Question: How can we best use our free time?

Sri Chinmoy: For unaspiring people, or for people who do not have the capacity to meditate, each free hour is a dangerous weapon. If you have nothing to do for an hour, and you do not have the capacity to meditate, that hour you have to take as a weapon.

If you want to take rest, and if you can sleep, wonderful! But if you cannot sleep, do not watch television and destroy your nerves. I will not tell you that you should never watch television, but there are some destructive, nerve-shattering weapons that human beings have created, and television does affect the nerves.

Each time you have a free hour and you do not use it properly, you are creating serious problems for yourself. Again, if you have intelligence, if you are wise, you can use that hour in a productive way. But if you do not use it for anything productive, if you are just doing nothing, then you are only creating problems for yourself. You think that you are enjoying a free hour, but how many hostile forces you are allowing to enter into your brain, God alone knows! How many lower vital forces, how many mental hallucination-forces, how many destructive thoughts you are allowing into your system! You are welcoming your enemies from different places to attack you, and eventually they will destroy you. So always do something, even if it is not outwardly productive. Just talk about silly things with your friends. While you are talking about silly things, you are not allowing those wrong forces to enter into you. But if you do nothing, serious problems will arise.

The more you misuse your free hours, the less you will have faith in yourself in a divine way, while in an undivine way you will feel that you can do anything you want to. On the one hand, you will feel that because you are not using your capacity, you are hopeless and useless. On the other hand, these hours that are not used properly bring into your mind all kinds of thoughts that you can do anything you want to. You will feel that you do not need anybody’s help; you do not need even God’s help. You are fully self-sufficient. They say that the idle brain is the devil’s workshop. It is so true! So always do something! Do not allow yourself free time. There should be no free time. Do something!

If you work at the UN, there you may not be speaking about spiritual things with your colleagues, but you are in a current that is flowing. You may not reach your destination immediately, but you are progressing. But if you are not with your friends, or if you are not talking about business, if you are doing nothing, then you are inside a stagnant pool.

There are so many things that you can do. You can read spiritual books. You can sing songs. Everybody thinks that he or she is the best singer, so where is the problem if you are singing alone? There is no problem at that time, for you are the singer, you are the listener and you are the judge. You can give yourself one hundred out of one hundred, as my brother Mantu does.

I have a disciple who does not allow himself even one moment of free time. When he has free time, he becomes a self-styled doctor of the highest order. His eagerness to cure his Master’s physical malady can only be felt by his Master.