Question: What can I do if sometimes I don't feel like meditating on your picture?

Sri Chinmoy: There are so many ways to meditate. If you look at my Transcendental picture and meditate, that is one form of meditation. If you do dedicated service, that is another form of meditation. And if you read my writings soulfully, that is also a form of meditation. Today if you are angry with me for some reason and you don’t feel like meditating on your heart or looking at my picture, just read my writings soulfully. If you read my writings, you enter immediately into my consciousness, and to enter into my consciousness is the highest form of meditation.

Perhaps you are displeased with me in your mind, but it is not affecting your physical. At that time, if your physical wants to work, it should work devotedly. Suppose you are working at the restaurant, at Dipti Nivas. Your mind may be angry with me, but if the physical has to clean the dishes at that time, then your boss will catch you if you do not do your job. When you work, your physical meditation is taking place. Mental meditation is not taking place because you are displeased with me for something. Your boss will not be able to catch you there because she cannot read your mind. But on the physical plane, when you don’t clean the restaurant, you are caught. So you see, when you work for the mission, at that time you are doing meditation in the physical.

Sometimes the heart is full of love and the mind is full of doubt. Now what will you do? The heart is meditating most soulfully but the mind is not meditating because the mind is full of doubt. You have so many parts of your being: body, vital, mind and heart. If you can’t meditate in all parts, then if you can meditate in at least one part, say in the physical by doing dedicated service, then it is a form of meditation. Similarly, if the vital does some dedicated service, through inspiration or enthusiasm, then that is a form of meditation. And if all the parts of your being — physical, vital, mental and psychic — work together devotedly, then that is the best form of meditation.