Part VI — The battle of the hostile forces

Question: Even when we are aspiring, dark forces can come and attack us. Is there any way that we can avoid this?

Sri Chinmoy: If you see that someone is attacking you and you feel that you have more capacity than he has, then you don’t have to run away because you have more strength. Just fight. To illumine the one who is attacking you, feel that there is someone inside you who has given you the capacity to fight and conquer the attacker. First see if you can conquer him. However, if you feel that in spite of getting inner help, you are not able to fight and that your attacker is winning, then you have to play the role of the child. When the child sees some form of disaster approaching, he runs toward his house for protection because his mother and father are there.

The difficulty is that sometimes ordinary forces, say, temptation-forces, are so subtle that you think that you can crush them in the twinkling of an eye. A desire comes and you feel that it will cause you no harm. You think, “If it comes in the afternoon again I will conquer it.” You have so much confidence, but in a sense it is false confidence. You think that when desire comes you will conquer it, but when it comes again you pay no attention. You think that it cannot win in a fight with you because you know that you are spiritual. If it comes again in two hours, then again you feel that it cannot take you away because you have much more capacity. This may go on three or four times more, but by the fourth time the capacity which you bragged about has become incapacity.

So when you know that something is attacking you, be very alert and careful. Don’t wait for the second arrival of the force. If you don’t conquer it the first time it comes, then the next time it will come with added strength. When a wrong thought comes into your mind, immediately accept the challenge and fight it out. Again, when a good thought comes asking you to meditate or pray, do not tell the thought, “No, let me read the newspaper now.” After two hours that good thought may not come at all. It will feel, “I am an unwanted guest. I don’t want to be rejected again.” Then if it comes to you again, you may want to watch television. Once you do not welcome a good thought, rest assured it will not return. If it is rejected, it does not want to come back. But desire is like a beggar. It comes again and again. Each time it has more expectation and more hope that it will definitely get something. So when wrong forces come, don’t think that you will be able to annoy or anger them. If they come a second time, just fight them out. And if they immediately accept defeat and go, don’t invite them back.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Transcendence of the past, Agni Press, 1977
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/trp