Question: Is it all right to be that way all day long?

Sri Chinmoy: Not all day long! The time comes when you must be serious. But why do I allow these things here? These funny things are lightening your mind. The whole day you work very hard for your livelihood. That work puts such a heavy load on the mind.

Even if you see a person — it does not have to be someone at your work — it can affect you. You go out in the street, you see an individual, and that person has so many problems. You are not talking to that person, but his problems are entering into you. You do not know why your mind has become so heavy, heavy, heavy. That heaviness has come from the person whom you saw for a fleeting second. Then it takes time, so much time, for you to unburden yourself. You do not know what has actually entered into you, but you feel something heavy — a very, very heavy load. By looking at a person even unconsciously, not to appreciate something in him, you are being attacked, attacked.

Again, humour takes away that heaviness of the mind. Then after a few minutes, perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes, the time comes when you feel that the mind is light, the mind has become serious and sincere, the mind is searching, not doubting. You have to know at what point the mind is searching for truth, and at what point the mind is doubting your spirituality, doubting someone or doing other negative things. When the time comes that you feel the mind is searching for light, for truth, that is the time you are ready to meditate.