Question: Why do we meditate?

Sri Chinmoy: Meditation is absolutely necessary for those who want to have a better and more fulfilling life. If you feel that you are satisfied with what you have and what you are, then you need not enter into the field of meditation. But if you feel that there is a barren desert deep inside your heart, then I wish to say that meditation is the answer. Meditation will give you inner joy and peace of mind. Meditation will never take you away from your parents, from your children, from your family. Far from it. Only it will strengthen your connection with your dear ones, because inside them you will see the very existence of God.

If you wish to develop your talents or increase your capacity in any field, then I wish to say that it is obligatory to follow some inner discipline. If you are a singer but you wish to sing infinitely better, if you aspire, I tell you, your voice will become far better. There is nothing on earth that cannot be improved through spirituality and meditation.

If you want to simplify your life, meditation is the answer. If you want to fulfil your life, meditation is the answer. If you want to have joy and offer joy to the world at large, then meditation is the only answer.

If you meditate to forget your suffering or to forget your difficulties, then you are not meditating for the right reason. But if you are meditating only to please God and fulfil God in His own Way, then your meditation is correct. When God is pleased, and God is fulfilled in your meditation, then it is God’s business to take away your sufferings and difficulties. But if you meditate to escape from the world or to challenge the world and stand against the world, then you are doing the wrong thing.

Meditation is your conscious capacity that you have to utilise every day and every second to enter into your highest divinity, where the finite is completely lost in the Infinite. The finite existence which you have and which you are, can easily be lost in the Infinite and become totally one with the Infinite if you meditate. This is what meditation is and what meditation can do for you.