Question: When the aspirant feels that his spiritual progress has stopped and it is difficult to meditate, what should he or she do?

Sri Chinmoy: It is quite possible to get back that aspiration and there are various ways to do so. The first way is to repeat the name of your spiritual Master. Or if you do not have a Master, then you can repeat ‘AUM’ or ‘Supreme’. You should repeat the name while breathing in. There is no need of counting how many times you are doing it. You may repeat the name inwardly and silently as well as aloud. While you are breathing in, repeat it silently three times. You will be more than able to do this. Then you can repeat it aloud. From head to foot, make the word vibrate. This is one approach.

The second way to get back one’s aspiration is to feel that it is just like a lamp. Let us assume that the wind has blown it out, so the flame is not burning any more. You need light. Now, who can give you light? One who has a burning flame of aspiration. So, when a particular aspirant is losing or has lost his aspiration, immediately he should go to another aspirant in whom the aspiration is ablaze.

Another secret is to compare the times when you had aspiration with this time when you don’t have aspiration. When you had aspiration, what did you feel? And now that you don’t have aspiration, what are you feeling? Try to see how many experiences you had at the time of your intense aspiration. Suppose one year ago I had intense aspiration. At that time twenty, thirty or forty higher experiences I had. Let me gather together all the experiences right in front of my mind, one after another. What vision did I have? Did I see the Light? Did I see an aura? Did I see another world? Did I see something else? All these experiences you have to bring back. While you are collecting your past experiences from the time when you had intense aspiration, you will see that those experiences are giving you a new life. The life that you have had for the last few months, which has been like a barren desert, will now be watered by the experiences that you had a year ago.