Question: I have just started coming to your meetings and I would like to know exactly what is meant by meditation. Is it good to read books on the subject? Is meditation a form of thinking?⁹¹

Sri Chinmoy: If you read books on meditation written by spiritual Masters, you will gain a little general information. The books will tell you to keep the mind calm and quiet and to lead a pure life on the mental, vital and physical plane. In your pure life automatically you will feel a kind of inner meditation. And if you are able to keep your mind calm and quiet, that also is a form of real meditation.

In the world you are constantly being assailed by ideas and thoughts. But you should try not to allow these thoughts to enter into your mind in your day-to-day life. You may think that if you do not have any thoughts you will be like a fool. But fools are not without thoughts; they have thoughts, but their thoughts lead them to do silly things. If you can stop the flow of ordinary thoughts and bring to the fore your inner will and determination, then you will do the right thing and grow into a divine instrument of God, your Inner Pilot. That is a form of meditation too.

I advise seekers to forget the mind and try to feel the presence of the heart. Inside the heart they will feel a vessel. This vessel is full to the brim with ignorance, imperfection and undivine things. They must try to empty the vessel with their own inner cry and with God’s Help. This action of emptying oneself has to be done with devotion and a feeling of surrender to God’s Will. It also has to be done with love — love for God and for humanity. Once the vessel is emptied, then God will fill it with peace, light and bliss.