Question: How can I find joy and smile in moments of discouragement?

Sri Chinmoy: Here you have to understand the role of imagination and give utmost importance to imagination. As I always say, imagination is a reality; it belongs to a world of reality. But that world is not in front of us or before us. Because it is not within our easy reach, we feel that imagination is all mental hallucination.

When you feel discouraged, please try to imagine the moments of happiness that you have had countless times. This is not like dealing with counterfeit coins. You did have happiness yesterday or a few days ago. Now just identify yourself with that time. Discouragement you can take as night. When night approaches, you do not lose all your hope and feel that you are totally lost. No, you know that tomorrow day is going to dawn once again. Twelve hours before, you were in day and twelve hours later, again you are going to enter into day. So either imagine yesterday, when your life was all satisfaction, or imagine what is going to happen tomorrow. Either enter into your immediate past and let the immediate past offer you its haven, or enter into the immediate future for your solace. In this way discouragement goes away. The present has thrown you into a sea of discouragement; everything is futile. But then you remember that there are many things and many people that inspired you and claimed you as their very own only twelve hours ago, and there will be many things only twelve hours later that will do the same. When you think like this, automatically discouragement disappears.