Fatigue and meditation

When it is time for meditation, you may say you went to bed at three o’clock, so you are not able to get up. But who asked you to go to bed at three o’clock? You will say it was unavoidable; you had to do something most important. While you are up late doing that important thing, you can make yourself feel that at five o’clock there will also be something unavoidable to do, that at five o’clock you will have to get up to meditate. If the ordinary thing that you did late at night was so important that you could not avoid it, then I wish to say your meditation is infinitely more important; nothing can be more important than meditation.

Sometimes our fatigue is real; sometimes it is all mental. Even if we sleep for ten hours, sometimes we feel extremely tired. There are many young boys and girls, as well as adults, who sleep much more than they actually need to. It is their mind that makes them feel they are very tired and exhausted, that they have not eaten or slept enough. The mind is so clever. It will make us feel that if we can sleep for only five minutes more, then we will have the whole world. If we are supposed to get up at five o’clock, the mind will tell us that if we can have one minute more, then we will be all right. Then, if we give that one minute to the body, immediately the body will say it is not enough.

So sometimes we are really fatigued, and sometimes it is only the mind that is making us feel that we are tired. We may not be tired at all, but the mind does not want us to meditate. Sometimes, even if we take only two or three hours’ rest, the mind is kind enough to allow us to meditate, for the monkey in the mind is taking rest and is not going to bother us. Although our physical body has taken only two hours’ rest, at that time we are very, very refreshed. So I wish to tell you that sometimes the body does not need six hours or seven hours of sleep; sometimes it needs only five hours, or less.

While you are driving to meditation, if you are tired and exhausted or you don’t feel alert, then you should not drive. At that time your wife or husband or your friend has to drive. Or you can try to invoke divine Power. When you come to the Centre, if you feel you are not doing good meditation but are falling asleep, then try to invoke the Power aspect of the Supreme. At that time, do not invoke Peace or Light. Try to bring forward divine Power from within or bring down the Power from above. Immediately, in five minutes’ time, you will feel energised. If you invoke dynamic power within yourself, you will see that your whole body will become energised with divine Power. This divine Power will make you feel that your body is burning with fever, although you are not actually running a temperature.

Also, please make your car more divine, more spiritual, with flowers and pictures and so forth. That is to say, make it like a shrine so that while you are driving, you feel that you are in my presence, in God’s Presence. When you leave your home, start your meditation right inside your car. And if you can make your car spiritual, then the drive will be the continuation of your meditation. But you have to know what kind of meditation you should have. Please do not go into a high, deep meditation. No, the best thing is at that time to do japa or to sing spiritual songs. If you do japa, then automatically you will see a kind of energy inside yourself. But if you want to invoke sublime peace, then it will create problems.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Sri Chinmoy speaks, part 7, Agni Press, 1976
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/scs_7