Could one make spiritual progress by having a week of solid meditation?

Then more mental asylums would have to be opened. It is not possible. Only spiritual Masters can meditate for hours and days on end. Ordinary seekers have to talk and mix with people and engage in outer activities. Otherwise, the mind and nerves become very agitated. Then anger comes forward, and also a kind of subtle pride that you have been extremely spiritual for a whole week. Then the seeker becomes abnormal.

Meditating for eighteen or twenty hours a day is possible, but only when you are on the verge of realisation or after you realise God. At that time you will have acquired the capacity. But now if you try it, you will only go crazy.

Do you need happiness? Then do just three things: Meditate regularly. Smile soulfully. Love untiringly.

If you meditate in the morning, you will find that your meditation will be most fruitful. Before the sun rises, the earth-consciousness is not yet agitated. The world has not yet entered into its daily turmoil. Nature is calm and quiet and will help you meditate. When nature is fast asleep, the animal in us or our unillumined consciousness also sleeps. At that time we are still in the world of energising and fulfilling dreams, from which reality can grow. That is why the awakened aspiring consciousness can get the most out of early morning meditation.

Once the day dawns, Mother-Earth becomes divinely energetic or undivinely restless. Especially in the West, because of its present dynamic nature, there is some feeling of irritation in the cosmos or in the outer nature. These restless qualities of the world do not have to enter into you, but usually they will. When people move around, immediately their vibration enters into you, no matter where you are. The air, the light, everything around you becomes permeated with the vibration of human activity and human anxieties. The world is standing in front of you like a roaring lion. How can you enter into your highest meditation in front of a roaring lion? But if you can meditate before the world awakens, when the cosmos is still and people around you are taking rest, then you will be able to have a deeper meditation.

Meditating during the day is very difficult. In the evening, meditation is also a little difficult, because for eight or ten hours you have been in the hustle and bustle of the world. During the day you have met with many unaspiring people, and unconsciously their undivine thoughts and impure ideas have entered into you. So unless you are inwardly very strong, you will have assimilated many unaspiring and uninspiring forces from the world. Therefore, it becomes very difficult to meditate in the evening with the same hope and freshness. If you take a shower before meditating, it will help. If you associate with spiritual people, it will also help.

In the morning all these undivine forces and experiences are out of your memory, at least for a while. During the time that you sleep, all the impurities that have come into you from others are washed away. During the hours that you are sleeping, your soul, like a divine thief, is silently observing you. An ordinary thief will steal something from you, but this divine thief will only give and give. If you need peace at one place, your soul will put peace there. The soul acts like a mother, who comes into the child's room in secrecy, early in the morning, to prepare for him the things he will need during the day. At night while you are sleeping, the soul gets the opportunity to do what is necessary for you. But during the day, when you are absorbed in the activities of the outer world, it is extremely difficult for the soul to give and for you to receive. For all these reasons morning meditation is the best.

Beauty came to me like the morning rose. Duty came to me like the morning sun. Divinity came to me like the morning aspiration.