Question: What are negative forces?

Sri Chinmoy: Negative forces are those forces that tell you that you are hopeless and useless, that you cannot realise God and that it is useless to try. These are the forces that tell you not to pray and meditate because there is nothing in meditation. If you allow these negative forces to enter into you, if you become one with them, then you will feel that your life has no meaning.

Positive forces make you feel that you are God’s chosen son and that you have the possibility and potentiality of doing something significant for God and for your own divinity at every moment. If you remain in the heart, you will encounter very few negative forces, practically none. But if you live in the mind, the negative forces will often threaten you. Today you may think that you have conquered the negative forces, but tomorrow they will attack you more powerfully and vehemently than you ever thought possible. It is almost impossible to conquer something with the mind. But with the heart, it is not only possible and practical, but inevitable that you will conquer all negative forces. As a matter of fact, in the pure, aspiring heart there is not even one single negative force. It is in the mind and in the vital, which is very near the heart, that the negative forces exist. In the mind they operate in a clever, roguish and stealthy manner. In the vital the negative forces use their power in a very aggressive way; there is no secrecy about them; they just come and attack.