The hour of meditation

Part I — Introduction: a talk to disciples

Introduction: a talk to disciples

We expect everything sooner than at once. We all want to be God-realised souls overnight. It is an excellent idea, a great aim that all of us cherish; but we have to know where we actually stand. To be very frank, some of you are absolute beginners in the spiritual life. I am not trying to discourage you, far from it; only this is just a bare statement of fact. Again, you have to know that he who is a beginner today can easily become an expert tomorrow. But at the very beginning of our journey, if we feel that God-realisation will dawn on us tomorrow or in the near future, it will be a deplorable mistake. We have to go step by step. Before we go through kindergarten, if we want to enter into the university, it will be a ridiculous idea.

God-realisation does not come by hook or by crook. Years of spiritual discipline, iron discipline, are necessary in order to have higher and deeper spiritual experiences. Then, from these experiences, we enter into a deeper region which we call the region of realisation. This region also has to be surpassed in order to enter into the real realisation, the absolute realisation — in other words, God-realisation. I am not throwing cold water on you. I only wish to say that each spiritual aspirant or seeker must have infinite patience, and his patience is nothing but inner light and inner wisdom.

To my sorrow, some of you do not even follow the basic spiritual disciplines. First of all, there is nothing as important as regularity in the spiritual life. Today some of you meditate at six o'clock in the morning, tomorrow at four o'clock, the day after at eleven or twelve o'clock. Then again, there are some who meditate only once a week, or once in a blue moon. This is deplorable. Regularity must be practised. If it is at seven o'clock that you meditate, please try to meditate every day at seven o'clock. If it is at eight o'clock, then every day meditate at eight o'clock. Your inner being will never take any responsibility for you if you are not regular in your spiritual life.

Along with regularity, please try to have purity in your body, vital, mind, heart and soul. It is in purity that God's Breath abides. The purity of the body is of paramount importance in the spiritual life. If physical purity is lacking in a human being, then it is simply impossible for the Divine Being to breathe in that particular individual. Then, along with physical purity, there also has to be cleanliness in the body. I am sure all of you take baths at least once a day. What we call "cleanliness" in the outer world, in the inner world we call "purity." There also has to be purity in the mind. If your mind is roaming here and there, if your mind is cherishing all kinds of undivine thoughts, then purity is just a far cry. So physical purity, mental purity and vital purity are all of paramount importance.

Part II — The Master's presence

Question: What is your process for enlightenment and what do you ask of your disciples?

Question: Do you teach people to meditate in a specific way?

Sometimes when the soul is receiving peace, light and bliss, it wants to assimilate them. Again, sometimes even before the soul assimilates the qualities, it wants to express them. Now assimilation is always good and expression is also good. In some cases we see that the souls are eager to assimilate and keep something for fifteen or twenty days, or for five days or perhaps just five hours, and then express it. In other cases we see that the soul wants to reveal, manifest and express these qualities immediately, in a day or a few hours' time. If assimilation is not complete, then proper expression is not impossible, but it is very difficult. Again, sometimes it is quite possible to express it.

Today while we were meditating, two people's souls did not want to assimilate. One young man's throat centre, the centre of expression, immediately wanted to express what it received. He very powerfully said, "Now I have got it, and I want to give it to others immediately. He did not try to assimilate at all; he just wanted to express. What his soul did is not bad at all.

Now, in another young man's case, his soul wanted to express something, but his vital came forward, saying, "No, no, no! The best thing is to keep it like a miser who saves his money." He started giving it out, but then he began assimilating instead. The rest of the disciples all assimilated whatever they got from me. Only these two individuals did not want to; they wanted to express what they could, although the second one decided to assimilate at the last minute. Now, this expression can be to others, to the atmosphere or to the universal Consciousness. Sometimes it is like knowledge: the more you give, the more you get. Someone may feel, "Let me read for one hour and give as I receive." Again, someone else may say, "No, let me learn more, and then I will give. Let me read for two hours and afterwards give." It is like knowledge to some extent, but it cannot be compared with human knowledge.

Question: How can we meditate well?

Question: Guru, how can we go deeper and deeper within so we can go beyond the surface mind?

You have accepted the spiritual life and you want to make progress. You may meditate once a day or once a week or once a month; or you may say, "No, I wish to meditate three times a day. What is wrong with me? I eat three times a day. Why can't I meditate at least three times a day? And if I spend an hour for my luncheon and an hour for my dinner, then can I not also spend at least two hours in meditation?" But here we have to know that meditation is not like eating earthly food. If your mind is roaming all the time, you can spend hours and hours in meditation but you will make no progress. If you spend two hours in meditation, then out of those two hours perhaps you can meditate well for only five minutes. Again, if you say, "I am selecting five minutes and as soon as I enter into meditation, I will have a most sublime meditation," usually it does not happen, especially in the case of beginners or new seekers.

So what all of you should try to do is this: if you want to meditate well for fifteen minutes, try to keep aside one hour for your meditation. Then during that hour, consider forty-five minutes as being only for your preparation or for allowing your mind to roam in the world of fantasies. Of course, this is not the ideal thing, but you have to feel that right now you are helpless. So you can keep aside forty-five minutes for your own purpose and then meditate well for fifteen minutes.

Question: I am strongly tuned to the mental plane. What can I do to enter into my inner being and feel my inner self more in my daily meditations?

Your heart is another possession. When you think of or try to feel the heart, feel that there is something inside the heart and that is why it is beautiful and meaningful. Your last possession is your soul, which represents reality and divinity. The soul needs a heart. The heart needs a soul. The soul is a seed; the heart is a tree. The seed needs the tree; and if there is no seed there cannot be a plant. The heart-plant comes from the soul-seed; then the plant grows into a tree and the tree becomes a banyan tree. But first there must be a seed.

If the mind is creating problems, feel that you don't need the earthbound mind. You have had enough use from it. Just take the heart as a plant and the soul as a seed. If you can grow into the consciousness of the seed, there will always be the possibility that the seed will germinate and you will grow into a plant and then into a tree.

Question: Some days I feel that instead of meditating I want to say prayers or I want to do something for another person. Is that the ego?

Question: What do you do when you are not one hundred per cent alert during meditation?

In meditation, movement is going on but in a very subtle, peaceful way. In it is the life that lifts us up towards the goal. But when we enter into sleep there is no life at all.

Question: Is it wrong to sleep in meditation if we have worked all night?

You also have a goal in your life. Important things, such as functions, do not take place every day. Opportunities do not come every day in your life. If you use the opportunity you are gaining something. Spirituality is like an opportunity. If you miss one meditation you have to feel that you have missed something, you have covered one step less. When you don't do something regularly, your consciousness loses its capacity and the road becomes very long. For someone who does meditation every day it becomes very short. Insincere people say there will be another opportunity. But as the Supreme Himself is always progressing, if you miss one opportunity you have to feel that you have really lost something. Once you relax, ignorance has covered you. If you fail to get up once, then on that day ignorance has come to you.

I tell you, nobody has lost his body by praying and meditating. If you people say that someone has become exhausted and gone mad for God's sake, it is all lies. God is all Wisdom. So if you have worked very hard and do not think you can keep awake in your meditation you must ask your Master if he wants to excuse you.

Question: Will visiting a holy place, such as the Himalayas, help our spiritual progress?

Question: I read a book about concentration and meditation in which it said that one should pay attention to the direction in which one is facing, whether it is to the East, South, West or North.

Part III — Collective meditation and the Master: a talk

Collective meditation and the Master: a talk

Sometimes I see that there is no aspiration. Some students do not want anything. It is not that they have everything; it is just that they do not have the inspiration to either draw something from above or to get something from me. With these students I just try to kindle the flame of aspiration. But if I stand in front of someone and see that that particular aspirant wants to have Peace, immediately I bring down Peace from above. If I see someone who wants Light, then I bring down Light. If a third person wants Power, I bring down Power. There are other divine qualities also. According to the aspiration, necessity and receptivity of each individual aspirant, I bring down spiritual, divine treasures from above.

There are some aspirants who get immediate inspiration and aspiration when they see that a great spiritual figure is standing in front of them, inspiring them or guiding them to speed up their spiritual life and spiritual progress. Those who are conscious of the fact that a spiritual person can do and does this act of upliftment in their spiritual life, are consciously benefiting from my spiritual presence.

I wish to add something more. The soul, as you know, right now is encaged; it is inside the body. At times during the aspirant's conscious or unconscious life, it wants to fly from one plane of consciousness to another. That is to say, it tries to go from the second plane to the third plane, and from the third plane to the fourth plane — up, up, up. There are seven higher worlds and seven lower worlds of existence. If I see that the soul of a particular aspirant wants to have that experience of the soul's journey, then I do it for him. Today I have done that here with one particular seeker. And, of course, to each individual I have given my inner wealth according to the individual's aspiration and necessity.

Very often, just for a second during the meditation, the aspirant's soul feels my inner concern, love and blessings for him. Then it is blocked up for five, ten or fifteen minutes; then again it resumes its performance. Or at night, when the particular seeker is asleep, the soul of the person comes to me again to be benefited and to seek my guidance. That is also done.

Part IV — Questions and answers

Question: Can you please speak about collective meditation?

Question: Why is it important to meditate with other people?

Question: What are the ways to go deep within or raise our consciousness while meditating in a group?

Question: Guru, sometimes when you come into the meditation hall, you ask people not to stand up.

Question: At the end of a meditation for the general public, what is actually happening when you stand up and put on a garland?

Question: Are outer gestures important for aspiration to increase?

When you are in a very high spiritual mood and you fold your hands, you are not folding your hands to me or touching my feet. No, when you fold your hands you are bowing to your own aspiring self. Let us consider the body as two halves, a lower and a higher part. Your lower half wants to become one with the higher half. Although I represent both the higher and lower selves, just because of my realisation I am well-established in the higher world.

Unfortunately you are not yet well-established in the higher world. But even though I am in the higher world, if I take off my legs and only my upper portion remains, and then if I want to stand, I will not be able to. I need my lower part just as much as I need my higher part. I need them equally for illumination, I have to have constant communication and oneness between my higher and lower parts. When you fold your hands with an immediate inner feeling, your lower self is becoming one with your higher self. Then there is a continuous, sweet feeling, like a river flowing into the ocean.

The seeker is the river, and the Master is the ocean. The natural course of the river is to flow into the ocean. Then it will become the ocean. But if the river does not feel that it must merge with the ocean, then even if it sees the ocean it will take a wrong course or just meander aimlessly. The seeker has to feel that he is a river, and that the goal of the river is to flow the fastest and enter into the ocean. The seeker must recognise the necessity to enter into the Master. It should be with this kind of feeling that you fold your hands to meditate facing the disciples.

Tonight I selected some disciples who had good meditations. Do you think that I selected all those who had folded their hands during meditation? Far from it. There were only one or two who had folded their hands. There are many who have not folded their hands today whom I selected. Again there are many who were sitting in front of me folding their hands whom I did not select.

If you fold your hands soulfully, it will help you meditate better, but you don't have to do it at all. There are some who do not fold their hands soulfully, but only make their hands very stiff, as if they are going to press something together or break it. That kind of devotion is no devotion at all.

Some disciples feel as if they have one hundred dollars from their inner aspiration but their goal is one hundred and one. They need one dollar more in order to reach the destined goal. They feel that folding their hands helps because they know it may give them that last dollar they need to reach the goal. Others feel that they don't need to fold their hands. They feel that by increasing their aspiration they will automatically get the last dollar. They are right. But the first group feels that if there is something outwardly they can do which will immediately give them that one dollar more, they will do it.

Most fold their hands only when I turn towards them, and the rest of the time they do not fold their hands. There are some who are doing so not because I am looking at them, but because their inner being is telling them to fold their hands at that time. When I meditate on them, they feel that their aspiration has increased its intensity, it has now become greater, so they fold their hands. In this way they are doing it soulfully and spontaneously.

Otherwise, by folding your hands you can deceive yourself, you can deceive the friends around you for one day, two days, three days, two months or six months. Then your own sincerity will come forward. Something within you will pinch you and tell you either to fold your hands only when you are sincere and spiritual and when you feel it is necessary, or to stop folding your hands. Your own inner sincerity will enter you like a bullet and say you are deceiving yourself, you are deceiving others. But by deceiving, you are not getting real aspiration.

Again, just because you were folding your hands out of deception and now have realised your folly, that doesn't mean you should necessarily stop folding your hands. It is like curiosity. Some people enter into the spiritual life out of curiosity. They do not have sincere inspiration or aspiration, but out of curiosity they come to meetings and join the activities. Finally they see that their curiosity is getting them nowhere. The seekers around them have true aspiration, and they are gaining something inwardly and outwardly. At that time they want to stop their life of curiosity and they begin to sincerely aspire.

I often say that when you have to make a choice between idleness and ego, aggrandisement of ego is better than idleness. When you give importance to the ego, at least you start to do something. In the spiritual life also, if you fold your hands out of curiosity or even to show off, for two or three months you may do it. Then even if your own sincerity does not come forward, you may overhear two of your friends or enemies saying, "Oh, see what he does," and you will be embarrassed. If you are embarrassed, then you will stop it, or you will do it sincerely.

Question: Most disciples fold their hands when you are meditating and looking at them. But sometimes when I am meditating with you this doesn't come naturally. Is it all right not to fold our hands while you are looking at us?

But again, there are some disciples who are by nature very good, extremely devoted. They know that they cannot always remain in their highest, on the peak. They feel that when the Master looks at them, they get additional inner joy, thrill, confidence and enthusiasm. If there is anything they have not done which may further elevate their consciousness, then they will do it. They feel that if this outward gesture, folding their hands, is done soulfully, it definitely increases their aspiration.

Part V — Experiences in meditation

Question: How can we tune in to the particular quality that you are bringing down most in your meditation?

Question: Why should we keep our eyes open and look at you in meditation?

Question: When we receive light and peace from our meditation, is it assimilated and stored for our gradual use, or do we constantly need it as we need food?

If peace, light and bliss are not assimilated, then it is as if a friend came into your life for a few hours and then he just left you after a short time. He did not become your eternal friend or your lifelong friend.

Question: Is there any way to evaluate the result of our meditation?

Question: Is dedication the same thing as meditation?

Question: When people are sleeping during a very high meditation, do they receive anything?

Question: Why do I sometimes feel sad when I come out of meditation?

When you come out of your meditation, if you feel sorry, then you have to feel that you are making a mistake. You want to remain up in the tree and eat the ripe mango to your heart's content. You don't want to bring it down and distribute it to mankind, to your brothers and sisters who are hungry.

So when you go up, you have to feel the necessity of going up to the highest to collect the mangoes and bringing them down. You are bringing them down and they are meant for distribution. But if you come down and you feel sad, that means you want to eat them all by yourself upstairs. You don't want to have to bring them down. You will act like an ordinary person in a very miserly way.

Part VI — The hour of meditation

Question: If we meditate in the evening or at other times during the day, is it as beneficial as meditating early in the morning?

Now some disciples tell me that early in the morning it is very cold and they can't leave their bed and sit in front of the shrine. I sympathise with them, but what can I do? Such wonderful disciples I have — for various reasons they find it difficult to get up. To those disciples who said it was cold I said, "Please just sit on your bed; that is your shrine. Only do me a favour and just wash your eyes, your face and your nose; you don't have to take a proper shower. Then if you can put my picture in front of you while meditating, if you can look at my Transcendental picture, then that is enough. But please do not meditate while lying down. If you try to meditate while lying down, I will not be responsible for that meditation."

When one becomes a great spiritual Master, he has a kind of sleep called "yogic sleep". Even if my body appears to be asleep and everybody can hear me snoring from a distance, I will be able to prove to you later that I knew what was happening there in the room while I was asleep. When one realises God, he can do many things at a time. Once someone came into my room when I was sleeping. Later I told him, "I can tell you everything that happened. You stood in that corner, opened the window and so forth." I was snoring, but I was conscious at that time. Here I wish to say I can do many, many things at a time. But in your case, when you meditate, you have to be very careful and sit up and meditate. You don't want to sleep; you want to swim in the sea of light and delight.

Question: Recently we were meditating four or five times a day. Has the effort of doing this caused any general improvement in our consciousness during the day?

Some of you have been meditating four times a day. Out of a half hour session some of you have meditated well for, say, ten minutes, and out of a total of two hours during the day, you may have meditated extremely well for half an hour. Previously you meditated only half an hour for your God-realisation. Out of half an hour perhaps you have meditated well for only two minutes because you found that sleep did not leave you. Here you are meditating many times a day and each time you meditate well, you develop some capacity. This capacity you are using now for a special purpose. This capacity does not go away. At another time when you have another goal to achieve, you can use this capacity which you have acquired. Instead of meditating for God-manifestation, you can meditate not for any special purpose, but to become an absolutely perfect instrument of the Supreme.

Question: Should we try to get up spontaneously to meditate or should we set an alarm?

Question: Is it bad for someone to go back to sleep after meditating from two to three in the morning?

The only difficulty is that if you meditate from two to three or four o'clock, then afterwards there will be quite a few hours before you get up. If you get up at nine or ten o'clock, just because you meditated at two o'clock, then between seven and eight the vital forces — your own vital forces or the aggression of the earth which is agitated at seven or eight o'clock — will cause your consciousness to become agitated. The agitation from the earth's consciousness or from your own lower vital can enter into the results of the meditation which you did at two o'clock or three o'clock. So after your meditation, either you have to have a very peaceful sleep or you have to get up again at five or six o'clock. If you get up at nine o'clock or ten o'clock, just because you meditated at three o'clock, then the agitation and the hustle and bustle of life around you can disturb you totally.

Question: Once you said that if we concentrated on an idea for half an hour, it would work miracles.

Question: If during your meditation you feel comfortable and really inspired, can you increase your meditation time?

Question: If we start at the same time, can we meditate one day for half an hour and another day for an hour?

Question: If you set a time for your meditation and are able to get up earlier, should you still keep your time?

Question: Is it good to get up earlier than our appointed meditation time so that we can shower and get ready?

Question: If we are sleepy, is it all right to exercise?

Question: After five minutes of meditation I feel tired.

Question: What purpose do you have in offering a seven-hour meditation?

Question: Why do you hold such a long meditation?