Meditation: humanity's race and Divinity's Grace, part 1

Morning and evening love

In the morning

Of my prayer-bird.

In the evening

Life-perfecting

Silence.

Part I — Techniques of meditation

Question: How do you learn to concentrate?

What do we mean by concentration? We mean inner vigilance, alertness. There are thieves all around us and within us. Who are the thieves? Fear, doubt, worry and anxiety. These inner thieves are the real thieves, not the thieves who steal our money. When we start to concentrate, we have to feel that we will not allow any thieves to enter into our minds. When we are concentrating, we make it hard for hostile forces to enter into us. Otherwise, we become victims to the undivine effects of the wrong forces.

Please try this exercise to develop concentration. In Sanskrit it is called tratak, which means 'gazing'. First wash your eyes properly with cold water, not warm water or hot water. Then make a very small circle on the wall at your own eye-level, and inside it make a dot. It should be black, not blue or red or any other colour. Then stand facing a wall. There should be a distance of about three and a half feet between you and the wall. Focus your attention on the circle with your eyes relaxed and half open. The force of your concentration should come from the middle of your forehead. After three or four minutes, open your eyes fully, and then try to feel that your eyes have covered your whole body. Feel that from head to foot you are all eyes. Your whole physical existence has become nothing but vision. Then please concentrate on the dot inside the circle. Then you have to start making the object of your concentration smaller. After a few seconds try to feel that your whole body has become as tiny as this dot on the wall. Try to feel that the dot is another part of your own existence. Then you will enter into the dot, pierce through it and go to the other side of the dot. From the other side, you have to look back and see your own body. Your physical body is on one side, but on the strength of your concentration you have sent your subtle body through the point of concentration into the object. Your subtle body is now on the other side. Through your subtle body you see your physical body and through your physical body you see your subtle body.

When you began to concentrate, the existence in your physical body became all vision. At that time the dot was your reality. When you entered into the dot, then vision and reality become totally one. You are the vision and you yourself are the reality. When you look back at yourself from the dot, the process becomes reversed. Now you are the vision there, and the place to which you are returning is your reality. At this time, again the vision and the reality become one. When you can see it in this way, your concentration is absolutely perfect.

Question: The moment I sit down to meditate, all kinds of silly or ugly thoughts come into my mind. Is there any specific technique you can recommend to help me overcome these thoughts?

When you see that a thought is about to enter you, please try to muster your soul's will from your heart and bring it right in front of your forehead. The moment your soul's will is seen by the intruding thought, the thought is bound to disappear.

First think

First think of God

Do not proceed

First think of Compassion

Do not proceed

First think of your own perfection

Do not proceed

Question: It is difficult for me to concentrate on my heart for longer than just a few minutes. Is there any advice you can give me?

Question: When we want to concentrate or meditate on a special thought or problem, how should we do it?

Now let us take a thought. You will say that naturally you concentrate only on good thoughts. But unfortunately, we do unconsciously meditate on bad thoughts. Jealousy, doubt, suspicion — all these we cherish unconsciously. When this kind of bad thought comes, you have to feel that the bad thought represents a person. Just think of jealousy, fear, doubt and hypocrisy as people, and immediately give them a human form: "This fellow has undivine qualities." When it is a good thought, also give it form: "This man has all good qualities — humility, sincerity and so on."

Question: Guru, how important is it to meditate with our eyes open? Sometimes I can feel your presence more when my eyes are closed.

When you keep your eyes closed during meditation and enter into the world of sleep, you may enjoy all kinds of fantasies. Your fertile imagination will make you think that you are entering into the angel world. There are many ways you can make yourself believe that you had a wonderful meditation. In the ashram where I once lived, elderly members who had been there for thirty or forty years would enter into their "highest meditation" and get caught by a nightmare and start screaming. But they were not aware of it. And then, when someone shook them, they would say, "What are you doing? Why are you disturbing me? I was in my highest meditation?" I had a cousin who used to meditate eight or twelve hours a night with her eyes closed and get up the next morning and quarrel and fight with others. This is not meditation; this is a very easy way of self-deception.

If you keep your eyes open, then at that time you can become the judge of your own meditation. If you go very high in your meditation and have a really good vision, you will not feel it is all hallucination if your eyes are open. If you have a really good vision when your eyes are open, you are not going to lose it. And if it is a false vision, you will know it immediately.

If you are having a good meditation with your eyes closed and you feel, say, a cockroach, you will immediately jump up startled or agitated. While you are in a higher world, if your eyes are closed and this creature of Mother Earth disturbs you, at that time there is no connecting link between that particular creature and your own existence. Automatically you become frightened or annoyed. You feel, "Here I am in my highest, and this undivine creature is bothering me." Because you are agitated and disturbed, your meditation disappears. But if you keep your eyes open a little, you know that you belong to this world. You are maintaining your poise and inner power here on earth. You are keeping your mastery over the physical plane.

When you keep your eyes open, you act like a hero in the battlefield of life. It is best to meditate with the eyes partly open and partly closed. This kind of meditation, with the eyes half-open, is called the Lion's meditation. If the eyes are wide open and staring, you will be straining yourself. Half open is always best. In this way, aspiration can flow through the eyes.

You are the root of the tree and, at the same time, the topmost bough. The part of you that has the eyes half open feels it is the root, symbolising Mother Earth. The other part, with the eyes half-closed, is the topmost branch, the world of vision or, you can say, Heaven. A tree without roots is no tree; and again, a tree must also have branches. When you keep your eyes partly opened and partly closed, you can feel yourself a tree in totality, right from the root up to the topmost bough. Your consciousness is up on the highest level and, at the same time, your consciousness is here on earth, trying to transform this world.

When your eyes are half-open, you are focusing your conscious attention not only on the physical plane but also on the subconscious plane. Since your eyes are partly open, you will not fall asleep and end up in one of the lower worlds. You are threatening the world of the subconscious. "Look, I am all alert. You cannot take me into your domain." You are conquering and gaining mastery over the subconscious world of sleep.

At the same time, the other world, the world of alertness where you are keeping your vigilance, is also inviting you with its noise and distractions. If the outer world disturbs you, in the beginning you may want to keep your eyes closed. But when you become more advanced in your spiritual life and have become inwardly stronger, you can overcome these distractions.

Let us take meditation as something very powerful and constant. In the battlefield of life, we have to conquer fear, doubt, anxiety, worry and all our imperfections. When we want to achieve something on the physical plane, we never keep our eyes closed. If we want to win a race here on earth, we can't run with our eyes closed. We will stumble and fall. It is the same in the spiritual life. When we want to run the fastest, when we want to develop inner power, we have to be vigilant, dynamic, alert all the time. We have to run with our eyes open.

The physical mind sometimes has to be convinced of what we are doing. Suppose the Master is bringing down Peace, Light and Bliss. If the disciple is very receptive and can identify his existence with the Master's inner operation, then that person need not keep his eyes open. But even this type of disciple will benefit if he keeps his eyes open and sees what the Master is doing, for then the Master's physical eyes can convince the seeker's mind. The light actually is coming from the Master's spiritual eye, the third eye, but it is offering its wealth to the seeker through the physical eyes. In the movement of the Master's eyes there is light. If one wants to receive the Master's light devotedly, he can do so more effectively if he actually sees the Master's eyes. Otherwise, if the seeker keeps his eyes shut, he may think, "Perhaps the Master is not even meditating on us. He may be here physically, but his consciousness is roaming somewhere else." If, however, the seeker's eyes are open and he sees his Master in deep meditation right in front of him, then he is more convinced of what the Master is doing for him. After meditating for a few minutes with his eyes open, if at that time the disciple has identified himself with the Master totally, then even if he closes his eyes he is bound to see and feel the Master right in front of him.

Prayer

Prayer

He cries and cries

Meditation

He smiles and smiles

Prayer

Where to go.

Meditation

How to live.

Question: Do you feel it is necessary to assume a particular posture when you meditate, to sit in the lotus position, for example?

Usually when a beginner enters into a spiritual path, he becomes a victim to laziness. Meditation is something new to him and he may not get a satisfactory result all at once, or he may not have the necessary patience. So it is necessary for him to discipline himself as quickly as possible. But for one who has already tasted some inner food — inner Light, Peace or Bliss — it is not necessary to go through this rigorous discipline because meditation has become spontaneous. While he is walking, while he is doing office work, his mind is on God, he is meditating on God. While he is talking to a person, only his mouth is functioning but his mind is somewhere else.

Question: It is said that if one can sit on the floor with his legs crossed for an hour or so completely quiet and peaceful, not thinking any thoughts, then energy will rise up the base of his spine. But this has never happened to me.

But unfortunately you are making one mistake. If you feel that just by sitting cross-legged for fifteen minutes or half an hour you are going to develop inner energy or get higher experiences, then you are mistaken. There are many people in the Indian villages who can sit for hours cross-legged. But ask them if they have had any spiritual experiences and, if they are sincere enough, they will say no. There are many who have been practising asanas, physical postures, for many years without ever having had even one solitary experience. Why? It is not just the actual posture. It is not the pose or how you sit. It is the aspiration. If you have the capacity, you can even lie down and meditate. You can run and meditate.

Meditation has to come from deep within, like the cry of a child hungry for food. When the child is hungry, he cries desperately, and the mother comes running, whether she is in the kitchen or in the living room, to feed the child because she feels that the cry comes from the child's heart. If you feel the inner cry for God or if you feel that you need to develop this divine energy within you, then you are bound to develop it. This energy is bound to climb up.

So please do not worry about sitting in the strict lotus posture, padmasana. Just sit straight but relaxed. When you meditate, do not stiffen your body. Sometimes people do padmasana, this cross-legged lotus posture, but they bend forward or make their whole body very stiff. And when the body is stiff, naturally the divine qualities, the fulfilling qualities, which are flowing and streaming, will not be received. So when you sit cross-legged, if your body is rigid, then please immediately forget about your posture. Only try to sit straight but relaxed.

Question: Sometimes I like to meditate while I am lying down. Is this wrong?

Question: In our meditation, can we consciously invoke our soul? And if so, how?

Now, if you know that when the soul comes forward you make faster progress, how can you bring the soul to the fore? This is the easiest way: when you start meditating, feel that you do not have the body, you do not have the vital, you do not have the mind, you do not have even the heart — you have only the soul. The only thing in your possession, the soul, is the most precious thing on earth.

Next, feel that the thing that you cherish most, treasure most, should become your whole life. Do not feel that you have to possess it; feel that you have to grow into it. When you are in a very deep meditative mood, all of you cherish me, your Guru. Why? Because you feel that your Guru has realised something, has achieved something. This is your first realisation. Your second realisation should be that it is not enough just to feel that I have realised something; you also have to grow into that realisation.

Question: What is the best attitude to have when meditating with others?

Try all the time to go up. And when you have gone up to some extent, feel that you are a bird with two wings. Now what will you do? Just come down and lift your brothers and sisters with your wings. Your wings are very powerful, so you come down and take your brothers and sisters up. While you are with nice people, who are also doing good meditation, this is the best attitude to take.

But suppose you meditate with another group. Then you will get a different vibration, a different experience. Suppose you feel that there are people with a lower standard of meditation beside you, people who don't know how to meditate, or who are enjoying vital thoughts, emotional thoughts, impure thoughts. They are sitting beside you trying to fool you, trying to make you believe that they are doing a wonderful meditation, but perhaps they are thinking of their boyfriends or girlfriends, or other emotional things, and you feel that a very ugly vibration is entering into you. At that time what will you do? You will go with your own aspiration to the Highest and then, when you have solid strength, you will try to protect yourself. Do not allow these people to enter into you, and you will not enter into them. If you want to enter into them, you will be caught: whatever you got during your meditation you will lose. And if you allow them to come into you, it is like allowing foreign elements to enter into you; they will enter into you and ruin you.

Question: How may a disciple receive the maximum benefit during collective meditation in a group?

I maintain perfect freedom

I maintain perfect freedom

I pray only to my Lord Supreme.

I maintain perfect freedom

I meditate only on my Liberator Supreme.

I maintain perfect freedom

I love only my Beloved Supreme.

Up and down

Prayer goes up;

Aspiration goes up;

Meditation goes up;

Surrender goes up;

Part II — The hour for meditation

Question: When is the best time for meditation if you want something like peace, for example?

If you need power, meditate at twelve noon. The blazing sun and the most dynamic hour of the day will help you.

If you need joy, meditate early in the morning between five and six. Mother Earth, with her sweetest love, will help you.

If you need patience, meditate in the evening. Meditate sitting at the foot of a tree. Meditate on the tree. Its sacrificing consciousness will help you.

If you need love, meditate at midnight at your own picture. Your Inner Pilot will help you.

Question: In your answer you said that the best time to meditate for power is at twelve noon. What if it is impossible for me to meditate at that time of day?

Question: When is the best hour to meditate? Is six o'clock in the morning early enough, or is there a better time?

At noon nature becomes restless and wild: then we do not get so much satisfaction from universal nature. Again, in the evening nature becomes quiet and peaceful. She is preparing to rest and she does not bother us; rather, she helps us do what we feel like doing. When we meditate in the evening, we can look at the setting sun. At that time, we should try to feel that we have become totally one with cosmic nature. We should feel that we have played our part during the day most satisfactorily and, like the sun, we are going to retire.

The very best time to meditate is between three and four o'clock in the morning. This is the Brahma Muhurta or Hour of God. In Indian tradition this is a most auspicious time for prayer and meditation. The Vedic seers came to discover that this is the very best time, for this is when all the cosmic gods meditate. This is when they start to perform their heavenly duties at the express command of the Supreme. At that divine hour, you too can begin your inner journey. No matter what your standard is, even if you are a complete beginner, you will encounter very little resistance if you meditate at this time. But the Westerner who goes to bed at twelve o'clock or one o'clock cannot expect to be able to meditate at three or four o'clock. If he wants to meditate at four o'clock, he should go to bed by nine the previous evening. For an aspirant who has just entered into the spiritual life, seven or eight hours of sleep is essential. If you start sleeping only three or four hours just to get up at four o'clock it will tell on your health. Spiritually you will derive no benefit and the body will stand as an obstacle to your inner progress. After you make some progress in the spiritual life, then gradually you can reduce your hours of sleep. When your physical starts receiving Light from Above, its need for sleep diminishes.

So if you cannot meditate at that hour, then the best time to meditate is as soon as possible after you get up, before you start your daily activities, but preferably before seven o'clock. Before the outer world attacks you or demands anything from you, you should enter into the inner world with the idea of fulfilling yourself. In this way, you are performing your inner duty before you start fulfilling your outer duty. You are feeding the Divine Child within you before you have to feed your physical children and take care of the members of your immediate family. If God comes first, then everything will go smoothly. If you can please the dearest in you, which is God, before you enter into your earthly activities, then naturally you are doing the right thing.

When the day dawns, you want to start your life with inspiration. If you lose inspiration in the morning, then it will be gone most of the day. To get inspiration, early in the morning, please offer your joy, love and gratitude to God, even if you have very little to offer; God will give you much more. He will make you feel that you are His true child and give you the feeling of inseparable divine oneness with Him. So if you can offer love, joy and gratitude early in the morning, then you can receive the best form of meditation.

What it has

His concentration has given him

With Power he has changed

His meditation has given him

With Love he has changed

His contemplation has given him

With his Oneness he becomes man

With his Oneness he becomes God

Question: If I get up at three or four o'clock in the morning, is it bad for me to go back to sleep after my meditation?

Question: Is it important for seekers to meditate regularly at an appointed hour every day?

If God comes and knocks at your heart's door, at that time will you be fast asleep? You and He agreed to a certain hour, but when He comes you are fast asleep. In an ordinary case, the teacher won't excuse you. But here, fortunately, God is the teacher and He will forgive you. He will come every day. If you are not there tomorrow, again you will be forgiven. But you will not be able to excuse yourself. Your oneness with God will not allow you to forgive yourself. Your soul will create such pangs that you will feel miserable. Your soul's love for the Highest is very important to you. When your Eternal Friend is coming, the host wants to be ready much before the time.

For everything there is a specific time. There is a time for breakfast, a time for lunch and a time for supper. This regularity you maintain for your physical body. In the spiritual life also, the Divine Child within you needs to be fed with divine food. To feed the Divine Child you should have a specific time.

You cannot live on yesterday's food. Yesterday you ate; that is why you are strong. But today you have to eat again. In the spiritual life also, every day you have to eat. You feed the body three times a day, so why can't you feed the soul at least once a day? When you feed the body, you do not have or cannot have a most delicious meal each time. But if you want to you can have a most delicious meal at least once a day. Early in the morning, you can also have a most delicious spiritual meal, which you can offer to your soul.

Those who are not meditating regularly, please try to meditate regularly. Those who are meditating regularly, please try to meditate soulfully. From today on, try to increase the sincerity in your meditation. If you are regular and soulful, you will notice your own progress and the day will come when you become an expert. At that time, you will be able to meditate while you are driving a car, while doing office work, while you are working in the kitchen. At that time you don't need a fixed hour. Before one becomes a good dancer, one has to step carefully, but when one becomes a real expert, then the steps come automatically. Now there comes a time when you can meditate twenty-four hours a day even though you are working, talking to people, doing household activities and other things. But before that, please have a fixed time and also a fixed place. You should not meditate one day in the living room, the next day in the kitchen. No! Please meditate at one place and at a certain time. If you have a fixed time and place for meditation, God will be there at a particular hour waiting for you.

Now, if one day you have to miss your appointed hour, and if it is unavoidable, don't feel miserable. But do not let the hour go by out of inertia, or negligence, or out of the whimsical feeling that because you have meditated for a few days now you can take a short rest. This kind of idea must not be cherished at all.

Question: How long should I meditate? Is fifteen or twenty minutes enough, or should I meditate longer?

A muscle is developed by taking physical exercise. Meditation is an inner exercise; if you practise regularly, its power increases. When you take physical exercise daily, even if for only five minutes, you strengthen your muscles. Then, after a few months you can take exercise for half an hour, an hour or two hours at a time. Similarly, if you meditate soulfully each day, then there comes a time when you make progress.

It is not how many hours you meditate but how you meditate. If you can meditate soulfully and devotedly for fifteen minutes and sincerely cry for Peace, Light and Bliss, that is better than three hours of meditation without any life in it. When you meditate, if there is a living presence in it, then that is meditation. Otherwise it is no better than sleep or death.

Three suns

The outer sun shines bright

My inner sun conquers my ignorance

My God-sun embraces me

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I shall get up

Since today I am dead-tired.

Tomorrow I shall meditate on God,

And insecure heart

Tolerance-might.

Tomorrow I shall definitely love God,

To please my body, vital, mind and heart.

But tomorrow without fail

The inner and outer setting

Question: As far as physical surroundings are concerned, where is the best place to meditate?

Question: Why do you use flowers and burn candles and incense when you meditate?

Together stay, together play

The murmuring of the life-river dies

The functioning of the unlit mind ceases

The dancing of the heart begins

Together stay,

Question: In connection with your meditation, do you follow any dietary rules? For example, is it necessary to be a vegetarian in order to follow the spiritual life?

There are some parts of the world where it is exceptionally cold and people living there find it impossible to live on vegetables alone. What can they do? They must eat meat. Or there are some sincere seekers whose physical constitutions are very weak. From the beginning of their lives, they have been eating meat, and now they have formed such a habit — such a bad habit, you can say — that without meat they cannot manage even for a day. On the one hand, they have sincere aspiration, but on the other hand, their bodies revolt. In such rare cases, these aspirants should also eat meat.

Question: Does meditation require fasting or can you do it after eating?

And if you have meditated properly for half an hour or an hour, wait for at least fifteen minutes or an half hour before having a meal, because the result of the meditation should be assimilated before you enter into the world of food. During that half hour, you can move around or read if you like. You may take a very small quantity of milk, soup or juice, but do not immediately eat a full meal. If you want to make a choice between meditation before the meal or after the meal, I always advise the seeker to meditate before the meal. Meditate for half an hour or so, then take fifteen minutes rest, and then eat. In that way the result of the meditation will be assimilated. But if you want to meditate after eating, even if you take an hour and a half rest, sometimes a lethargic consciousness will stand in the way of your highest meditation.

Question: Would you speak a little about proper breathing in meditation?

When you breathe in, try to breathe in as slowly and quietly as possible, so that if somebody placed a tiny thread in front of your nose, it would not move at all. And when you breathe out, try to breathe out even more slowly than when you breathed in. If possible, leave a short pause between the end of your exhalation and the beginning of your inhalation. If you can, hold your breath for a few seconds. But if it is difficult, do not do it. Never do anything that will harm your organs or respiratory system.

Each time you breathe in, try to feel that you are bringing into your body Peace, infinite Peace. Now what is the opposite of Peace? Restlessness. When you breathe out, please try to feel that you are expelling the restlessness of your inner and outer body, and the restlessness that you see all around you. When you breathe this way, you will find restlessness leaving you. After practising this a few times, please try to feel that you are breathing in Strength and Power from the universe, the cosmos. And when you exhale, try to expel your fear. When you breathe out, all your fear will come out of your body. After doing this a few times, try to feel that what you are breathing in is Joy, infinite joy, and what you are breathing out is sorrow, suffering and melancholy.

Another thing you can try when you breathe in is to feel that you are breathing in not air, but cosmic energy. Feel that tremendous cosmic energy is entering into you with each breath, and that you are going to use it to purify yourself: your body, vital, mind and heart. Feel that there is not a single place in your body that has not been occupied by the flow of cosmic energy. It is flowing like a river inside you. When you feel that your whole being has been washed or purified by the cosmic energy, then feel that you are breathing out all the rubbish inside you, all the undivine thoughts, impure actions, obscure ideas. Anything inside your system that you call undivine, anything that you do not want to claim as your own, feel that you are exhaling it.

This is not the traditional yogic Pranayama, which is more complicated and systematised. But what I have just told you is the most effective spiritual method of breathing. If you practise this method of breathing, you will soon see that what you are doing is not imagination; it is reality. In the beginning you have to use your imagination, but after a while you will see and feel that it is not imagination at all, but reality. You are consciously breathing in the energy which is flowing all around you in the cosmos, purifying yourself, and emptying yourself of everything undivine. But this breathing has to be done in a very conscious way, not in a mechanical way. If you can breathe this way for five minutes every day, you will be able to make very fast progress.

When I pray, when I meditate

When I pray

My crying heart,

My dreaming heart.

When I meditate

God caresses my soul,

Editor's preface to the first edition