Question: During a meditation, if something external to the meditation occurs — such as noise or something unforeseen — is it better to include it in the meditation or to try to shut it out and pursue the meditation?¹⁰¹

Sri Chinmoy: Each seeker has to know his own standard. If we are a beginner, we should feel that anything that is not part of our meditation is like an intruder. We should not allow an intruder, a foreigner, to enter into us and disturb us. But if we are very advanced and there is a disturbing noise during our meditation, we can go deep into the sound itself and try to assimilate it. If we have the capacity, then in our own consciousness we can transform the powerful and challenging attack of a foreign element into an inner music, a thrilling or haunting music, which will really add to our meditation. But until we develop this capacity to transform a disturbing, annoying noise into soothing, thrilling and soul-stirring music, we should always try to exclude foreign elements from our meditation.