Higher, deeper²⁰

I never thought that in this lifetime I would be offering so many prayers! My Chittagong-life was all prayer. My Pondicherry-life was all meditation. Very, very few times I prayed in Pondicherry — I can count the number of times. Meditation was my Pondicherry-life. In America, in the West, my life is prayer, prayer, prayer, meditation, meditation, meditation. Both prayer and meditation are really needed if we want to go up and also dive deep within.

There is a slight difference between going up and diving deep. In my case, when I dive deep within, I get more joy. When I go up, I do not get as much joy. Again, when I dive deep within, I see the high, higher, highest worlds. These worlds are all inside my deepest meditation. But when I go up to enjoy the higher worlds, when I am actually there, I do not get the same feeling, the deepest feeling that I get when I dive deep within.

When you dive deep within, you can house all the highest experiences. But when you are in the highest world, you do not have the same feeling. The highest world is the highest; but in the deepest world that is deep within my heart, I feel the presence of the Highest. Again, we cannot separate the highest and the deepest.

The doctors will say that the heart is a tiny muscle, but a spiritual Master will say, “Oh no, the heart is larger than the largest! It is much larger than the sky itself.” This is the experience we get in the spiritual life. The heart is not a tiny muscle. Yes, for the doctors it is tiny; but for spiritual people, the heart is something vaster than the vastest, much larger than the sky that we see.