Question: When we try to meditate and are not in a good mood — say we've been at school and the whole day has been absolutely ordinary, and we are in sort of an undivine mood — how can we get rid of this mood in order to meditate well?

Sri Chinmoy: When you come to meditate after you have mixed with ordinary people, unaspiring people, how can you enter into your good, high, deep meditation? Immediately try to think of two rooms right in front of you. Feel that one room is unlit, and there — while you were in school, when you were with unaspiring people — you were caught by some dacoits or hooligans who were trying to strangle you. They were about to kill you. You were struggling with them because your whole life is a life of aspiration.

You were in that situation for four or five hours, and suddenly you have escaped from that world of destruction. When you come to the Centre and sit in front of me and meditate, you have to feel that you have escaped. You could have been killed by those forces; you could have been totally destroyed, annihilated. When you have that kind of feeling, great relief enters into you. When you feel with great relief that you have now entered into a room of Peace, Light, Bliss and Delight, automatically you will be able to meditate well. Automatically you will feel that here is your soul and here is your home. When you have that kind of great relief, you are automatically separated from the world of unreality, which is destruction in the spiritual life. Otherwise, when you come to meditate, these unaspiring forces will also come. You do not give them up; you still carry them in your mind. You carry their vibration, their atmosphere, their thoughts and ideas. Unconsciously they are coming. It is as though somebody has thrown a heavy load into a train. You don't know who has thrown it; you are just bringing the load. But as soon as you have the capacity to enter into the other room, just throw the heavy bags away and escape.

Some people take meditation as part of their schedule. They feel that one thing follows another in a continuous series: at eight o'clock they go to the office; at five o'clock they come back; at six o'clock they go to the Centre for meditation. But it is wrong to take it that way. Feel that the other events in life — when you mix with unaspiring people, ordinary people who are taking away your aspiration — are like destructive forces. So do not link up these incidents with others. On the contrary, break the incidents that are destructive from the other incidents in your life. Enter into the meditation room and feel that this is the real life and that was the unreal life. In this way you separate the real life from the unreal life. The moment you do this, you see that the real life is welcoming you with all its riches. If you do not make this conscious separation, then you are lost. If you feel that life is a continuous series of incidents, coming one after another, you are caught. Don't feel that this is an incident and that is also an incident. No! This incident is fulfilling and that incident is destructive, so you cannot tie them, you cannot unite them; you have to break them. When you break them, automatically you enter into the best, the highest meditation.