Question: Recently while meditating I have been having painful sensations. Are these attacks of undivine forces?

Sri Chinmoy: The forces are not wrong forces. They are not undivine in your case. These are divine forces, but unfortunately you are pulling them far beyond your capacity. Your inner vessel is not large enough to hold the forces that you are bringing down, so that is why you are getting these painful sensations. Otherwise there would be a smooth, continuous flow.

When you meditate, please feel that meditation is not an act of a greedy person. When we are greedy, we want to devour everything. We become voracious eaters and afterwards we suffer from a stomach upset. In the spiritual life also we have to go very slowly, steadily and unerringly. When we pray and meditate, first of all we have to know our capacity. Here we are not discouraging ourselves. If I know that my capacity is to run one hundred metres, then I will run one hundred metres for a few days or a few months or, if necessity demands, for a few years. But if I have the capacity to run only one hundred metres and all of a sudden I want to run four hundred metres, then naturally I will collapse. I will complete it with greatest difficulty and then I will fall down. I will simply ruin myself. So here also, when we meditate we have to know how long we can meditate soulfully, either five minutes or ten minutes or fifteen minutes or twenty minutes. After that time we may get a kind of unconscious greed, let us say. We feel that if we can get everything overnight, then we will become all God-realised souls. But this kind of greed will be our downfall.

So when we pray and meditate, we have to know our capacity: how much will we can exert and how much soulful love, devotion and surrender we have for God. A little child has some strength, but he does not know that when he pulls down something very big from above, immediately it falls down and breaks his hands and arms. So like a child you are also pulling down something very heavy. It is very heavy in the sense that it has enormous power. And where will the power go which you have invoked? Naturally the power is good power, but because of its enormity it is not able to stay inside you. You are not in a position to house the power.

So when you meditate every morning, please feel the necessity of seeing your capacity. You are now in a position to eat only three pieces of bread. If you see that somebody beside you is eating six pieces, then you think, "What is wrong with me? Why can't I have the capacity to eat six pieces?" But let him eat six pieces if he has the capacity. Perhaps there is somebody else beside you who cannot eat even one piece. He can take only half a piece of bread. So according to your capacity, according to your inner hunger, you will try to satisfy yourself; according to others' capacity, they will also do the same. So, the forces that you are speaking of are not undivine. They are divine forces, but the problem arises because beyond your capacity you are trying to pull them down.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Palmistry, reincarnation and the dream state, Agni Press, 1977
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