Question: Is it wrong to sleep in meditation if we have worked all night?

Sri Chinmoy: Sometimes even though you are exhausted you have to work very hard. Some doctors are runners and yet they have to train vigorously. During the day they work very hard and they can practise running only at night. An example is Dr Roger Bannister, the first to run the four-minute mile. He was a doctor in England who could practise his running only at around eleven o'clock at night after a long day of work. He had a goal; so he practised hard and didn't make excuses.

You also have a goal in your life. Important things, such as functions, do not take place every day. Opportunities do not come every day in your life. If you use the opportunity you are gaining something. Spirituality is like an opportunity. If you miss one meditation you have to feel that you have missed something, you have covered one step less. When you don't do something regularly, your consciousness loses its capacity and the road becomes very long. For someone who does meditation every day it becomes very short. Insincere people say there will be another opportunity. But as the Supreme Himself is always progressing, if you miss one opportunity you have to feel that you have really lost something. Once you relax, ignorance has covered you. If you fail to get up once, then on that day ignorance has come to you.

I tell you, nobody has lost his body by praying and meditating. If you people say that someone has become exhausted and gone mad for God's sake, it is all lies. God is all Wisdom. So if you have worked very hard and do not think you can keep awake in your meditation you must ask your Master if he wants to excuse you.

Emotionally disturbed people try to push too fast and realise God overnight. But stable people do it gradually. Anybody will succeed if he prays or meditates. At one time my sincerity was to realise my God. Now my sincerity is my oneness with you people. Tomorrow you do not know what will happen, so avail yourselves of today's wealth. Parents say their children are very young and later they will pray or meditate; but that tomorrow will never come. To put things off is to be insincere. Feel that you have to do what is required immediately. Most of us believe in a future life, but we do not believe in the capacity of the immediate life.