Question: The spiritual life and meditation should be the simplest of things; yet I always seem to complicate it. How can I keep my meditation simple?

Sri Chinmoy: When we think that we are doing meditation, then it will always be complicated. When we think of what we are doing, whether it is meditation, physical work or even eating, we will feel some complication in the action either today or tomorrow.

True meditation is done when we are consciously aware of the Supreme. We have to know that it is He who is fulfilling Himself in and through us, that He is doing the meditation Himself. We are just the vessel and we are allowing Him to fill us with His whole Consciousness. When we are aware of this, after five or ten minutes of meditation we will enter into the very world of meditation. We do not have to do anything; we are there in that world because the Supreme has taken charge of our meditation.

We start with our own physical and mental effort, but once we go deep within we see that it is not effort that allows us to enter into meditation. Meditation will be complicated so long as we depend on ourselves, feeling, “If I don’t meditate at six o’clock, then my world will certainly collapse.” But when we feel that meditation is being done by the Supreme in us with our conscious awareness and consent then meditation cannot be complicated.

At that time we will see that our meditation is free and spontaneous. God is fulfilling Himself through us and enlarging His Consciousness within us. But it has to be done with our consent; otherwise there will be no end to our complicated feelings.

For a grown-up person to surrender even to the Highest is impossible, because the mind has started functioning. But a child surrenders to anyone, even to a stranger. If the stranger says something is to be done, he will do it because he has perfect faith in the stranger. That is because he does not use the mind. In our case, we don’t have faith in anybody and, at the same time, which is worse, we don’t have faith in ourselves.

When you meditate, please try to feel the river or meditation flowing through you without coercion or exertion. Let the divine Consciousness flow through you. That flow is the real meditation which you have had many, many times. You can always have the real meditation if you allow the river of Consciousness to flow in and through you.