Question: How do I know that while meditating I am entering into a higher plane and that it is not just my imagination?

Sri Chinmoy: There is a very easy way to know. If you are actually entering into a higher plane, you will feel that your body is becoming very light. Although you don’t have wings, you will feel that you can fly. In fact, when you have reached a very high world, you will actually see a bird inside you that can easily fly in the sky as real birds do.

When it is your imagination, you will get a very sweet feeling for a few minutes and then immediately dark or frustrating thoughts will come into you. You will say, “I studied so hard, but I did not do well in my examination,” or “I worked so hard in my office today, but I could not please my boss.” These negative forces in the form of frustration will immediately come in. Or doubt will enter and you may say, “How can I meditate so well? Yesterday I did so many wrong things; I told so many lies. How can God be pleased with me? How can I be having such a high meditation?” But if it is really a high meditation, you will feel that your whole existence, like a divine bird, is soaring up and flying. While you have this feeling, there is no sad thought, no negative thought, no frustrating thought, no doubt. It is all joy, all bliss, all peace. You are flying in the skies of delight.

Right after our meditation, if we have a good feeling for the world, then we know our meditation was good. If we see the world in a loving way in spite of its imperfections, then we know that our meditation was good. And if we have a dynamic feeling right after meditation, if we feel that we came into the world to do something, to become something, this indicates that we have done a good meditation. This feeling that we have to do something does not mean that we are feeding our human ambition. No! The moment we try to feed our ambition, it will entangle us like a serpent. What we have come into the world to do is what God wants us to do. What we have come into the world to become is what God wants us to become. What God wants us to do is to grow into His very image. What God wants us to be is His dedicated instrument. During our meditation if we get the feeling that God wants us to grow into His very image and wants us to be His dedicated instrument, and if this feeling is translated into action after our meditation, then we can be sure that we were meditating well.

But the easiest way to know if we have had a good meditation is to feel whether peace, light, love and delight are coming to the fore from within. Each time light comes forward, or love comes forward, or peace or delight comes forward, the whole body will be surcharged with that divine quality. When we have this experience, we know that we have done a very good meditation. Each time they come to the fore, we are bound to feel that we are remembering a forgotten story. It is only through meditation that we can remember our forgotten story. This story was written by the seeker in us; it was not written by somebody else. It is our own creation, but we have forgotten it, and it is meditation that brings it back. When we remember this story, we are overjoyed that we have created such a beautiful story and that this is our life story.