Question: What should we do if we are meditating and we know we are not receptive, just sort of sitting there, and we don't have the capacity to be receptive at that moment?

Sri Chinmoy: There are many ways to develop receptivity or to get immediate receptivity. Two ways I can tell you. One way is to repeat the word “Supreme” over and over again, as fast as possible, just as fast as the Indian musicians say “sa, re, ga, ma, pa, da, ni, sa.” But it must be done in silence. First select one place in your body — suppose your Crown Centre — and concentrate there while repeating “Supreme” as fast as possible. Then select another spot and concentrate there. It is better to go from the top down than from the bottom up. You can try the forehead or the throat centre or any place. It does not have to be a psychic centre. It can be any place that you like. Suppose you like your right eye. Then concentrate there and chant “Supreme, Supreme, Supreme,” in silence. Or you can even chant your own name, or “Guru, Guru, Guru,” or any other thing in which you have all faith. Since you always have faith in the Supreme, that is usually the best.

If you can do this in seven different places in your body, at one particular place you will find that you are able to receive. You can concentrate anywhere — the head, the forehead, the heart, the navel, the foot — anywhere. In at least one particular place, if you have concentrated seriously, you will be bound to receive. Receptivity does not always have to be in the heart. Even in the foot you can receive something.

Receptivity is the flow of cosmic energy, cosmic light. When you concentrate anywhere, try to bring light into yourself. After you have brought it inside, the next thing is to bring it to the absolute right place, the heart. The best reservoir to store what you have received is the heart. If you cannot bring light inside yourself at all, then you will have no confidence, no satisfaction. It is like this: this is your apartment. You need water, but you do not have water here, so you have to bring it in from outside. Once you have brought it in, if you want to drink it, you bring it into the kitchen. If you want to take a shower, you can take it into the bathroom. The important thing is that you have brought it into your apartment. As long as you have brought it into your apartment, you know that you have water for your needs. You have tremendous confidence and satisfaction now that you have water at your disposal, which you previously did not have at all.

Another way to create receptivity when you do not have it, is immediately to feel that you are only three years old, a mere babe in the woods. You have no mother, no father, no brother, no sister, nobody at all to protect you, and you are alone in a forest on a very very dark night. All around you is darkness. Nobody is there to help you; death is dancing right in front of you. Then what do you do? You are totally lost, so you cry within for help: “Save me! Save me! I have nobody here! Save me!" When that kind of inner cry comes, the Supreme is bound to open your heart, or I will be there to open your heart.

Usually I say, “Do not feel helpless; you are God’s child. Why should you have to be insecure?” But at times you have to realise that you are not receptive just because you have become too secure; you have become complacent. There is no other reason. You have become complacent because you do not feel the inner cry anymore. Why do you not feel the inner cry? The immediate answer is because you are satisfied with your material possessions or with the things that you have in your mind, in your vital and in your body. Once you are satisfied with the things that you have, why should you cry for something more? At that time your inner cry ceases.

But if you feel that you are helpless, absolutely helpless, and you are desperately in need of something, which is God’s Compassion, God’s Light, God’s Love, Peace or Bliss, naturally your inner cry will be strong. You need not feel that you are helpless and lost every day and every hour — far from it. But when you are not receptive, you have to realise that you are not receptive because you are complacent, because you feel that what you have is sufficient. If you are now self-sufficient, then why should God take care of you? You do not need His help.

But once you get light, try to grow into the light itself. If you see that you have got a little receptivity again, then dig more. Do not be satisfied with the receptivity that you have. Today if it is a tiny hole, then make it big. Make it into a pond, then make it into a big lake, then into a sea. Receptivity can be grown like that, gradually. Starting with a small hole, gradually make it large, larger, largest.

As long as you are complacent, you can have no receptivity. You have to change your attitude; you have to feel that you are totally, totally helpless and lost without God. Then only can you have receptivity.

These are the two ways to become receptive. The second method is much faster than the first, but the first method is good in that it makes you feel that you are working for receptivity, that you are trying. The second method makes you feel that it is beyond your power to work for anything; you must entirely depend on God’s Grace. If you take these measures, either concentrating on seven places, or becoming totally helpless, you will get immediate results.