Question: When we have a choice between using our time for our studies or for spiritual things, which should we choose?

Sri Chinmoy: It is up to the individual soul. Some people do not want to study. I have searched their souls, and the souls do not want it. To some I have said, “You have to study.” Their souls want it. In your case, you need to devote your time and attention to spirituality. Spirituality must come first. You must have time for meditation, for selfless service.

For outer information you have lots of time, but for the inner life you have no time. But I wish to say that the spiritual life can easily be practised along with your outer life. Each day you can give two hours for meditation and one hour for selfless service. Everybody can give this much time. Some people will read all sorts of undivine things when their school work is over. They spend time on films, TV, comics and rubbish from the outer world instead of doing spiritual things.

Practising spirituality is like exercising a muscle or like learning to read. It develops with practice. It must not suffer because of your outer studies. I once had a great friend. He and his brother became disciples of a spiritual Master. The brother used to study seven to ten hours a day, and my friend would study only for two or three hours; then he would just repeat his Guru’s name. He depended on his Guru’s grace to get him through his exams. The brother once asked the Guru which was better, and he said, “It is a matter of faith. You have faith in yourself and your brother has faith in my capacity to help him pass the examination.”

The brother who studied long hours was a fool. The day will come when the outer school life will be over, and then he will have developed only one capacity: to study. But the other brother has all along been developing two capacities: studying and meditating. In the spiritual life we do many things at a time. I do ten or eleven things at the same time. You can study for hours without learning anything, but when your mind is calm and quiet for one hour, you can do what would otherwise take you ten hours to accomplish.