Question: If an inspiration comes into the mind when one is meditating, should one follow the inspiration or remain in the heart?

Sri Chinmoy: You have to know what kind of inspiration it is. If it is an illumining inspiration, then you should follow it. If it is a creative inspiration to do something really good, then follow it. Any creative thought, anything that gives you a higher goal, should be followed. If a particular inspiration brings something new into your life, if it will transform your life, then that inspiration you should follow. Only then can you become really great and good.

But inspiration has a very wide range, from the lowest to the highest. While you are in a very low consciousness, when inspiration comes, it may be absolutely gross and mundane. During meditation some people think of making most delicious cookies or eggplant. While you are not praying, if you get inspiration to cook something, that is different.

You have to know that the mind makes you feel that inspiration is only in the mind whereas aspiration is only in the heart. But you have to know that aspiration can be in the mind and inspiration can be in the heart. Inspiration can come to aspiration and vice versa. One can go into the other. But it must be of a very high type, or it cannot help us at all.

From:Sri Chinmoy,The mind and the heart in meditation, Agni Press, 1977
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