Excerpts Chapter 8
THE MEDITATION BOOK:
THE HOUR OF MEDITATION
How often should I meditate each day?
Question: How often should we meditate?
Sri Chinmoy: You can meditate early in the morning and, if it is possible, in the evening before you go to bed. During the day, if you are free, and if you really get inspiration, then also you can meditate. But it is better to meditate well once a day in the morning, and to leave it for the rest of the day, than to sit five or six times a day with your eyes closed and just have pleasant thoughts drifting through your head.
Some people meditate three times, four times, six times a day. But I wish to say the number is of no consequence. If you feel really inspired, meditate twenty times. But if you don’t feel any inspiration, then you are wasting your precious time and just deceiving yourself. Each time you meditate you have to offer your heart’s breath and your soul’s light that you are bringing to the fore. Only then is it worth meditating. Otherwise, you are just insulting your soul’s possibilities. Please feel the necessity of meditating, even if it is for only one minute once a day. If it is done wholeheartedly, even if it is for a fleeting minute, then it is worthwhile.
If inspiration is there, then meditate. That means that you have got the sanction from the Supreme. If it is the call of the Supreme, then you shall run fast, very fast, because He is the leader inside you.
Many people say that they meditate four times or six times a day. But what do they meditate on? They meditate on their bosses or they meditate on their boyfriends or their girlfriends. This is no meditation at all. If you can meditate most soulfully, if you feel that your aspiration is carrying you, only then is it really worthwhile meditation. But a day will come when your inner being will compel you to meditate twenty-four hours a day.
The best hour to meditate
Question: When is the best hour to meditate? Is six o’clock in the morning early enough, or is there a better time?
Sri Chinmoy: You can meditate at any time of the day, but some times are better than others. Early in the morning is the best time for meditation. At this time you are still in the world of dreams, the world of energising and fulfilling dreams from which reality will grow. Early in the morning, 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 she helps us to meditate. When nature is fast asleep around us, the animal in us, our undivine nature, also falls asleep. Outer nature and the animal propensities in us go together. That is why early morning is the time when our awakened, aspiring consciousness can and should meditate in order to get the best out of meditation.
At noon nature becomes restless and wild: then we do not get so much satisfaction from universal nature. Again, in the evening nature becomes quiet and peaceful. She is preparing to rest and she does not bother us; rather, she helps us do what we feel like doing. When we meditate in the evening, we can look at the setting sun. At that time, we should try to feel that we have become totally one with cosmic nature. We should feel that we have played our part during the day most satisfactorily and, like the sun, we are going to retire.
The very best time to meditate is between three and four o’clock in the morning. This is the Brahma Muhurta or Hour of God. In Indian tradition this is a most auspicious time for prayer and meditation. The Vedic seers came to discover that this is the very best time, for this is when all the cosmic gods meditate. This is when they start to perform their heavenly duties at the express command of the Supreme. At that divine hour, you too can begin your inner journey. 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. But 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 he wants to meditate at four o’clock, he should go to bed by nine the previous evening. For an aspirant 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 to get up at four o’clock it will tell on your health. Spiritually you will derive no benefit 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 starts receiving Light from Above, its need for sleep diminishes.
So if you cannot meditate at that hour, then the best time to meditate is as soon as possible after you get up, before you start your daily activities, but preferably 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 fulfilling yourself. In this way, you are performing your inner duty before you start fulfilling your outer duty. You are feeding the Divine Child within you before you have to feed your physical children and take care of the members of your immediate family. If God comes first, then everything will go smoothly. If you can please the dearest in you, which is God, before you enter into your earthly activities, then naturally you are doing the right thing.
When the day dawns, you want to start your life with inspiration. If you lose inspiration in the morning, then it will be gone most of the day. To get inspiration, early in the morning, please offer your joy, love and gratitude to God, even if you have very little to offer; God will give you much more. He will make you feel that you are His true child and give you the feeling of inseparable divine oneness with Him. So if you can offer love, joy and gratitude early in the morning, then you can receive the best form of meditation.
Again, if you can’t meditate in the morning, the second best time to meditate is in the evening, when you have come back from your office or wherever you work. You should take a shower and meditate, before you have eaten. But by far the best time to meditate is whenever you get up in the morning.
How long should I meditate?
Question: How long should I meditate? Is fifteen or twenty minutes enough, or should I meditate longer?
Sri Chinmoy: It depends on your capacity, on how much progress you have made inwardly. If you have the capacity to meditate sincerely and soulfully for half an hour or an hour, that is good. But if you do not have the capacity and you meditate for two hours or three hours, that will be foolishness and a sheer waste of time. The soul will not be there. During your meditation, if your mind is calm and quiet and you feel that you are getting inner joy and inner satisfaction, then your meditation is good. But if after fifteen or twenty minutes of pure meditation the doubting, suspecting and unlit mind starts functioning, then you should stop meditating. Likewise, if your mind becomes restless and you begin to think of your friends and relatives and other such things, at that time it is useless to go on. This kind of meditation will not be fruitful and will not give you any joy. You can start again later when everything is pure and fresh.
A muscle is developed by taking physical exercise. Meditation is an inner exercise; if you practise regularly, its power increases. When you take physical exercise daily, even if for only five minutes, you strengthen your muscles. Then, after a few months you can take exercise for half an hour, an hour or two hours at a time. Similarly, if you meditate soulfully each day, then there comes a time when you make progress.
It is not how many hours you meditate but how you meditate. If you can meditate soulfully and devotedly for fifteen minutes and sincerely cry for Peace, Light and Bliss, that is better than three hours of meditation without any life in it. When you meditate, if there is a living presence in it, then that is meditation. Otherwise it is no better than sleep or death.
But if you say, “No, I want to have the highest meditation so that in this incarnation I can realise God,” then I wish to say that you have to spend quite a few hours each day in meditation. Five, ten or fifteen minutes of meditation will not do. No, you have to spend quite a few hours in the highest form of meditation if your goal is to realise the Highest.
If there is no regularity,
No punctuality,
Then our prayers and meditations
Will produce
Next to no results.
– Sri Chinmoy