Part II — Meditation

Question: When I meditate, I start off with a very good meditation, but then I lose it. How can I maintain my good meditation throughout?

Sri Chinmoy: This happens to all seekers. You may meditate extremely well for ten minutes and go very high, but then you cannot maintain it, and you come back to the ordinary world again. There are various ways for you to regain and retain that height. In order to have a complete race, you have to start from the beginning. After ten minutes of meditation if you feel that you cannot go any further, relax for two or three minutes and breath deeply; then make a fresh beginning. Think again of the eagerness, enthusiasm and joy that you had before you entered the meditation room. Forget about all you have just received in the meditation. This time meditate for fifteen minutes. Perhaps you will again have the same trouble, and again, you will make a fresh attempt. First you meditated for ten minutes, then for fifteen minutes, and the third time you may meditate well for half an hour. Each time you should feel that the first race was useless because you didn't complete it, so you should make a fresh start. The second time you will go a little farther and the third time farther still. With each new effort you will be developing your inner capacity and gaining strength. After a few months or a few years, you will be able to meditate well from the beginning to the end.

There is another way to maintain your standard. It is through identification with me. Feel that I represent a boat. You have come with your ticket: regularity and aspiration. Throw yourself into the boat. There you can chant or sing or dance or sleep. You have played your part by entering into the boat. Now just stay inside the boat and the boat will carry you. Enter into my heart, my divine heart. Enter and identify yourself with me. If you can identify yourself with me for two hours, you will be able to enjoy your deepest meditation. My lowest meditation is higher than your highest meditation. So if you enter into my consciousness, my meditation will take you high, higher, highest. I will never fail in my meditation. For two hours it does not cease at all. Your meditation may go up and then fall, and when it drops you feel totally flat. But if you identify yourself with me, you will go up with me and you will never fall. In this way you can maintain your highest meditation.