Meditation is a process of purifying the mind
and making it one-pointed, inward, and tranquil. Through the method of
meditation, the mind will help you to fathom the deeper levels of your being
and lead you to the highest state of realization. As an aspirant, it is always
wise to be vigilant and firm in practicing meditation. Do not expect to do it right in the beginning. There is no instant method of meditation.
Modern
students expect immediate results from meditation and this expectation causes
them to fantasize, imagine, and hallucinate many things that they think are
spiritual experiences. These experiences are products of their subconscious
minds. As a result, they become frustrated and imbalanced, and either they stop
meditating, or they start following strange methods that are harmful to their
progress. Meditation is a technique that has only one way, and that is a
scientific way that is very precise and clear. If you learn how to
systematically practice meditation, it will not take much time for you to reach
the summit, provided you know the whole technique.
First thing is to have an ardent desire, a
burning desire within. When you have a burning desire to do your meditation,
that burning desire leads you. Sankalpa shakti or in other words the determined power is needed. “Today I will sit in meditation. No one has the power to
disturb me! Thought is a product of the mind. I do not belong to thought.”
If you learn to go beyond the jabbering of
your mind and can go to the deeper aspects of your consciousness, then the body,
breath, and mind will not come in your way. They come in your way. You have not
trained them, because you have not decided to do meditation. Finally, you
should learn to decide and make time for meditation in the morning and
before you go to bed. You have been taught to see and examine things in the external
world. Nobody has taught you to see and find within.
There is no other way but the way of
meditation. No object of the world has the power to give you what meditation
can give you. Do not meditate if you are not inclined to meditate. If you want
to meditate, you must form a habit, because habit weaves your character and
personality. If you want to know who you are, you must take off all the
masks, one after the other.
If you are prepared to do that, you can learn
to tread the path of meditation. That momentary joy is evidence enough that
there is something that is called joy. You are searching in the wrong place. If
you receive everlasting joy, and if you have attained everlasting joy, then you
will be free. It is for that freedom and for that extraordinary joy that you
live.