Question: After a few hours of working at _Annam Brahma,_ I get a strong desire to go up into a nice, cool, breezy tree house and go to sleep. How can I conquer this desire?

Sri Chinmoy: If you want to satisfy this desire in the world of imagination, you can. But if you want to fulfil it on the practical plane, it is impossible. You have to know that imagination is a world of its own, a reality-world. Take imagination as the first floor of your life and physical reality, let us say, as the basement. The imagination world is higher than the reality-world, but both worlds are used; the basement is used and the first floor is also used.

If you want something that is on the first floor, then naturally you will go there. But if you want to find the same thing in the basement, then there are a few things that you will have to do.

I have my harpsichord in the meditation room. Right now, let us say, I am in the basement, so if I want to play, I have to come to the meditation room. I can also bring the instrument down to the basement and play there. But for that I will need to take help from a few strong boys, and it is very difficult.

Why do you have to do something on a particular plane which is inaccessible to you? You may feel that you should always try to do whatever is difficult, difficult, difficult, and you may think that imagination is easy. But there are many people on earth who can't imagine at all. Who says that it is easy to imagine? No, no, no! For a few seconds you can think of the vast ocean, you can think of the vast sky. But try for five minutes to imagine. It will be impossible! In one minute your imagination-power will be gone. So do not think of the imagination-world as a weak world and the physical reality as a strong, real world. No. Whatever is in the imagination-world is real. Something does not have to be in the basement to be absolute or real. So always try to become part and parcel of the reality in the imagination-world. Imagination is a real reality which is trying to be manifested in the physical plane.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Smile of the Beyond, Agni Press, 1977
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/sb