Question: Is it important for seekers to meditate regularly at an appointed hour every day?

Sri Chinmoy: It helps to have a special time for meditation, especially at the beginning of one's spiritual journey, because 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.

If God comes and knocks at your heart's door, at that time will you be fast asleep? You and He agreed to a certain hour, but when He comes you are fast asleep. In an ordinary case, the teacher won't excuse you. But here, fortunately, God is the teacher and He will forgive you. He will come every day. 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 create 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 much before the time.

For everything there is a specific time. There is a time for breakfast, a time for lunch and a time for supper. This regularity you maintain for your physical body. In the spiritual life also, the Divine Child within you needs to be fed with divine food. To feed the Divine Child you should have a specific time.

You cannot live on yesterday's food. Yesterday you ate; that is why you are strong. But today you have to eat again. In the spiritual life also, every day you have to eat. You feed the body three times a day, so why can't you feed the soul at least once a day? When you feed the body, you do not have or cannot have a most delicious meal each time. But if you want to you can have a most delicious meal at least once a day. Early in the morning, you can also have a most delicious spiritual meal, which you can offer to your soul.

Those who are not meditating regularly, please try to meditate regularly. Those who are meditating regularly, please try to meditate soulfully. From today on, try to increase the sincerity in your meditation. If you are regular and soulful, you will notice your own progress and the day will come when you become an expert. At that time, you will be able to meditate while you are driving a car, while doing office work, while you are working in the kitchen. At that time you don't need a fixed hour. Before one becomes a good dancer, one has to step carefully, but when one becomes a real expert, then the steps come automatically. Now there comes a time when you can meditate twenty-four hours a day even though you are working, talking to people, doing household activities and other things. But before that, please have a fixed time and also a fixed place. You should not meditate one day in the living room, the next day in the kitchen. No! Please meditate at one place and at a certain time. If you have a fixed time and place for meditation, God will be there at a particular hour waiting for you.

Now, if one day you have to miss your appointed hour, and if it is unavoidable, don't feel miserable. But do not let the hour go by out of inertia, or negligence, or out of the whimsical feeling that because you have meditated for a few days now you can take a short rest. This kind of idea must not be cherished at all.

When you are in a group, you will also try to meditate at a specific hour. In this case, of course, you are at the mercy of many people. But if you are strict with your own life, then your strictness will enter into others.