Question: What should we do if we have a frightening dream that foretells the death of somebody?

Sri Chinmoy: When you have a frightening dream, please pay no attention to it. Suppose you dream that something bad is going to happen in your life. If you are frightened, you are already dead. But if you are not frightened, then during the few hours or the few days that lie between your dream and the actual occurrence you can fight against it. And the divine Grace is bound to come and help you at that time. Suppose you have a dream that a friend or relative of yours will pass away, and your dream is absolutely correct. Tomorrow he will surely die; but if you are frightened now, then today he is already dead for you. If you surrender to the dream, you will suffer unnecessarily before the actual hour. Also, your fear will immediately enter into the future victim and create an additional burden for him.

What you should do at that time is try to fight against the possibility of his death through prayer and meditation. Pray to God, "I have seen it. O God, save him, save him." Instead of being frightened, try to offer your prayer to God. Perhaps you think that prayer is something feminine or delicate. No! Your prayer is your greatest strength. God's strength is His Compassion and man's strength is his prayer. Or you can meditate. That will be an even mightier strength. If you fight and God's Grace descends, I assure you that you can delay the actuality of the person's death. Many times it has happened that spiritual seekers have dreamt that their relatives were going to die and immediately they started meditating and praying to God. Then, God's Grace descended. But God does not nullify the possibility. He may just delay the actual event.

Why does God help the aspirant in cases like this? God helps because God is not bound by cosmic law. Cosmic law is created by God and at any time He can break His own law. If He cannot break His own law, then He is not omnipotent. And you can make God break His law through your soulful prayer. God says, "This is to be done." He has recorded it. But when human prayer enters into His Heart, He may cancel His own decree.

When you have hopeful dreams, illumining dreams, encouraging dreams, when you see that something significant is going to take place in a friend's life, what you should do is consciously try to identify your soul with his soul. How will you do this? Through your meditation. He will eventually get joy from the event because it belongs to him. But this joy, by God's Grace, you have received before he actually has. If you are wise, you will go deep within and assimilate the joy that you have received and then try to offer it to him inwardly before he gets it directly from God. Otherwise, if you tell him, "You know, I had a wonderful dream about you," he will be happy for a second, and then he will doubt you. He will say, "Oh, it is all mental hallucination." Despite your best intention, his doubtful mind will throw cold water on your encouraging message. So instead of telling the person verbally, try consciously to offer him the joy of the dream through your meditation. At that time, he will get additional strength. Before he gets the experience of your dream, which will come to him in the form of reality, he will start getting inner peace, inner joy, which he cannot account for, because you have started injecting him, preparing him to receive something very high, very meaningful and fulfilling. And when you have good dreams about yourself, go deep within and prepare yourself to be ready, to be a fit instrument for the reality, to receive the reality as it should be received.