Question: What is the best way to prevent wrong thoughts from attacking us?

Sri Chinmoy: The thoughts that we have to control are the thoughts that are not productive, the thoughts that are damaging, the thoughts that are destructive, the thoughts that are silly, the thoughts that are negative. These thoughts can come from outside and enter into us; or they may already be inside us and merely come forward. The thoughts that come from outside are easier to control than the thoughts that are already inside. If an undivine thought comes from outside, we have to feel that we have a shield all around us or right in front of us as a protection, especially in front of the forehead. If we feel that our forehead is something vulnerable, delicate, exposed, then we will always be a victim to wrong thoughts. But the moment we consciously make ourselves feel that this forehead is a shield, a solid wall, then wrong thoughts cannot come in. We have to make ourselves feel consciously that we are protected by a solid wall or a fort with many soldiers inside. We have to be constantly vigilant and, when an attack of wrong forces comes, we have to know that we have stronger soldiers inside us. The strongest soldiers are our purity and sincerity, our aspiration, our eagerness for God. These divine soldiers inside us will be on their guard the moment a wrong thought comes and will serve as bodyguards to us.

The thoughts that are already inside us creating problems are more difficult to throw out, but we can do it. We can do it through extension of our consciousness. We have a body and inside this body are wrong forces that have taken the form of thoughts. What we have to do is extend our physical consciousness through conscious effort and aspiration, as we extend an elastic band, until we feel that our whole body is extended to Infinity and has become just a white sheet of infinitely extended consciousness. If we can do this, we will see that our consciousness is all purity. Each pure thought, each pure drop of consciousness, is like poison to impurity or to wrong thoughts in us. We are afraid of impure thoughts, but impure thoughts are more afraid of our purity. What often happens to us is that we identify ourselves with our impure thoughts and not with our pure thoughts. But the moment our physical existence can identify with purity, when we can say, "This pure thought represents me," then impurity inside us immediately dies. Wrong thoughts are inside us just because we identify ourselves with these thoughts. If we identify with something else, immediately they have to leave us.