make some progress in the spiritual life, then gradually you can reduce your hours of sleep. When your physical consciousness starts receiving light from above, its need for sleep diminishes.

For most people in the West, the best time to meditate is as soon as possible after you get up, before you start your daily activities. If possible you should try to meditate before seven o’clock. Before the outer world attacks you or demands anything from you, you should enter into the inner world with the idea of nourishing yourself. In this way, you are performing your inner duty before you become involved in outer activities. If you put God first in your life, then everything else will gain a more spiritual perspective. If you can please the dearest in you, who is God, before you enter into your earthly activities, then naturally you are doing the right thing.

Question: Should we try to get up spontaneously to meditate or should we set an alarm?

Sri Chinmoy: You should use an alarm. To get the special Grace to wake up spontaneously, you have to be a Yogi. But please, when you meditate, do not keep a clock in front of you. If you really want to meditate soulfully, just dive deep within. When you meditate, you are pleasing the Supreme. He will make you conscious of the fact that it is time to go to school or to the office. If you are really meditating, He will do this. But if you are in the sleep world, dreaming and wasting your precious time, it will not be His responsibility.

Question: If you stayed up very late the previous night and are very tired when your alarm goes off, is it better to sleep longer and meditate after your accustomed time?

Sri Chinmoy: You have to know how often you do it. If you are doing it every week, this is not good. But once in a blue moon it is all right. In school you study for months, and then you get a holiday. But if you want to take a holiday every day, then how will you make progress? If you have meditated for months at a particular hour and one morning you are exceptionally tired, all right. But if you go to school at a different hour every day, then how can the teacher be pleased?

Opportunities do not come every day in your life. Spirituality is like an opportunity. If you miss one meditation, you have to feel that you have really missed something, that you have travelled one step less than you could have. When you do not meditate regularly, your consciousness loses some of its capacity, and the road becomes very long. Once you relax, ignorance covers you. If you fail to get up once, then on that day ignorance has conquered you.

Suppose you go to bed at three o’clock, and when it is time for meditation you are not able to get up. But who asked you to go to bed at three o’clock? You will say it was unavoidable; you had to do something most important. But while you are up late doing that important thing, please make yourself feel that at six o’clock there also will be something unavoidable and important that you will have to do: you will have to get up to meditate. If the thing that you did late at night was so important that you could not avoid it, then I wish to say that your meditation is infinitely more important; nothing can be more important than meditation.

Sometimes our fatigue is real; sometimes it is all mental. Even if you sleep for ten hours, sometimes you feel extremely tired. Many people sleep much more than they actually need to. Often it is your mind that makes you feel you are tired and exhausted. The mind is so clever. It will make you feel that if you can sleep for only five minutes more, then you will feel much better. If you are supposed to get up at six o’clock, the mind will tell you that if your body can sleep one minute more, then you will feel better. But if you give that one minute to the body, immediately the mind will ask for five or ten minutes more, and before long it will be seven or eight o’clock. So the best thing is not to listen to the mind at all.

Question: Is it bad to go back to sleep after meditating in the morning?

Sri Chinmoy: If you go back to sleep and do not get up until eight or nine o’clock, then your own vital forces or the aggression of the earth, which is agitated at that hour, can enter into the result of the meditation which you did earlier, and ruin it. So it is infinitely better if you can do some other spiritual activity like reading spiritual books or singing spiritual songs.

Question: If you set a time for your meditation and are able to get up earlier, should you still keep your original time?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes. If your time to meditate is five-thirty in the morning, at that hour your soul will knock at your door, so you should be prepared. Choose the time that you feel is best, and stick to it. If you want, you can get up half an hour earlier in order to shower and get ready, but then you should start to meditate at your appointed time.

Question: For a six o’clock meditation, will we do better if we get up at five and are up for a full hour before meditating? If we enter into activity, will we become more awake?

Sri Chinmoy: It is not good if there is too much activity. If you touch a material object, immediately the consciousness of that object enters into you. If you touch a novel, immediately the consciousness of the author will enter into you. If you are drowsy and start doing housework to wake yourself up, then the housework consciousness will enter into you. If you are drowsy, it is best to take a shower. Water signifies consciousness. Once consciousness enters into you, you will not sleep. So do not enter into any activity before meditation. Just take a shower and then meditate. You can prepare yourself inwardly by reading spiritual writings for a few minutes or by singing some soulful, spiritual songs. But you should not do housework or office work.

Question: If we tend to feel sleepy, is it all right to exercise before our morning meditation?

Sri Chinmoy: Certainly. Doing a few exercises can make you feel more alert. It is fine to do a few minutes of hatha yoga exercises before beginning meditation.

Question: What should we do if we miss our appointed hour for meditation? Should we try to make up for it at our next meditation by meditating for a longer time?

Sri Chinmoy: If you have to miss your appointed hour one day due to unavoidable circumstances, do not feel miserable. As long as you have not let the hour go by out of inertia or negligence or the feeling that because you have meditated for a few days, now you deserve a rest, then you have not committed a spiritual crime. But you cannot “make up” a missed meditation by meditating longer the next time. You eat three times a day. Suppose that early in the morning you did not have breakfast, and at noon you also missed your lunch. When it is time for dinner, if you try to eat all that you have not eaten in the morning and at noon, it will only upset your stomach. If you do not eat for two or three days, and then you try to make up for the food that you missed during your fast, you will run into trouble.

With meditation it is the same. You have the inner capacity to meditate for a certain amount of time early in the morning, at noon, in the evening or at night. If you cannot follow this routine on a certain day, it is better just to meditate most soulfully at your regular hour. If you try to increase the length of time, if you try to meditate for two or three hours instead of half an hour, your physical mind will not be able to bear the pressure. Instead of creating more capacity, this will break your capacity. It will create tremendous tension in your aspiration-life. Everything has to be done systematically and gradually. Eventually you will be able to meditate for eight hours or ten hours at a stretch, but right now it is not possible.

If your aspiration is really intense, if God really comes first in your life, then you can easily adjust your outer life to make time to meditate. The inner aspiration has infinitely more power than outer obstacles. If you utilise your inner strength, then circumstances have to surrender to your aspiration. If you really want to meditate every day, then I wish to tell you that your inner aspiration will give you the power to do it. Outer obstacles can easily be overcome, because the inner life is the living expression of the infinite power. Before the infinite power, outer obstacles have to surrender.

Question: How long should I meditate? Is fifteen minutes enough, or should I try to meditate longer?

Sri Chinmoy: It depends on the individual. If you are able to meditate for more than fifteen minutes, do so. But it has to be absolutely sincere and soulful. To sit for an hour just to make yourself feel that you are an advanced seeker will be a mistake. The soul will not be there. You may meditate for five hours, but the meditation will not give you any joy. It will not be fruitful at all. You will only give yourself a headache. If a person can meditate for fifteen minutes most soulfully, and after that, if he feels that he has the capacity to continue, then he can continue. But if he doesn’t have the capacity, then it will be a waste of time.

The best thing is to meditate for as long as you can without creating any mental tension. It depends entirely on your capacity. Increasing your spiritual capacity is like developing a muscle. Today you may exercise and become tired after five minutes. After two months you may be able to exercise for half an hour or even more, because you have developed your muscles. There is also a spiritual muscle, which is aspiration. How long and how sincerely you can cry for God depends on the strength of your inner muscle.

Question: If I meditate too little, I don’t have spiritual energy throughout the day. If I meditate too long, I can’t maintain my aspiration.

Sri Chinmoy: The problem is that you are going to extremes. Sometimes you overeat and you cannot digest what you have eaten; sometimes you don’t eat at all and you feel weak. When you don’t meditate enough you feel miserable, and when you meditate beyond your capacity you feel worn out. But you don’t have to pull or push. You only have to discover how much capacity you have. If you meditate for only five minutes, then naturally you will not be inspired throughout the day; but if you meditate for an hour or two, you will strain your capacity, and your body will revolt. So meditate devotedly and soulfully for twenty minutes in the morning and twenty minutes in the evening, and in the afternoon if you have a chance you can meditate for five or ten minutes more. That will be ample in your particular case.

Question: Why would the body revolt?

Sri Chinmoy: If the physical consciousness is not powerful enough or pure enough to hold the peace, light and bliss that the psychic consciousness is receiving from above, then it will suffer. If we pull beyond our capacity, we will only break our vessel. Here capacity means receptivity. If we develop great receptivity, then no matter how much we bring down from above, we will be able to assimilate it. That is why I always advise people not to push or pull. We have to accept our life as it is and then try to transform it—not by hook or by crook, but gradually, through aspiration.

Question: During your meditation if you feel really inspired, can you increase the length of time that you meditate?

Sri Chinmoy: In the beginning it is better just to remain in a meditative mood and read spiritual writings or sing devotional songs. If you have been meditating for half an hour, then after two or three months you can increase the length of time, but do not increase it suddenly. Even if you are inspired, please increase your meditation time by degrees. Otherwise, if today you are meditating well and all of a sudden you double your meditation time, then in a subtle way pride will enter into you. You will be bloated with pride the whole day, and then the following day this pride will not allow you to meditate at all. You will think that you have received everything from your meditation, so for two weeks you will not even get up.

Meditation is like eating or taking exercise. If one day you eat too much, the next day you will have stomach problems. Or if you have the capacity to do five pushups and one day you get inspired and do twenty, the following day you will be too sore to do even one. So always increase your capacity slowly; then you will have no difficulty. If you are inspired to meditate longer, increase your time only by two or three minutes. If your inspiration continues to increase, after a month or so your meditation will be ten or fifteen minutes longer.

Question: I try to meditate for fifteen minutes a day, but I find that it takes me almost this much time to actually settle down into meditation. What would you suggest?

Sri Chinmoy: If you want to meditate for fifteen minutes, try to set aside half an hour. During that half hour, you will spend some time in preparation, which is necessary if you are to have fifteen minutes of good meditation. Some people may find that they do not need fifteen minutes extra. Once they start, they can run. They do not have to take a few preliminary starts. But if it is necessary for you, then take a few practice starts. If it is not necessary, right from the beginning you can enter into your soulful meditation.

Question: Today I couldn’t meditate in the morning, but I was able to meditate later in the day. Why was that?

Sri Chinmoy: There could be many reasons. When you tried to meditate in the morning, perhaps you needed or wanted more sleep. You did absolutely the right thing by meditating later. If you had meditated well in the morning, then the time that you spent would have left you totally satisfied. But since you felt you did not meditate properly in the morning, then the best thing was to try again later, which you did.

Question: I am a housewife with small children. What advice do you have for me?

Sri Chinmoy: Even a housewife with small children can easily meditate, provided you are willing to do first things first. Early in the morning before your family wakes up and you have to enter into the hustle and bustle of life, you can offer a few minutes to God. If you know that at a particular hour your children will require food or attention from you, then you can easily get up ten minutes earlier.

Then, during the day while you are taking care of your children and working in your house, you have to feel the presence of the living God inside them and all around you. Unfortunately, most people do not do that. They look upon their children and their responsibilities as their possessions and their burdens instead of seeing them as God-given opportunities to love God and to serve God. If you can feel that you love your children precisely because God is inside them, then there will be a spontaneous flow of joy and divine love. At that time your children will also feel that their mother has something special to offer.

So please try to feel that between you and your dear ones there is a bridge, and that bridge is God. You are loving your dear ones precisely because God the eternal Beloved is inside them. You are showing compassion to someone because the eternally compassionate Mother is inside you. In that way you can remain in a soulful and spiritual consciousness even while dealing with your children.

Question: Sometimes when I am meditating, I feel peace and light all around me. Then someone calls me from the kitchen or some other place, and I have to stop my meditation. Then I feel frustrated.

Sri Chinmoy: First of all, for your serious meditation you should choose a time when your family is not likely to require your attention. But if somebody calls you during your meditation, do not be upset. Feel that the experience that you had during your meditation was most sublime. Now you have to bring this peace, love or light to the person who has called you or distracted you. If you can do this, instead of frustration you will see the extension of the light that you have received. Then you will feel more joy, because your achievement has expanded.

What you are doing is separating your life of meditation from the world of reality. Instead, try to feel that you are bringing the divinity of your meditation into the situation which is the cause of the disturbance. By extending your meditation in this way, you will see it inside your daily activities. Meditation is not only in silence but also in the hustle and bustle of the world. You will find that you can maintain a high consciousness there also.

Question: When we’ve been in school all day with unaspiring people and we’re in an undivine mood, how can we get rid of this mood in order to meditate well?

Sri Chinmoy: Try to think that there are two rooms before you.

During the day, when you were with unaspiring people, you were in the unlit room. While you were there, feel that you were caught by some hooligans who were trying to strangle you. They were trying to take away your life—your life of aspiration.

Then, when you sit down to meditate, feel that you have now escaped from that world of destruction. You could have been killed by those forces, but you have escaped into the room of peace, light and delight, which is your true home. When you have that kind of feeling, great relief and gratitude enters into you, and your existence is automatically separated from the world of unreality.

If you do not separate yourself from this world of destruction when you come to meditate, these unaspiring forces will also come. You will carry the vibration, atmosphere and thoughts from that world in your mind. It is as though somebody has thrown a heavy load onto you. You don’t know who has thrown it; you are just carrying the load. So as soon as you enter into the other room, just throw the heavy bags away.

Some people take meditation as part of their schedule. They feel that one thing follows another in a continuous series: at eight o’clock they go to the office; at five o’clock they come back; at six o’clock they meditate. But it is wrong to take meditation as just another obligation. Do not unite the uninspiring incidents in your life with the fulfilling incidents. Just separate them and give importance where it is due. When you enter into the meditation room, feel that now you are entering into the real life, whereas previously you were living the unreal life. The moment you do this, you will see that the real life is welcoming you with all its inner wealth.

Question: Very often I feel full of love and joy before I fall asleep, and I may remain awake without any conscious thoughts except gratitude. But I am worried about getting up in the morning. I want to be rested.

Sri Chinmoy: If you cannot fall asleep but undivine thoughts are not bothering you, why not try to meditate again? If you do not feel like meditating, then you can read some spiritual books. If it is your bedtime, but you are not sleepy, then the best thing is for you to feel that God has given you an opportunity to meditate more. If you feel sleepy while you are meditating, then you can go to bed. But, if sleepiness is not bothering you, then you should feel fortunate that you can use this time for a divine purpose.

Question: Could one make spiritual progress by having a week of solid meditation?

Sri Chinmoy: Then more mental asylums would have to be opened. It is not possible. Only spiritual Masters can meditate for hours and days on end. Ordinary seekers have to talk and mix with people and engage in outer activities. Otherwise, the mind and nerves become very agitated. Then anger comes forward, and also a kind of subtle pride that you have been extremely spiritual for a whole week. Then the seeker becomes abnormal.

Meditating for eighteen or twenty hours a day is possible, but only when you are on the verge of realisation or after you realise God. At that time you will have acquired the capacity. But now if you try it, you will only go crazy.

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Do you need happiness? Then do just three things: Meditate regularly. Smile soulfully. Love untiringly.

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Beauty came to me like the morning rose. Duty came to me like the morning sun. Divinity came to me like the morning aspiration.

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There is a lotus deep within you, but it blooms only one petal at a time.

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When you don’t give countless outer things your attention, you will see that truth is looking right at you and giving you the strength to discipline your life.

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Wherever you go, go with inspiration and aspiration. Whatever you do, do with love and concern.

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A spiritually established life is not an easy task. But a materially satisfied life is an impossible task.