Meditation¹²

Meditation awakens our body-consciousness, strengthens our vital, illumines our mind, purifies our heart and simplifies our life. Dear friends, dear brothers and sisters, here we are all seekers. Since we are seekers, we all need meditation.

Everyone meditates either consciously or unconsciously. There is not a single human being on earth who does not meditate. But most of us are not aware of our meditation. We all want peace of mind. Whatever method we adopt to bring about peace of mind is our way of meditation. We all want happiness. Whatever we do in order to achieve happiness is our way of meditation. We all need love, love in the inner world and love in the outer world, and for that we do various things. Whatever we do in order to achieve love is our way of meditation.

There is nobody on earth who is without desire. Again, there are some people who are awakened to some extent. Although they have desires, they feel that the desire-life is the life of a beggar and will never be able to satisfy them. In the desire-life, from an iota of wealth we try to get more wealth. But unless and until we achieve boundless inner wealth — infinite joy and love — we will never actually be happy. When we realise this, at that time we give up the desire-life and enter into the life of aspiration. Aspiration deals with infinite Peace, infinite Light and infinite Bliss, which we all have in the inmost recesses of our hearts. If we want to bring to the fore all the divine wealth that we have within and achieve boundless happiness, we can do so only on the strength of our meditation.

In this world everybody wants freedom. The freedom that we want is the freedom from the doubting, suspicious, impure and insecure mind. If we can free ourselves from our mind, then we can get the joy, peace, love and fulfilment that at every moment we are looking for. If we can have peace of mind, then we will have everything, for inside peace looms large our complete and perfect satisfaction. It is only by silencing our earth-bound mind that we can find our Heaven-free reality-existence and claim it as our own, very own.

We may study hundreds and hundreds of books on meditation. We may discuss meditation for hours and hours with our friends. But only meditation-power itself actually can give us peace. Meditation is the art of silencing the mind that tortures us at every moment. If we can meditate soulfully for even a few minutes, then for hours afterwards no uncomely thoughts can attack our mind or disturb its poise and tranquillity. And it is inside the poise of our mind that our real divinity, which is oneness universal, at every moment grows. By virtue of our meditation, our thought-world will be transformed into the will-world, and our everyday life unmistakably will be inundated with peace — the peace that grows, the peace that glows, the peace that embraces all mankind.

Why do I meditate? I meditate so that I can give to the world what my heart has to offer—love and the feeling of oneness. I meditate to remind myself of the dream that I have been treasuring — that I am of the Almighty Father and that I am also consciously, soulfully and unconditionally for Him.

Why do I meditate? I meditate because I feel sorry for my sleeping body, my aggressive vital, my doubtful mind, my fearful heart, my uncertain soul and my unmanifested God. These are all my friends and I love them dearly. Since I love them dearly, I try to be of service to them. I know that it is by virtue of my meditation that I can get an awakened body, a dynamic vital and a mind totally free from doubt, which is absolute poison to my system. By virtue of my meditation, my fearful and timid heart can be transformed into an indomitable heart; my uncertain soul can at every moment be certain of working most powerfully in and through me; and my unmanifested God will get the opportunity to be fully manifested in and through the world around me.

There are some individuals who think and feel that meditation cannot be applied to all spheres of life. Unfortunately, I do not see eye to eye with them. Meditation has a free access to all spheres of life. There is no activity on earth that cannot benefit from meditation. There are some who are of the opinion that politics and meditation can never go together. I wish to say that they are making a deplorable mistake. Politics and meditation can go together. From one point of view, a politician is a seeker. What does he seek? He seeks peace and joy. Somebody may be working here at the United Nations — in the vortex of politics — but still that individual has the capacity to benefit from meditation.

As a human being, we need success and progress — success in our outer life and progress in our inner life. The mind gets tremendous satisfaction from the success-life. The heart gets tremendous satisfaction from the progress-life. If we can meditate soulfully every day, then our mind will get considerable peace and our heart will get considerable assurance. On the strength of this inner peace and inner assurance, our mind will succeed in its outer life and our heart will proceed towards its destined goal in the inner life. If each of us can meditate soulfully for just ten minutes early in the morning and again in the evening when the day draws to a close, then before long our life will have a new meaning, a new purpose and a new fulfilling and illumining goal.