Table of Contents
- Question: How do we know if it is the proper time for us to enter into the spiritual life? Can the spiritual life help us to overcome frustration?
- Question: How can we bring enough perfection into our own lives and into the world to be truly satisfied?
- Question: Will the process of striving for perfection ever come to an end?
- Question: I always felt it was selfish to look for salvation. I thought that this would come of itself if one did the right thing.
- Question: What age were you when you commenced meditation?
- Question: You say we should meditate in the heart, but I find it easier to meditate in the mind.
- Question: In meditation sometimes the mind stops functioning and there seems to be little information coming.
- Question: What do you mean when you speak of unconditional surrender to God's Will, and how can we develop this quality?
- Question: While I am in the office how can I control my emotions? There is so much injustice and nothing we can do to help ourselves.
- Question: It seems to me that the Will of God for us is not only to be silent but also to be active.
- Question: So outer silence or dynamic silence is really divine action — doing the Will of God by serving man?
- Question: Inner silence is equated with prayer and meditation?
- Question: You say that if fear is our problem we should feel that we are God's chosen children. Do you mean that we are chosen by God to experience fear?
- Question: In your talk you said that if we see the problem and if we face the problem, then we have greater force than the problem. Do you mean, then, that a problem is not a problem if we know how to look at it?
- Question: I always wanted to ask you what is the spiritual significance of insanity and how it develops.
- Question: What do you mean when you say that the unaspiring man's eternity is uncertain?
- Question: How can one accept and love one's fellow man?
- Question: What actually is illumination?
- Question: How can we develop patience?
- Question: During a meditation, if something external to the meditation occurs — such as noise or something unforeseen — is it better to include it in the meditation or to try to shut it out and pursue the meditation?
- Question: I have an experience here at the Dag Hammarskjold lectures which I never am aware of at your other talks or at the Tuesday meditation. I know you are bringing down tremendous Peace which I feel in both places, but here at these lectures I have a feeling that I am falling asleep. Yet I hear what you are saying. I try very hard to keep awake but it almost seems an impossibility. Could you explain whether I am doing something wrong?
- Question: I once read that if you choose evil, you are not really free. I thought it was an interesting idea. Would you enlighten me?
- Question: When we come to meditate with you, you give us Light. But we have to keep coming back to get refilled. How much of the Light which you give us remains permanently in us?
- Question: In practical terms, how can we give the world love and concern?
- Question: How can an individual truly know what God's Will is for him?
- Question: How can we attain lasting inner peace?
- Question: Every time I act, I am not certain if I am doing the right thing, and I was wondering if perhaps the best way to find real peace would be to withdraw from the world and not act at all.
- Question: I have recently felt quite distinctly a force that people throw around themselves for protection, or even when they don't want to speak to someone. I have felt it like a solid object, like a wall. I would like to know how it is built. Is it built consciously or unconsciously?
- Question: In the Meditation Group's bulletin you spoke about the importance of meditating on the heart instead of in the mind. Could you speak more about this?
- Question: Can you tell if something comes from the mind or the heart, or does something always go from the heart to the mind?
- Question: Some people are very absent-minded and they seem to be in another world. Are they meditating all the time?
- Question: Sri Chinmoy, how can we become childlike in spirit?
- Question: It seems to me that it is easy to have this feeling if one has a spiritual Master, is living in a spiritual community and has all his needs provided for. But what about someone who is a separate individual living in the world?
- Question: How can a person detach himself emotionally from irritating people and situations?
- Question: I read something in one of your books about the control of breath in meditation. Could you elaborate on that?
- Appendix: these quotes, from other writings of Sri Chinmoy, were included in the first editions.
- Editor's preface to the first edition
