Question: When I feel that my spiritual progress is not fast enough and that my meditation is not deep enough, sometimes feelings of depression and frustration enter. How can I deal with this?¹⁵⁷

Sri Chinmoy: First of all, you have to know that when you are not making the fastest progress, it is because you are making some mistake. But if you become depressed, then you are making your problem worse; you are making another mistake. Depression is not the answer. In the spiritual life, you have to try to be as cheerful as possible. If you can be cheerful, then automatically half your spiritual fever is gone, and you can walk faster.

Why are you not running fast? This is the important question. Sometimes it happens that a runner slows down because he knows that the goal is very far. Since the goal is very far away, he says, “I can go slowly and, without fail, I will reach the destination. Why try to run the fastest and become totally exhausted?” But the runner has to know that there are not one but three goals. When he reaches his first goal and realises the highest Truth, he cannot stop and relax. He has gone only part of the way. There are two more goals: the revelation of the Truth and the manifestation of the Truth. If he loses his enthusiasm and relaxes before he reaches even the first goal, then God knows how long it will take him to reach the farthest goal.

If you have three things to study, you will not relax as you would if you had only one thing to study. If you know there are three things you have to learn, you will be more alert, more conscious, more devoted, more aspiring. So please feel that in order to make the Supreme happy with your spiritual progress, you have to study three subjects one after the other. Do not feel that you have Eternity at your disposal. No! You have to feel that every moment is either helping you to reach your goal or preventing you from reaching your goal. So utilise each moment to dive deeper, run farther and fly higher. Then you can easily make the Supreme happy.