Question: If you have a job and you work, can you meditate at the same time?

Sri Chinmoy: Certainly. When you become an expert in meditation, you can do many other things at the same time. In the beginning, it is different. Say you are a dancer. When you are just learning how to dance, you will always be conscious of your steps, seeing whether they are coming correctly or not. Then, when you become an expert, it becomes spontaneous. While you are dancing you are observing the room, looking at all the people and doing all sorts of things. In the beginning, when you learn how to drive, you cannot do two things at once. You are always afraid that you will have an accident. Then, when you become an expert, what do you do? You look to this side, that side. You talk to your friends and you do many things. You can do this when you are an expert driver. Similarly, when you become expert in the spiritual life, you can do many things. When my students were beginners, absolute beginners, they had the same problem. They used to say that while they were in the office for instance, while they were typing something, only typing would exist for them. They could not meditate on spirituality or even think of the spiritual life. Now the stenographers and secretaries are doing very high meditations while they are typing and taking down notes from their bosses in their spiritual way. The bosses are surprised when they look at their secretaries. They feel, “How is it that her face is shining with divine light?” It is because these particular girls are all meditating while doing their work. Again, it is a matter of time. In the beginning they could not do it. But they meditated systematically, say for a few months, six or eight months, and naturally they have developed this capacity. It is only practice. By practising every day one becomes an expert.