Meditation: God's Blessing-Assurance

Meditation and self-discovery

What is the connecting link between our existence and God’s Existence? The connecting link is our meditation. When we meditate on God we have to feel that this is the only language that we can use in order to speak to God. Then we see to our surprise that God also has the same language. He does not have a different language from ours. He also uses the same language, which is meditation. When we meditate we speak to Him. When He meditates, which He always does, He speaks to us. Meditation is the common language of man and God.

Our illumination starts the day we feel the necessity of constant meditation. Meditation has to be practised not only daily and regularly, but constantly. Inner meditation can take place at every moment. What is this inner meditation? It is the inner sacrifice. When we meditate inwardly, we are trying to sacrifice something. What is that something? It is the imperfection in us, which comes from ignorance. When we are ready to sacrifice our imperfection and ignorance, we feel that our vessel is totally empty. Now it has to be filled again. Ignorance is replaced with knowledge, and imperfection with perfection. By whom? By God.

Here we are all seekers, seekers of the infinite Truth. Here and now let us try to enter into the life of Reality, with our proper understanding of Truth. The Truth tells us: “Start where you are. If you have desire, start with your desire. If you have aspiration, start with your aspiration. But start! Do not wait. The Hour has struck; now it is up to you either to walk, march, run or fly.” God is ready. Now we also have to be ready.

Question: Please tell me if I am right. Meditation is the easiest thing in the world when we think of the Supreme with devotion, surrender and pure love.

Question: How can I purify my mind so that I can have a good meditation?

When you say, “I have no mind,” this does not mean that you are becoming an animal again. Far from it. You are only saying, “I don’t care for this mind, which is bringing me so much impurity and torturing me so much.” When you say, “I have the heart,” you feel that the heart has some purity. But when you say, “I have the soul,” you are flooded with purity. Then, after some time, you have to go deeper and farther and not only say, “I have the soul,” but also “I am the soul.” The moment you say, “I am the soul,” and you meditate on this truth, at that time your soul’s infinite purity will come up and enter into the heart. Then from the heart, the infinite purity will enter into the mind. In this way you will purify your mind and your heart and you will have a wonderful meditation every day.

You have to know that the mind is almost always impure. It always brings in dark and bad thoughts. Even when it is not doing this, it is still a victim to doubt, jealousy, hypocrisy and fear. All negative things attack the mind first. You may reject them for a minute, but the next minute they will knock at your door again. This is the mind. But the heart is much, much purer. Even if you have fear or jealousy in the heart, the good qualities of the heart still come forward. Affection, love, devotion, surrender and other divine qualities are already in the heart. That is why the heart is much purer than the mind.

Question: Could you explain what inner hunger is?

If you enter into the spiritual life because of frustration, dissatisfaction or despair, you may not remain in the spiritual life. Today you are dissatisfied with someone or something, and tomorrow you will say, “No, let me try it again. Perhaps this time I will get satisfaction.” Here you are trying to do something in a human way. You have failed, and that is why you are dissatisfied, but tomorrow you may try again in a human way. But after a while, you will see that only dissatisfaction and frustration comes from desire. If you do not fulfil your desire, you are disappointed. Or even if you get the thing you wanted beyond your prayer, beyond your necessity, still you will not be satisfied. In desire life there is no satisfaction. Then you say, “No, I am not going to desire anything in a human way. I came from the Vast and I just want to enter into the infinite Vast.” This is aspiration.

When you aspire, you try to enter into the vast ocean of Peace, Light and Bliss. But when you desire, you try only to possess the object of your desire. When you aspire, you just jump into the reality and feel that that reality is yours. It is because of things like fear and doubt that you don’t dare accept the reality as your own.

Each individual has his own need. You need God right now; you want to have true accomplishment, true fulfilment in your life, so you want to go to the Source. But somebody else might need something totally different. If you need God, naturally He will give Himself to you. And if somebody else needs something else, God will give him that particular thing. But when God is asked for some material object, only God knows whether He will give it or not, because only God knows whether it is something that the person really needs. If a person gets the thing he is crying for, it may only increase his desire. Again, if he does not get it, he will be frustrated and displeased with God. But God has to decide whether it is best that he get the thing or not. In your case, since you are a sincere seeker, if you pray to God or meditate on God for Peace, Light or Bliss, even if He does not grant it to you the way you want, you will still be satisfied, for you will still have inner joy and inner peace. You will simply say, “He knows best. Perhaps I am not ready. That is why He is not giving me what I asked for. But He will give it to me the day I am ready.”

In the life of aspiration it is not actually your achievement that gives you satisfaction. It is your aspiration. The aspiration itself is your satisfaction.

In the spiritual life we do not progress by hook or crook. Spirituality cannot be achieved by pulling or by pushing; it is something spontaneous. I cannot thrust the spiritual life upon you and I cannot take your spiritual life or inner cry from you. But if you have something spiritual in you, I can inspire you. If you have one spiritual coin, then through my inspiration you can get millions of spiritual dollars. But to start with you have to have a little flame.

There are many who are fast asleep. For them spirituality is out of the question. No matter how sincerely we try, we cannot awaken them. You are on a spiritual path; that means that you are already up and awake. But if you try to pull down spiritual Light, you are making a mistake. Only when this Light comes on its own, when on the strength of your aspiration you bring it, can you receive it. Otherwise, when the Light descends, if you don’t have enough receptivity, the vessel will only break.

Question: I am looking for more joy in my life, but I don't feel confident about jumping into meditation to get it.

Question: Is it wrong to expect some result from our meditation?

The moment you have meditated well, try to feel that that is already your achievement. If you have meditated well, the Supreme is pleased but you also have to feel that the Supreme will give you the result in His own Way. Otherwise, what you expect may not be God’s Will.

Question: Why doesn't God make all our meditations equally good?

Question: Is there anything specific I can do to have a good meditation every day?

Why do people fail to have their best meditation everyday? The main reason is that they fail to renew their love for God, their faith in God, their surrender to God. Love, devotion, surrender — this is the way. Each morning we have to first inscribe in our heart with golden letters the words ‘love, devotion, surrender’. Every day when we start meditating we have to feel that with our whole heart we are offering ourselves to God. The day we entered the spiritual life, we offered our existence to God, it is true. But that offering was not complete and unconditional. And even today’s offering is not complete. But tomorrow, or in the near or distant future, this offering is bound to be complete.

You have to offer your whole existence to the Supreme as if you are placing a flower on a shrine. You have to feel that your limbs, hands and feet are like the petals of a flower. When you feel that your whole body has become a rose or a lotus, then offer it to the Supreme. If some of you do not use the term ‘Supreme’, then offer it to God, or to Christ or to anybody whom you call your Beloved, whom you regard as your Highest, your Supreme.

In the spiritual world it is obligatory to keep the colours blue, gold and green inside us. When we have blue, we enter into Infinity; when we have gold we enter into a higher realisation and manifestation, and when we have green, we enter into a valiant new life. Therefore, every day we try to wear these colours within. When we are wearing them we will see that our love, devotion, surrender and all other divine qualities are bound to come to the fore. And then we will become the heart’s flower, the flower of inner beauty, the flower of inner divinity, the flower of transcendental reality.

Question: I'm not as receptive as I would like to be. Why is this?

There is also another reason why we are not receptive. Until we are really sure of what we actually want, the life of desire or the life of aspiration, then the hostile forces will stand between our desire and our aspiration. Aspiration brings us to the goal, to the reality, but desire immediately makes friends with our enemies. Hostile forces are always on the alert; they try to divide us. They want to separate our aspiration from our desire. Then what do they do? They bring in desire and try to kill aspiration. Very often they succeed. But a spiritually alert person will take aspiration and enter into desire in order to transform it. If desire enters into aspiration, aspiration is ruined. If aspiration enters into desire, the desire is transformed.

In your case, if you become a victim of hostile attacks, these attacks come primarily for two reasons. The first reason is that your physical is mercilessly revolting against the heart’s psychic aspiration. You can’t get rid of all your undivine and negative qualities permanently because you are unconsciously cherishing negative thoughts. You still feel that these qualities are fulfilling for your outer life, your vital life. Your inner aspiration is running much faster than your physical capacity or urge. The physical is constantly playing the part of a robber. The soul is gaining something for you and the physical is robbing you and squandering it. When you receive something from the soul, you have to feed yourself with the soul’s light. But that you don’t do. You get the light from the soul and throw it all around. The physical gets light but does not utilise it for its own illumination.

Question: How can I increase my receptivity?

Question: If one has all faith in his Master, then what obstructs his receptivity?

Question: How can you stop yourself from worrying about whether you are having a good meditation or not?

If you want to show that you are doing a wonderful meditation so that I will be very pleased, at that moment your own sincerity will go away. You should feel, “I want to be sincerity; I want to be purity; I want to be luminosity; I want to be divinity.” If you mainly want to show that this is what you are, sincerity goes out of you. And the more it goes out of you, the sooner you will be exposed. Occasionally, when you are trying to show what you are, you may actually achieve those qualities, but very often false things will come forward.

Question: Could you speak on intensity in prayer?

Question: How can I meditate with more intensity?

Question: If you really don't know exactly what you are doing when you meditate, how can you try to improve your meditation?

The best thing is to identify with your Master’s consciousness, but if you find that difficult then start with divine ideas: “Today I want to feel that I am really a child of God.” This is not a mere feeling but an actual reality. Feel that the Virgin Mary is holding the child Christ. Feel that the Divine Mother is holding you in her arms like a baby. Then feel: “I really want to have Wisdom-Light. I want to walk with my Father. Wherever He goes I will go with Him. I will get Light from Him.”

Question: Sometimes I don't have the inspiration to meditate. How can I create it again?

Question: When I first began meditating at three o'clock in the morning, I used to have very good meditations and I was very inspired. But after a few days, I didn't have the same inspiration and it became very difficult.

Question: I was really inspired to meditate for five or six days, and then I woke up one morning and did not have the feeling that I wanted to practise my meditation. What can I do to spark myself without having to force things?

In order to maintain the same level of meditation, you have to be very spiritually advanced. I am not throwing cold water on you; far from it. I wish to say that in the beginning you should be happy if just at times you get very good, very high, sublime meditation. When you don’t have a good meditation, don’t allow yourself to become a victim to frustration. If you get frustrated, you are losing your capacity to an even greater extent. Then on the following day, at that time also, it will be impossible for you to meditate deeply.

If you don’t have a good meditation today, then try to forget about it. Tomorrow if you have a meditation that is a little better, try to remember it. The past is dust. The past has not given you realisation; that is why you are still praying and meditating. So why should you think of the past? You have to forget all that did not inspire you or encourage you to go farther. So if today’s meditation does not inspire you or has not given you most satisfactory results, try to forget it altogether.

You have aspiration and then you lose it. Then you cry for it, but you may not get the same aspiration back again. But here you have to realise that you are not an expert in meditation. Now your meditation is at the mercy of your inspiration or aspiration. When you are inspired, you have aspiration and you are ready to meditate. But this aspiration, this inner urge, will last only for a day or a few weeks and then it disappears. But when you become an expert, meditation will be at your command.

How can we become expert in anything? If we want to be a singer or a poet or a dancer, we have to practise daily. It is the same with meditation. When we practise meditation daily, there comes a time when it becomes spontaneous. If we regularly meditate once or twice a day, then we develop a kind of inner habit. Eating every day is an outer habit. If we did not eat, we could not exist on earth. Similarly, if we do not feed the soul, our inner being, every day, then the soul or the aspirant in us starves. And what happens then? We cannot reveal, we cannot manifest our own divinity.

Question: If I meditate too little I don't have energy throughout the day and if I meditate too long, I can't maintain my aspiration. How can I stabilise my energy level?

Question: When we miss a meditation, would it be a good idea to meditate for a longer time at the next meditation to make up for it?

Suppose you eat three times a day. Now early in the morning you didn’t have breakfast. At noon you missed your lunch. When it is time for dinner, if you want to eat all that you have not eaten in the morning and at noon, it will only upset your stomach. If you fast and don’t eat for two days or four days, then if you start trying to make up for the food that you didn’t eat during your fast, then you will run into trouble.

With meditation it is the same. You have inner capacity to meditate at fixed hours. You meditate early in the morning, at noon, in the evening and at night. If on a certain day you cannot follow this routine, it is better just to meditate most soulfully at the hours you have at your disposal. But if you try to increase the length of time, if you want to meditate two or three hours instead of half an hour because you missed the previous time, then it will be harmful. Your physical mind will not be able to bear the pressure. Instead of creating more capacity, this will break your capacity. It will create tremendous tension in your aspiration-self. Everything has to be done systematically, gradually. Gradually you will increase your capacity. Eventually you will be able to meditate for eight hours or ten hours at a stretch, but right now it is not necessary. When it is time you will be able to do it.

There are many stories about how aspirants get better results when they meditate soulfully and are not concerned about the number of hours. I wish to tell one story:

Narada was a great singer, a divine singer, and a great devotee of the god Vishnu. Once he became bloated with pride because he was Vishnu’s dearest devotee. Lord Vishnu wanted to smash his pride, so one day he said to Narada: “I want you to go into the world and visit my dearest disciple on earth.” Narada could not say it out loud to his Master, but inwardly he felt, “Your dearest disciple on earth? Who is it? Who could be dearer than I?” Vishnu said, “In a certain village there is a man who is a farmer, and this farmer is extremely devoted to me. I want you to go and visit him.” Narada went to the farmer’s house and stayed there for a few days. The farmer had a big family, with children and grandchildren. He shouldered a heavy responsibility, but early in the morning, before he went to cultivate the land, he uttered the name of Lord Vishnu three times most soulfully. Narada followed him into the field, and saw that at noon again he uttered the name of Lord Vishnu three times most soulfully. When he came back home he repeated Vishnu’s name three times more, and then he entered into his household affairs. For two or three days Narada observed the spirituality and daily meditation of the farmer.

Narada came back to Vishnu and said, “How can you say that that farmer is your dearest disciple? He repeats your name only three times in the morning, three times at noon, and three times at night? I repeat your name thousands and thousands of times during the day, and I have been doing it for so many years! How many years I have been praying to you, meditating on you, and chanting your name to inspire people!”

Vishnu said, “Wonderful, Narada. Now, I am thirsty. Please bring me a glass of water from the nearest pond.”

Narada went to fetch water for Vishnu, and there in the pond he saw a beautiful girl swimming. Narada fell in love with the girl and forgot to bring water for his Master. He married the girl and started a new life. They had a few children and in this way, many years passed. Then there was famine in the place where Narada was living and all his children died, and his wife died also. He was crying to relieve his suffering, “O, Lord Vishnu, save me, save me!” Vishnu came to him and said, “What about my glass of water?” and brought him back to reality.

Vishnu said, “It is just a minor thing to bring me a glass of water. But in the world of ignorance and illusion you lost all your devotion, aspiration, spirituality, everything. Now look at this farmer. He has such a big family; every day he is shouldering such heavy responsibilities, but even then he has the time to think of me, to meditate on me. I gave him his work of cultivating the fields; I gave him the responsibility of supporting a family. He discharges all his family responsibilities, but still he has time to think of me and meditate on me. But when I gave you something to do, you immediately forgot me.”

Question: Are there any exercises your disciples can practise to develop their will-power?

One. Hold the end of your thumb tightly in your first finger, and try to feel a pulsation only in the tip of your thumb. That pulsation is your life energy, your breath, your mission, your realisation, soul and Goal. It is all there in the tip of your thumb. Then look at your thumbnail and feel that there is your dream and reality. When an idea comes to you to do something, you will get all the will-power you need from your thumb. Incidentally, the thumb can also be used to determine whether or not a person has will-power. If a person’s thumb is pointed at the end, generally that person has will-power. The more pronounced the point, the more will-power he is likely to have.

Two. Sit cross-legged in front of a very small mirror, with your back straight. Do not hold the mirror in your hand, but set it up at eye level so that you will be able to see only your face. Try to see your third eye. Inside your third eye imagine a deep hole, and try to see inward, not downward, through the hole. Go as far in as possible. When you reach your ultimate capacity try to see all your love there — the love that you have for your life. When you have seen all your love, try to imagine me in that place. Feel there is your love-field and give it to me. When you can give it to the Supreme in me, then you will be able to accomplish in the inner world all the things that you wanted to do.

Three. Stand about three and a half feet away from a wall. Then, make a very tiny black circle on the wall at eye level, and inside the circle make one dot. It has to be black. With your eyes half open, gaze at the circle, focusing all your attention on it. Try not to see anything else except the circle. After two or three minutes, try to feel that you are totally one with the circle, that your whole existence is inside it. Then go beyond the circle to the other side of the wall. When you go through the circle and beyond it, try to look back at your own physical reality, the reality that is standing in front of the wall. You started from the physical body but now you have sent your subtle body to the other side of the wall. From there try to look back at your physical. This will give you some satisfaction.

Question: How can we meditate on the soul?

Question: Is it helpful to concentrate upon the golden aura, or should one hold a thought of God or some of His aspects in mind?

But if he wants to see God as Light, golden Light without form, or God as dynamic Energy, then he can approach God the infinite Energy or God the infinite Light. The seeker has to make the choice as to what he wants to see at the end of his Self-discovery: God the personal or God the impersonal, God the Form or God the Formless. God is both Form and Formless. But some people are more fond of God the Form and some are fond of seeing God the Formless. And again, there are some seekers who want to see God in all His Forms, God as a Person and also God in His impersonal aspect. It entirely depends on the seeker’s own aspiration. God is ready. It is you who will make the choice.

Question: Concentration and meditation give us certain power, even if we are not looking for it. Should we pray to God to keep us from misusing that power?

When you get any inner power, the best thing to do is not to use it until the psychic being is fully developed and you become totally one with your psychic being. At that time you can truly be the possessor of power. What happens when you get power from your meditation is that the power comes and possesses you; power becomes the owner of your outer life. When power possesses you, although you feel that you have got the power, at that time there is every possibility that the power is using you; then you feel that you are using the power wrongly. But this is not true; it is the power that is using you for a wrong purpose. But when the psychic being is fully developed and you become one with the psychic being, when you are able to speak to the psychic being and you are growing in its consciousness, there is no problem. You become the lord of your power; no matter what power enters into you or what power you develop, your inner being will guide you, protect you and show you how to use the power for a divine purpose.

In the spiritual life, until one has become totally one with God’s infinite Consciousness, it is not advisable to use power. People accumulate money and hold it. The spiritual power that you get during your meditation, I wish you to collect it and hold it. Then a time comes when you are fully realised and there is no chance of your misusing the power. Then you will use the power for the manifestation of the Truth, not to break the cosmic harmony. If power is used before realisation, most of the time it is used wrongly and then it creates more problems than harmony in the atmosphere.

Question: I seek strength when I meditate; am I seeking the wrong thing?

This power is not the power of a boxer, who will knock me down. That is only human power, unlit power. But the divine power is light itself. So when you pray to God to give you strength, you are really praying to God for light as well.

Question: When I meditate, sometimes I am so focused on trying to have a strong meditation, that I lose all sense of why I am meditating. How can I avoid trying to have a strong meditation?

The first thing you should do when you meditate is try to make your mind calm and quiet, and then let this calm, quiet mind, this silent mind, this tranquil mind, carry you. If you try by yourself to go towards the goal, it will be impossible. It is the meditation that can carry you. Just dive into the sea of this mind, which is far beyond the physical mind, and let the meditation carry you.

Question: Do we not sometimes mistake the strong concentration of the vital for a good or strong meditation?

Question: Sometimes after meditation I lose the joy that I have received from my meditation. Is there a method that would be helpful in holding onto that joy?

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?

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.

Question: If I don't have a good meditation when I am meditating with you, I feel miserable because I feel it is my fault.

Question: How should we concentrate on your transcendental picture?

Then, if you want to meditate, try to look at the whole picture. Try to feel that the entire picture is ready to give you whatever you want. If you want Peace, then try to look at the picture with the idea, the inner feeling, that the picture has infinite Peace. If you want Light, if you want Bliss, or anything divine, just feel that the picture has it, which is absolutely true.

Question: I have tried to meditate on your picture in the morning for about three months, but I don't think that I am even approaching meditation.

Yes!

Sri Chinmoy: What kind of crime have you committed that you have to be afraid of me? Who is afraid of me? A thief, a hooligan, a jailbird. You are none of those, so why should you be afraid of me? If somebody has done something very wrong, then they may be afraid of me. They will say that I shall expose all their secret inner defects and misdeeds. But, fortunately or unfortunately, here you will not be exposed. On the contrary, my compassion, like a mother, will hide your imperfections.

A spiritual Master is not an X-ray machine. With the X-ray machine, as soon as you stand in front of it, you are totally exposed. Similarly, when you stand in front of me, sooner than at once I can see everything, but I will be the last person to expose you to anybody, or complain about you to the Supreme, saying, “Look what a bad disciple I have.” If I did, the Supreme would certainly say, “Who asked you to take this person?” When I accept someone as my disciple, as I have accepted you, I accept all his imperfections, real or imaginary.

You should never be afraid of me. I am not a tiger; I am not a lion. I am not going to devour anybody. Never! Even if you feel that you are darkness itself and I am the sun, no harm. Anything that the earthly sun shines on immediately is exposed. But the sun which shines within me is the inner sun, which only illumines. This sun can illumine your darkness, but it cannot expose it. If it shines on darkness, it transforms it, it transforms everything into divinity, and then offers this divinity to the world at large. So there is nothing for you to worry about.

Many times disciples, for one reason or another, create millions of imaginary imperfections. Real imperfections disciples do have, everybody has. But they also create imaginary imperfections, because they feel that if they can tell me about lots of imperfections, I will show them more compassion, concern and love. This is all wrong. If you have real imperfections and tell me about them cheerfully because you wish to transform them, at that time I can help you. But when you create imperfections in order to draw more attention and concern, at that time I withdraw, for I know that there is no truth in them.

I have heard many complaints that my transcendental picture is aloof, indifferent or frightening. I do not agree with these opinions, but if you insist that they are true, then please meditate on some other picture of me, even if that particular picture is not of my very highest consciousness or realisation. Any picture of me wearing my dhoti, taken in any Centre, is good for you to meditate on. I am sure in those pictures that my consciousness will be at least one inch higher than my disciples’ consciousness. As long as my consciousness in any picture is one inch higher than yours, you can meditate on that picture with complete confidence. If you feel that my smiling picture inspires you more, please use it. If you feel that in some other picture I am not indifferent, then meditate on that one. I tell my disciples to meditate on my transcendental picture, but if after two or three months you are not successful in this, it means that there is something wrong between you and the picture. Since there are hundreds of other pictures, please select one that will help you in meditation. There is no hard and fast rule that you have to use my transcendental picture.

Question: When you call us up in front of the room to meditate facing the other disciples, what is the best approach for us to take?

Question: Many disciples become self-conscious and nervous when called up to meditate in front of you or the other disciples. How can this be controlled?

When you are self-conscious, what happens? You become self-critical. You immediately feel that someone is observing you and you wonder what he is thinking of you. You may think, “Perhaps while looking at me Guru is seeing that early this morning I told a lie. Now my lying consciousness has come to the fore in me, and he has caught me.” Or you may think, “Is Guru observing the good thing that I did early in the morning? Does he know the wonderful thing I did?” Usually, self-consciousness takes a critical form, but it may be also a subtle feeling in which you demand appreciation.

But why should you feel that others are judging you? I am only feeding you with Peace, Light, Delight and Power. Others may judge you according to their light, but they are all fools. They do not know anything about your inner life. When you go to sit down, another person will come up to meditate, and he too will have told a lie or done something bad. You are all in the same boat. The best thing is to play your part with utmost sincerity; neither show off nor criticise yourself, but enter into your present aspiration. Then, when you come up in front of me to meditate, I shall receive only devoted qualities.

Another reason you become nervous is that you enter into the nervousness and uncertainty of others around you. It is like you are all students in front of an examiner. You do not know what question the examiner is going to ask, but you look around to see what page of the textbook the other person is studying. You do not pay attention to your own inner truth, but think that the question will come from the page the other person is reading. “Let me read that particular page,” you say. Then you start to become nervous, not because you are trying to read the same passage he is reading, but because the other person himself is nervous. He is reading a passage, but he also feels that perhaps this is not the right passage. Already he is uncertain, and when you start reading his passage, you enter into his consciousness and take on his uncertainty and fear.

How can you control your nervousness? In your life of aspiration you always have to feel, “If Guru asks me to do something, he has given me the capacity to do it. If he asks me to meditate in front of eighty or a hundred people, then he has definitely given me the capacity to do it well. He is not asking me in order to see how much capacity I have or how much I can show. He has already given me the capacity.” A mother will not put a very heavy burden on the shoulders of a child. The mother knows that the child will not be able to hold it that he will collapse. The mother gives the child only what she knows he can easily carry. Similarly, in the spiritual life, when I ask a disciple to come forward, I have already given him the necessary strength and capacity.

Question: Guru, sometimes you say that certain people do very good meditation. Can you tell us how the people who meditated best today did it?

Question: Guru, there is a thought that inspires me and I would like to know if I could meditate on it. Sometimes I think of you as a child who is playing with me, and that I am a child too. Is that OK?

Question: Is it possible to bring our meditative consciousness into the work that we do in the outside world?

How can we develop this kind of capacity? In the beginning, it is impossible. If somebody says he has entered into the spiritual life today and today he has this capacity, rest assured that he is fooling himself. But this capacity is like a muscle. When you take exercise, you develop your muscles. In the spiritual life also, if each day you practise meditation regularly, devotedly and soulfully, then you are bound to develop these inner capacities. Then, when you are in the office, when you are in school or when you are in some other place with your friends, you will feel an inner presence guiding you. Even if you talk about earthly, mundane things you will not lose the inner wealth that you have accumulated during your meditation.

In the beginning, perhaps the seeker starts with only five minutes of meditation early in the morning. Then a day comes when he can sit and meditate for half an hour, then an hour, then two hours; and he can meditate well more often, not just on rare occasions. Some people sit, but they are not meditating at all. But if somebody can meditate for two or three hours at a stretch with perfect equanimity, without losing his mental balance, naturally he has made some progress in his inner strength, inner power and inner light. Everything depends on the disciple’s achievement. Things he has really achieved in the spiritual life, he can use. If I have money, I can give it to you if I want to; but if I don’t have money, in spite of my best intentions, I will not be able to give it to you. Inner power, inner light and all the divine qualities are inside you. Your inner being has accumulated them. Now these qualities have to be brought to the fore.

Question: What happens if we are meditating next to someone who is thinking worldly thoughts?

Question: How can we meditate twenty-four hours a day?

Your question should be, “How is it possible for us to have constant aspiration?” Constant aspiration you can have in each activity. Right now you are meditating here. From here you will go home and eat. When you are eating, instead of thinking of the outer world, you can meditate, or think of your Master. You can think of love, purest love, and how you can love the whole world. You can think of devotion and how you can devote your whole life to your Inner Pilot. You can think of surrender and how you can surrender your ignorant life to God. When you harbour these divine thoughts in your mind instead of undivine, silly thoughts, worldly thoughts, then what are you doing? You are meditating. People will think that you are doing nothing but eating. But you are doing something infinitely more significant.

Like this you can constantly aspire while you are in the store. It is not the money you get from the customer that is important. You are giving what you have and the customer is giving you what he has. But while you are giving, you have to feel that you are offering the light that you have in the form of the things you sell. And when a person gives you a five-dollar bill or a ten-dollar bill, don’t think of it as money, but think that that person is giving you light. Then your light and his light become one and when you are conducting your business in light — in your light and his light — you are aspiring.

Editor's preface to the first edition