Question: Can you tell us how to concentrate and meditate?

Sri Chinmoy: Concentration, meditation and contemplation: these are the three rungs on the spiritual ladder. First we concentrate, then we meditate, then we contemplate. I wish you to imagine a flower in front of you or, if you can, imagine the flower blooming inside your heart. Now we shall concentrate. In the beginning, our concentration will be focused on the whole flower. There are quite a few petals and leaves, and gradually we will try to focus our attention on the tiniest possible existence of the flower. And then again, if we feel like it, our concentration will go from the tiniest portion to the whole flower, or from the soul of the flower to the body of the flower. This is how we perfect our concentration.

So when we concentrate, we can go from the largest portion of the flower to the smallest portion, or from the body to the soul. Again, we can go from the smallest portion to the largest, from the soul to the body. Either we can contract our consciousness or expand our consciousness. Either way is most effective.

When we meditate, we do not allow any bad thoughts to enter into our mind. If a good thought, a progressive thought, comes we shall allow it to grow. But if any undivine thought comes in we shall immediately try to destroy it. An undivine thought is like a thief, and we shall not allow the thief to enter into our room. But if it is a friend who wants to enter, we shall welcome him. Joy, love, peace: these are our friends. We shall allow them to enter into us. But fear, doubt, anxiety, worry, insecurity and impurity are our enemies. In meditation we shall be meditating upon vastness — either the vast blue sky or a vast expanse of water. Meditation means oneness with vastness.

When we contemplate, we shall offer our body, vital, mind, heart and soul with utmost love and joy to our Beloved Supreme, so that He can make us His perfect instrument for His manifestation. He alone is our Beloved Supreme. He alone is our highest Reality. We shall contemplate on the highest Absolute, our Beloved Supreme. In contemplation, we become one with the object or subject of our contemplation. This moment we are the Divine Lover and the Supreme is the Supreme Beloved; the next moment we are the Supreme Beloved and the Supreme is the Divine Lover. This is contemplation.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Palmistry, reincarnation and the dream state, Agni Press, 1977
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