Question: What is the difference between concentration, meditation and contemplation?

Sri Chinmoy: First comes concentration, then comes meditation and then comes contemplation. They are like three rungs of a ladder. First you concentrate, then you meditate and then you contemplate. If the first rung is missing, you may lose your footing.

When you concentrate, you try to focus your one-pointed attention on a small object. If you want, you can concentrate on your fingernail. Then, like a bullet or an arrow, your concentration-power has to penetrate into the object.

Meditation is totally different. Meditation is vastness. In meditation, you are dealing with the vast sky or the vast sea — anything that is larger than the largest. In meditation you try to make your mind calm, quiet, tranquil and vacant so that you can become one with the Vast. When you are concentrating, you are concentrating on the smallest possible thing. Like an arrow, you are trying to pierce the veil of ignorance. When you are meditating, you are dealing with what is vaster than the vastest. All around, you are seeing Infinity.

Then, when you are contemplating, at that time you enter into your Supreme Beloved and become inseparably one with Him. One moment you will be playing the role of the divine lover and He will be playing the role of the Supreme Beloved. The next moment you will reverse roles. On the basis of your oneness, and out of His infinite Bounty, He will make you feel that you are the Beloved and He is the divine lover.

During meditation, a softness and sweetness and one-pointed adoration will come forward. But in contemplation, you are merging into something and becoming something. During meditation, you do not become; only you see something that is vaster than the vastest. But when you are contemplating, you become the object of your adoration. Inside contemplation there is concentration and also meditation.