Question: How can one tell the difference between the Will of God and wishful thinking?¹³⁶

Sri Chinmoy: How can a seeker know whether something is God’s Will or just his own fanciful or wishful thinking? A real aspirant, a sincere seeker, tries to meditate devotedly each day. And one who meditates devotedly each day will soon have a free access to God’s inner realm and be able to hear the Messages of God.

Of course, it is easy to say that you have to meditate devotedly, but actually doing it may seem like climbing up Mount Everest. When you start meditating, you have to feel that your very existence, your very life-breath, is an offering to the Inner Pilot within you. Each time you breathe in, try to offer your life-breath consciously to your Inner Pilot. In this way you will be able to meditate devotedly and have a devoted feeling towards God.

When you meditate, please try to open your heart fully and close your mind fully. Which mind? The physical mind, which thinks of your near and dear ones, your friends, the rest of the world! When you bolt the door of your physical mind and open the door of your heart, at that time the mind becomes calm and quiet and the heart becomes all receptivity. When your concentration and meditation are focused on the heart and the heart is receptive, then naturally the heart’s treasures — the Messages from God — will come to the fore and you will be able to read them and utilise them in your day-to-day life.

During your meditation there comes a time when your mind is totally blank, absolutely calm, tranquil and vacant. Inside the mind there will be only purity, serenity and profundity. When tranquillity is added to them, they become perfect. At that time, inside your heart you will feel a twinge or something very tiny, like a soft bubble. And inside that tiny thing in gold letters will be written a message. It will be visible even if you keep your eyes closed. If you cannot see it there, sometimes the message is transferred from the heart to the physical mind in order to convince you. But if you have the capacity to go deep within, definitely you will see the message inscribed there.

Inside the heart’s inmost recesses, where everything is flooded with purity, a message cannot be written by anybody other than God. There no hostile force or undivine force can enter. This is not true about the mind. In the mind there can always be a mental hallucination, a fabrication, or some self-imposed truth that we have created. If you get a message from the mind, it does not necessarily mean that the message will be wrong. No! Sometimes you may get in the mind a genuine message that has come directly from the heart. You may also get a message that enters the mind not from the heart but from elsewhere; you may feel that it has come from God, but this is not the case. But in the very inmost recesses of your heart, no disturbing, strangling thought will ever dare to enter. That deepest part of your being is well protected and well shielded by God Himself because God’s own Wealth and Treasure are there. He Himself is there as a soldier or gatekeeper, guarding His Treasure.

It is one thing to hear the Message of God correctly and another thing to listen to it and fulfil it. There are quite a few who hear God’s Message, but in their outer life they cannot execute it. For that, you need faith in yourself — faith that you are not just a child of God but a chosen child of God.

If you are sincerely aspiring and can claim yourself as a chosen child of God, please feel that it is not due to your own capacity but due to God’s Capacity and God’s Grace. There are millions of people on earth who are not aspiring. Why are you aspiring? It is because God wants you to aspire. When we say that God is most pleased with those who consciously aspire, it is true. But, at the same time, you have to know that their aspiration itself comes from God. From the beginning to the end, each of us has to feel the necessity of expressing our deepest gratitude to God, for He is our aspiration and He is our realisation. He is the aspiration in us and He is the realisation for us.