Question: What is the best way to keep extraneous thoughts out of your mind when you are trying to meditate?

Sri Chinmoy: There are two kinds of thoughts: good thoughts and bad thoughts. One kind is healthy and one kind is unhealthy. Unhealthy thoughts, undivine thoughts, are our enemies, whereas good thoughts, divine thoughts, are our friends. We are standing at the door to our house and somebody is knocking at the door. We have to see whether it is a friend or an enemy. If it is a friend, then we will allow him to enter. If it is an enemy, we will not allow him in. But the difficulty is that we don’t know who are our friends and who are our enemies. If we open the door just a little to see who is there, immediately the enemies may force their way in. So what should we do? We shouldn’t open the door at all. We should keep the door bolted from the inside. Our real friends will not go away. They will think, “Usually he is so kind to us, so there must be some special reason why he is not opening the door. Since we need him and he needs us, we will wait indefinitely for him.” They have sympathetic oneness, so they will wait indefinitely.

But our enemies want only to bother us, to torture and destroy us. They will wait just for a few minutes, and then they will lose all patience. These enemies have not conquered pride. They will say, “It is beneath our dignity to waste our time here. Who needs him? Let us go and attack somebody else.” If we pay no attention to a monkey, the monkey will eventually go away and bite somebody else. Similarly, after a few minutes our enemies will go away. Then we can open the door and welcome our dearest friends, who will be there waiting for us.

So, in the beginning it is best for us not to allow any thoughts to enter our mind. We will remain silent for a few minutes and say, “Since I do not know who my friends are and who my enemies are, since I do not know which thoughts are healthy and divine and which ones are unhealthy and undivine, the best thing is for me to keep my mind totally empty. I will keep my mind’s door shut for a while, and then when I open it, I will see only my friends, the good thoughts, and I will let them enter.”