Question: How often should we meditate?

Sri Chinmoy: You can meditate early in the morning and, if it is possible, in the evening before you go to bed. During the day, if you are free, and if you really get inspiration, then also you can meditate. But it is better to meditate well once a day in the morning, and to leave it for the rest of the day, than to sit five or six times a day with your eyes closed and just have pleasant thoughts drifting through your head.

Some people meditate three times, four times, six times a day. But I wish to say the number is of no consequence. If you feel really inspired, meditate twenty times. But if you don’t feel any inspiration, then you are wasting your precious time and just deceiving yourself. Each time you meditate you have to offer your heart’s breath and your soul’s light that you are bringing to the fore. Only then is it worth meditating. Otherwise, you are just insulting your soul’s possibilities. Please feel the necessity of meditating, even if it is for only one minute once a day. If it is done wholeheartedly, even if it is for a fleeting minute, then it is worthwhile.

If inspiration is there, then meditate. That means that you have got the sanction from the Supreme. If it is the call of the Supreme, then you shall run fast, very fast, because He is the leader inside you.

Many people say that they meditate four times or six times a day. But what do they meditate on? They meditate on their bosses or they meditate on their boyfriends or their girlfriends. This is no meditation at all. If you can meditate most soulfully, if you feel that your aspiration is carrying you, only then is it really worthwhile meditation. But a day will come when your inner being will compel you to meditate twenty-four hours a day.