When you choose a Guru the mind has to stop. It is the heart that has to choose, and the heart means oneness. You want to be united with God: you don’t want to scrutinise God. With your mind you scrutinise God; with your heart you love God and become one with Him. Once you find your Guru, it is like a tiny drop entering into the ocean. Immediately the divine love within you comes to the fore and you love that person for Eternity. Your whole inner being will be surcharged with light and delight. You will feel that today you have found an old friend, a real friend that you had lost and now have discovered again. When you find your Guru, you will feel that you have discovered an ancient, eternal friend.

Suppose there are five persons in front of you. Immediately you will feel that one person is drawing more of your attention, love and concern. That means you have an inner affinity with that person. So naturally, if you have to make a selection, you will select that person. You see thousands of people walking along the street, but when you see one particular individual, immediately you get joy because you have an inner affinity, an inner connection with that person. You may not know his name, you may not know where he lives or anything about him. But just because you have seen him, that is enough for you to get some joy. It is mutual inner affinity.

In the spiritual life also, if you have seen five Masters, the one that gives you the greatest joy is the one you will be drawn to. And then, if you go one step further and feel that you want to stay with this man all your life even if he does not give you realisation, then he is the right person. When you have that kind of love, when you feel that you don’t need anything from him but you only want to be with him and serve him, then you can be sure that he is your Master.

The mother brings up the child, but she does not expect anything from him. The mother only wants the child to be happy. She does not say, “I brought you up for fifteen or twenty years: now you have to take care of me.” Even when the child leaves his parents, the parents maintain the same love, the same affection, the same concern. Their love is unconditional. In the spiritual life also, when a seeker can offer that kind of unconditional love and surrender to someone, he can rest assured that he has found his own Master.

Seekers who are devoted to a Guru who is not in the physical sometimes ask whether it is necessary for them to find a living Guru. If the Guru is of a very high order and if the disciple has established a very deep connection with the Master and feels his presence all the time in his day-to-day life of aspiration, then he does not need another Guru. But if he has not established an inner connection with the Master during the Master’s sojourn on earth, then it is not advisable for him to stick to that Master. If the seeker has not established an inner connection and if the Master is not of a very high order, then after the Master’s passing it is advisable for the seeker to look for a new Master.

There is only one Guru and that is the Supreme. The Master is not the goal, but as long as he can show you the way to the goal, he will be of help. If somebody is an expert guide, then the road becomes a little bit easier. But the goal will not be denied a seeker even if his Master is not of the highest calibre.

As a seeker, you have to feel that you are at the foot of the Himalayas and the Master is at the top of the Himalayas. It is up to you how far you want to go, and there are many cases where the students eventually surpass the Master. When you were very young, your primary school teacher taught you. At that time it was necessary for you to study with him. If you had not studied in the primary school, you could not have gone on to high school and college. But once you have obtained your Master’s degree and Ph.D., you will be able to teach your primary school teacher. Again, there are some teachers who have completed the university course and are able to teach all the classes right from kindergarten up to the highest course. But even if your teacher can only teach the elementary course, you will never be the loser. You will just go on to some other teacher if you feel that your original teacher will not be able to take you farther. And when you are on the verge of realisation, at that time you may feel that the Inner Pilot Himself is guiding you. If you cannot find a spiritual teacher or a Master for the last step, the Supreme Himself will guide you from within. Right from the beginning the Supreme will supply you with the primary school teacher, the high school teacher, and so on. He has to because, after all, it is His problem. It is His problem to take you to Him.

- Answer by Sri Chinmoy

First try to be calm and quiet at least three times during the day: in the morning, at noon and in the evening. You don’t have to actually do any kind of meditation. Just feel that these five minutes belong to you and nobody else. Act like a miser. Feel that you are not going to give these five minutes to anybody, not to your relatives, your friends, your enemies — nobody. These five minutes are absolutely yours. When you are with yourself, this is not self-centered ego. Here “you” means you in your highest form. Your highest form is God, and you are growing into this highest form.

If you have friends who know how to meditate and you meditate with them, even unconsciously, your inner being may receive inspiration from them. If you are a very sincere seeker, then you will get help consciously in the form of inspiration from your friends who are sitting beside you. You will learn things from your spiritual friends. Automatically the power of meditation in you will increase.

You have to know that in your case the power of meditation is not strong enough right now for you to continue meditating for a considerable time, fifteen minutes or a half an hour. But the main thing is not to become discouraged. When you begin taking exercise, you cannot do it for more than five minutes. But if you practise daily, then after a few months you can take exercise for an hour or two. What we need is regular practise at a regular time. If you can meditate early in the morning at a particular hour, then try to continue meditating every day at that hour. At that hour God will knock at your heart’s door. Open it and He will offer you His Peace, Light, Bliss and Power.

Regularity is necessary. Although we are regular, we may not give first importance to our meditation. But if we give importance to our meditation and are sincere, whole-hearted and dedicated in our spiritual life, automatically our power of meditation will increase.

- Answer by Sri Chinmoy

The vegetarian diet plays a most important role in the spiritual life. Purity is of paramount importance for an aspirant. This purity we must establish in the physical, the vital and the mental. When we eat meat and fish, the aggressive, animal consciousness enters into us. Our nerves become agitated; they become restless and aggressive, and this can interfere with our meditation. But the mild qualities of fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, help us to establish, in our inner life as well as in our outer life, the qualities of sweetness, softness, simplicity and purity. So if we are vegetarians, it helps our inner being to strengthen its own existence. Inwardly, we are praying and meditating; outwardly, the food we are taking from Mother Earth is helping us too, giving us not only energy but also aspiration.

There are some parts of the world where it is exceptionally cold and people living there find it impossible to live on vegetables alone. What can they do? They must eat meat. Or there are some sincere seekers whose physical constitutions are very weak. From the beginning of their lives, they have been eating meat, and now they have formed such a habit-such a bad habit, you can say-that without meat they cannot manage even for a day. On the one hand, they have sincere aspiration, but on the other hand, their bodies revolt. In such rare cases, these aspirants should also eat meat.

Many spiritual seekers have come to the conclusion that a vegetarian is in a position to make quick progress in the spiritual life. But along with a vegetarian diet, one must pray and meditate. Millions of people on earth are vegetarians, but there are not millions of God-realised souls on earth by any means. In India, widows are forbidden to eat meat. Now, in spite of my deepest love and respect for Indian widows, I am afraid that they are not all God-realised souls. For God-realisation one needs aspiration, inner cry. If one has aspiration, the vegetarian diet furthers one’s progress, since the body’s purity helps one’s inner aspiration to become more intense and more soulful. But again, if one is not a vegetarian, that does not mean he will not realise God. Far from it. Christ, Vivekananda and many other spiritual Masters ate meat, and they realised God.

- Answer by Sri Chinmoy

It depends on your capacity, on how much progress you have made inwardly. If you have the capacity to meditate sincerely and soulfully for half an hour or an hour, that is good. But if you do not have the capacity and you meditate for two hours or three hours, that will be foolishness and a sheer waste of time. The soul will not be there. During your meditation, if your mind is calm and quiet and you feel that you are getting inner joy and inner satisfaction, then your meditation is good. But if after fifteen or twenty minutes of pure meditation the doubting, suspecting and unlit mind starts functioning, then you should stop meditating. Likewise, if your mind becomes restless and you begin to think of your friends and relatives and other such things, at that time it is useless to go on. This kind of meditation will not be fruitful and will not give you any joy. You can start again later when everything is pure and fresh.

A muscle is developed by taking physical exercise. Meditation is an inner exercise; if you practise regularly, its power increases. When you take physical exercise daily, even if for only five minutes, you strengthen your muscles. Then, after a few months you can take exercise for half an hour, an hour or two hours at a time. Similarly, if you meditate soulfully each day, then there comes a time when you make progress.

It is not how many hours you meditate but how you meditate. If you can meditate soulfully and devotedly for fifteen minutes and sincerely cry for Peace, Light and Bliss, that is better than three hours of meditation without any life in it. When you meditate, if there is a living presence in it, then that is meditation. Otherwise it is no better than sleep or death.

But if you say, “No, I want to have the highest meditation so that in this incarnation I can realise God,” then I wish to say that you have to spend quite a few hours each day in meditation. Five, ten or fifteen minutes of meditation will not do. No, you have to spend quite a few hours in the highest form of meditation if your goal is to realise the Highest.

- Answer by Sri Chinmoy

Suppose you have just entered into an apartment. You need an apartment to live in, and you have gone to see this particular apartment. You are satisfied with one room of the apartment, whereas the other room has not satisfied you at all. The first room is most satisfactory. It is all illumined, clean, clear and full of pure vibrations. The other room is dark. In that room there are all kinds of rubbish and broken furniture. It is all in a mess and everything is most unsatisfactory. But you need an apartment and the landlord says that if you want this apartment you have to take this other room as well. When you rent an apartment, it is up to you to stay in the room that pleases you most; but you have to keep the other room because the landlord does not want to rent the apartment without it.
So let us say that our body is the apartment or the house. In this house there are two rooms: one is full of darkness and the other is full of light. The heart is the room where you have all light and the mind is the room where you have all darkness.
Now, in my house I have many rooms, but I am fond of my own room, my bedroom. There are so many other rooms on the third floor, on the second floor and in the basement, but I am fond of my bedroom, so I spend most of my time there. Now if I don’t want to enter into a particular room in this house, I don’t need to. I have so many rooms. Why should I use all of them if they do not please me? I stay in the room which pleases me most.

Similarly, you should feel that your heart-room is the room that you need. The other room is the mind, which is full of conflict, darkness and imperfection. This room does not want any perfection or illumination. Again, the room that is already illumined and crying for perfection, illumination and salvation is the heart; so you should try to remain in that room. Then, when you get illumination, salvation and immortality from the heart-room, you bring all these qualities into the dark room. Right now you are unsafe if you enter into the dark room. If you want to enter it, you will be caught by imperfection, bondage and impurity. But once you get illumination, purity, liberation and salvation from the other room, the heart, then you can enter the mind-room, because the light of the heart is infinitely more powerful than the power of darkness in the mind-room.

Right now the heart is not at your disposal. But when its divine qualities are at your command, at that time you can take them and enter into the mind-room. This way you will be safe, and you will be able to illumine and purify the other room. So try to feel that the heart-room is illumined, and it is crying for liberation and immortality. Just enter into the heart-room. When you feel that the wealth of this room has become part and parcel of your life, then you can enter into the dark room to purify and illumine it. At that time you will feel that you have two rooms that you can use.

- Answer by Sri Chinmoy

God-realisation means our constant, conscious feeling of inseparable oneness with the Highest. It is not a matter of feeling or thinking; it is our actual experience. When we realise God, we discover our own reality, our own Self-form. God-realisation and Self-discovery are the same thing. In our discovery, we see all that we truly are. We see that the entire universe is of us and for us. God-realisation means that we are part and parcel of God. At the same time it makes us feel that everything that is within and without belongs to us.

When the seeker becomes one with God, God uses him to fulfil the need of humanity. On the strength of his own oneness with humanity, he brings down a most delicious meal from above, to feed its hunger. And at the same time, he carries humanity to the highest Height. A God-realised person is a messenger. He carries humanity’s aspiration to the highest plane and he brings down from above God’s Compassion and Blessings. This moment he represents earth-consciousness; the next moment, Heaven-consciousness. What earth-consciousness is, he will bring to Heaven; what Heaven-consciousness offers, he carries to earth.

- Answer by Sri Chinmoy

AUM is a syllable that has a special significance and a creative power. AUM is the Mother of all mantras. When we chant AUM, what actually happens is that we bring down peace and light from above and create a universal harmony within and without us. When we repeat AUM, both our inner and outer beings become inspired and surcharged with a divine feeling and aspiration. AUM has no equal. AUM has infinite power. Just by repeating AUM, we can realize God.

When you repeat AUM, please try to observe what actually happens. If you repeat the name of a cat, a dog or a monkey, or even of an ordinary person, you get no inspiration. But when you utter AUM, which is the symbol of the Creator, the life-breath of the Creator, you immediately get an inner feeling, the feeling that inspires your inner and outer movements to enlarge your vision and fulfill your life here on earth. This is the secret of AUM. If you want to cherish a secret all your life, then here is the secret. Please chant AUM and everything will be yours.

- Answer by Sri Chinmoy

‘Gu’ means dark and ‘ru’ means light. A guru is somebody who leads us from darkness to light. In practical life, it is much easier to learn meditation with a guru than to do it alone. A guru not only offers outer instructions but can also lead and guide the student inwardly.

Most gurus have themselves learned from a guru. In the tradition there are whole lines of gurus who pass on the knowledge over generations.

Not everybody who teaches meditation is automatically a guru or a spiritual master. Most meditation teachers are still seeking the highest truth in their own lives but willing to share with other seekers what they have already learnt in their own personal journey of self-discovery. But real gurus are expected to have reached the ultimate goal, the self-realisation, and with it the capacity to know the truth directly and to guide seekers to this truth. This kind of master is very rare.