Concentration, meditation, contemplation¹³

Concentration, meditation and contemplation are of utmost importance in the spiritual life. Therefore, let us try to concentrate, meditate and contemplate. We shall now concentrate. Try to look at the entire flower for a few seconds. While you are concentrating on the entire flower, please feel that you are the flower and also that this flower is growing inside your heart, in the inmost recesses of your heart. You are the flower and, at the same time, you are growing inside your heart. Then, gradually try to concentrate on one particular petal, any petal that you select. At this time feel that that petal is the seed form of your reality-existence. Again, in a few minutes' time, please concentrate on the entire flower. At that time feel that it is the universal reality. So right now concentrate on the flower itself and then a few minutes later on one petal. In this way you go back and forth. And please do not allow any thought to enter into your mind. Try to make your mind absolutely calm, quiet, tranquil, and kindly keep your eyes half open.

Now kindly close your eyes and try to see the flower that you have concentrated upon inside your heart. Then, in the same way, kindly concentrate on the flower inside your heart with your eyes closed.

Now we shall meditate. Kindly keep your eyes half open and imagine the vast sky. Either try to see or feel the vast sky right in front of you. In the beginning try to feel that the sky is in front of you; then later please try to feel that you are as vast as the sky, or that you are the vast sky itself.

Now kindly close your eyes and try to see and feel the sky inside your heart. That is to say, please feel that you are now the Universal Heart, which you truly are. You are now the Universal Heart, and inside you is the sky that you meditated upon and identified yourself with. Your heart is infinitely, infinitely vaster than the sky, so you can easily house the sky within yourself.

Concentration we have done. Meditation we have done. Now we shall contemplate.

Kindly try to imagine a golden being or figure. Try to feel that this golden being is infinitely more beautiful than the most beautiful child that you have ever seen on earth. This being is our beloved Lord Supreme. We are divine lovers, supreme lovers, and the golden being is our beloved Lord Supreme.

Now we shall try to imagine the presence of our Beloved on the top of a mountain in the Himalayas or at the very bottom of the Pacific Ocean, whichever is easier for us. Please try to feel your existence and the Presence of your Supreme Beloved Lord at the top of the highest mountain or at the very bottom of the ocean. Once you feel this, then in silence you smile.

Then, after a few seconds, please feel that you are the Beloved Supreme and that the golden being is the Supreme Lover. It is like divine hide-and-seek. When you become the Supreme Beloved, the divine lover seeks you. When you become the divine lover, you seek the Supreme Beloved. When you are the Supreme Beloved, the divine lover searches for you; and when you are the divine lover, you search for the Beloved Supreme. So one moment you are the supreme lover and the next moment you are the Supreme Beloved Lord. Kindly do this with your eyes half open in the beginning.