_Question: Can you give another method for stopping empty moments? In _Everest-Aspiration_ you wrote, "You are saying that you suffer from empty moments. Do you know why?" Your answer was, "you are not playing inside the garden of your heart with your heart's child, the soul." Can you give me an additional method for stopping empty moments when they occur?_

Sri Chinmoy: When you have emptiness, you can easily be fooled by your mind. When you feel empty, totally empty, at that time you do not know whether this emptiness is good for you or not. It can be the emptiness of a vessel, after you have emptied it. Then my grace, my divinity will enter into you. Sometimes this kind of emptiness is absolutely necessary. The mind is discouraging you by saying you are empty, empty; there is nothing in life — it is absolutely useless, hopeless. When the mind says that kind of thing, the mind is fooling you.

At times it may be that emptiness is preparatory. Emptiness is preparing you for the descent of something higher, something extremely important. The mind may tell you that life is a hopeless case; now you have gone down, you have fallen, and there is nothing. It may tell you that you are not getting any joy from your spiritual life, from your meditation.

But the mind can fool you. At that time you can easily tell your mind, "No, this emptiness is good." It will last perhaps only for a few hours, a few days or a few weeks. Change your mind: think that the emptiness is good for you, that you are preparing yourself. But if you feel lost, that is not good.

Always when anything discouraging takes place, you have to be clever. You have to be wise. That discouragement has to be counteracted. You have to fight against the discouragement by any means. If you feel empty, say to your mind, "No, this is necessary for me. Something within me is about to receive. Inside me something is happening, and I am not yet aware of it." Your mind may say, "Absolutely I am empty, empty, empty. There is nothing inside me. It is a barren desert." But the heart can say, "No, this is a special time. The farmer, my spiritual Master, is digging and ploughing the field." Try to feel that your Master is ploughing the field in your heart. Then he will sow the seed, and soon you will get a bumper crop. You are not fooling yourself — it is true!

These are the ways, the divine ways, to contradict and conquer the wrong forces that attack you. These are the absolutely positive ways to conquer wrong forces. Nothing should discourage you.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Beyond likes and dislikes: illumining questions and answers, Agni Press, 2012
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