Question: How can I tell the difference between true intuition or spiritual awakening and possible hallucination when attempting to meditate?

Sri Chinmoy: If it is real meditation, if it is sublime and soulful and intuitive meditation, then you are bound to feel peace within and without. Peace is always within us, but in our outer life there is no peace. When you meditate, the first thing you come to discover is inner peace. If it is true, soulful, intuitive meditation, you are bound to feel on the outer plane an exact replica of what you feel within. If it is just a mental hallucination, you will see that peace is within and restlessness is without. There will be a yawning gulf between the inner and the outer, and you will be standing between two realities.

If it is true, soulful, intuitive meditation you are also bound to feel inner joy. This joy will make you feel that you are part and parcel of the Eternal Existence. You will feel that your existence is not limited to the fifty or seventy years that you are on earth. You will feel that you are of Eternity and for Eternity. But if you are having mental hallucinations, you will feel that the thing you are experiencing has only a temporary reality. The eternal conception of your own reality you cannot get from mental hallucination. No matter what you see, if your meditation is not genuine, you are bound to feel this great thing will only last for a limited amount of time. But if it is sublime meditation, you are bound to feel you have achieved something permanent. If it is real, soulful intuition, you establish your oneness with something eternal. If it is mental hallucination, it does not have an eternal reality.