Question: How do we tell if we are meditating properly and not having a mental hallucination?

Sri Chinmoy: If you are meditating properly you will get joy, inner joy. It is not a self-complacent feeling, but a spontaneous inner joy. Nobody has given you good news, nobody has brought you any gift, nobody has appreciated or admired you, nobody has done anything for you. But you are getting inner joy, an inner feeling of delight. If this happens, then easily you can know that you are meditating properly.

If it is a real meditation, a sublime meditation, then you are bound to feel peace within and without. But if it is mental hallucination, you will feel that peace is within and restlessness is without. You are yearning for Peace, Light and Bliss, but outwardly you feel a volcanic turbulence. But if it is a soulful meditation, you will feel inner joy; you will feel your eternal existence. You are of Eternity and for Eternity. This conception of your own eternal reality you cannot get from mental hallucination.

Everything depends on your sincerity. All sincere efforts will eventually be crowned with success. You are aiming at the highest Reality, but are you sincere? It is your sincerity that ultimately determines your success and progress. If a seeker has conscious and constant sincerity, then he is bound to have a most soulful, sublime meditation.