Part VI — The hour of meditation

Question: If we meditate in the evening or at other times during the day, is it as beneficial as meditating early in the morning?

Sri Chinmoy: Now, some of you meditate in the evening instead of in the morning. You say that in the evening your meditation is deep and profound. I don't deny it, only I wish to say that I believe the morning shows the day. Sometimes the morning may be cloudy and then afterwards the sun peeps out, but usually when the morning is clear, the whole day is bright. So if you start your spiritual life early in the morning, then you will go very fast. If you are very tired and exhausted because you have gone to bed late, my fervent request to each of you is to get up at your specific hour and meditate, and then go to bed again and make friends with sleep. But please meditate each morning regularly and punctually. Some of you meditate at lunch hour or in the office when you have a coffee break. That is excellent. But please do morning meditation also. Once you do the right thing early in the morning, then automatically you will be able to flow towards the sea like a river. Feel in the morning that you are a river. The very nature of a river is to flow and enter into the ocean. Here the ocean is the Supreme.

Now some disciples tell me that early in the morning it is very cold and they can't leave their bed and sit in front of the shrine. I sympathise with them, but what can I do? Such wonderful disciples I have — for various reasons they find it difficult to get up. To those disciples who said it was cold I said, "Please just sit on your bed; that is your shrine. Only do me a favour and just wash your eyes, your face and your nose; you don't have to take a proper shower. Then if you can put my picture in front of you while meditating, if you can look at my Transcendental picture, then that is enough. But please do not meditate while lying down. If you try to meditate while lying down, I will not be responsible for that meditation."

When one becomes a great spiritual Master, he has a kind of sleep called "yogic sleep". Even if my body appears to be asleep and everybody can hear me snoring from a distance, I will be able to prove to you later that I knew what was happening there in the room while I was asleep. When one realises God, he can do many things at a time. Once someone came into my room when I was sleeping. Later I told him, "I can tell you everything that happened. You stood in that corner, opened the window and so forth." I was snoring, but I was conscious at that time. Here I wish to say I can do many, many things at a time. But in your case, when you meditate, you have to be very careful and sit up and meditate. You don't want to sleep; you want to swim in the sea of light and delight.

To me, each seeker is a miracle because the same person could have stayed in ignorance. Out of countless people, you get up early in the morning and cry for God while your relatives and friends are still sleeping in the world of ignorance. If you are not the greatest miracle, who is? Out of billions of people in the world, you want to realise God and you get up and pray. You could have easily joined your friends or neighbours who are still sleeping, but you have got up to pray and meditate.