A Guide to Meditation
Divine Life
Society Publication: A Guide to
Meditation by Swami Krishnananda
Hari Om. Om Sat-Guru-Paramatmane Namah.
(108 sentences on meditation taken from
various writings by Swami Krishnananda)
1. The
object of meditation is the final choice that you make in this world.
2. Each
one of you has to choose your beloved object for meditation.
3. The
essential thought to be remembered in all meditations is that there should be
no thought except that of the chosen object, or the ideal of meditation.
4. Actually,
every work done with a feeling of devotion is also a kind of meditation.
5. By
meditation, observation and reasoning one comes to realise that Existence is
not space and space is not Existence.
6. Brahman's
all attributes mentioned in the Upanishads, positive as well as negative, may
be brought together in a single group as aids to meditation.
7. Brahman
is the Absolute, and one cannot meditate on Brahman, because it is inclusive of
even the meditator himself.
8. Clear-sightedness,
passionlessness, serenity, self-restraint, indifference to the world,
fortitude, faith, collectedness of mind and yearning for liberation from
bondage are the prerequisites of spiritual meditation.
9. Contemplation
on Existence-Consciousness-Bliss as the whole of Brahman, in Sattwa, is the
highest form of meditation.
10. Different
symbols used in meditation give rise to different experiences corresponding to
each.
11. Desireless
meditation's result is only ascent and no reverting to the mortal world.
12. Desire
ceases when you behold the Atman, and this beholding the Atman is called
meditation.
13. Dream
is an unconscious occurrence. You have no control over it. But meditation is a
conscious effort.
14. Desire
is the assertion of the personality. In meditation the personality is
dissolved.
15. Directly
the Absolute is known through profound reflection and meditation.
16. Externally
meditation can be regarded as religion, internally it is concentration.
17. The
entire psychology of meditation is nothing but a setting right of errors in
thought.
18. Feel
your identity with the Supreme Being in meditation. That is the essence of
meditation.
19. To
love God is to serve him, to serve Him is to meditate on Him, to meditate on
Him is to know Him, and to know Him is to realise Him.
20. Great
tenacity is called for in meditation.
21. Highest
effort consists in meditation on the Absolute.
22. Hard
to conceive is an endlessness of Being identified with the selfhood of beings.
But that is what is the key to true meditation.
23. The
highest kind of meditation is Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma.
24. It
will guide you only after you become one with it. For that, you have to
meditate.
25. If
you can convince your deep feeling that whatever you see is inside that Supreme
(including yourself and everybody) that is the meditation.
26. It
is your soul that is actually meditating on the soul of the object.
27. Indestructible
is the knowledge attained though meditation on the truths of the Vedanta.
28. Indirect
knowledge received by means of instruction from the preceptor requires to be
deepened into experience by reflection and deep meditation.
29. It
is advisable to engage oneself during spare hours in the study of such subjects
as are conducive to entertaining the thought of the object of meditation.
30. If
you want to know creation, you have to enter into the substance of creation.
31. If
you love a thing constantly without break, it is meditation.
32. It
should not be that you are happy inside the meditation hall and unhappy
outside. You must be happy in the street, in the market place, in the bathroom
and not only in the temple or the meditation hall.
33. If
life is to become a healthy whole, the spirit of religious worship and
meditation has to saturate and seep into the secular life.
34. Knowledge
and meditation, however, are not possible for one who is worldly, sensual,
deluded, proud, egoistic and selfish.
35. Knowledge
is Jnana or Anubhava of the Nirguna Brahman, and meditation is Dhyana, or
Upasana on Saguna Brahman.
36. Meditation
is the art of contacting Reality, and for that you have to first be sure what
Reality is.
37. Meditation
on the Eternal Being is the supreme form of love.
38. Meditation
starts with duality and ends in Unity, from an adoration of God to the Being of
God.
39. Meditation
should be continued till death, or till the rise of Self-knowledge.
40. Meditation
should be continued until the goal is realised, without any anxiety, or
impatience on one's part.
41. Moksha
is the immediate non-objective experience of Brahman on which one has been
meditating all along with intense devotion.
42. Meditation
is the affirmation of the mind and confirmation of Reality.
43. Meditation
is the art of setting oneself in tune with God.
44. A
meditating mind is like a still lake.
45. The
meditating principle is not the ego, it is the Universal Being itself. It is
God meditating on God ultimately.
46. Meditation
is nothing but the recognition in consciousness of the connecting link between
subject and object.
47. Meditation
leads to the gradual ascent of self by degrees of expansiveness.
48. Meditation
on God is the highest of Sadhanas.
49. Meditation
on Reality is spiritual life.
50. Nobody
can do so much good to the world as a Yogi engaged in meditation. You must know
very well that the value of work depends upon what you think in your mind.
51. Nirguna
form of meditation is laid down in several of the Upanishads. The main type of
meditation inculcated is on Pranava, or Omkara.
52. No
meditation will become successful if the senses are active, because the senses
are the opposite of the effort at meditation.
53. On
the path of Jnana-Yoga, as a necessary condition of spiritual meditation, the
value of philosophy is incalculable.
54. Of
all things, Selfhood is the ultimate meditation. This state cannot be achieved
easily.
55. One-pointedness
is the secret of meditation. This is an essential feature that we have to
remember.
56. One
who meditates on the Universal Prana has no enemies.
57. Prayer
is a current flowing with the thoughts towards God. Meditation is the highest
prayer where the thoughts are fixed in God.
58. Poor
we are psychologicaly and philosophically bankrupt, therefore meditation is
hard.
59. Provided
it gets universalised in meditation, anything can become a passage to God.
60. Prana-Agnihotra
is a religious performance of the one who practises the Vaishvanara Vidya, who
meditates on the Cosmic Being.
61. The
principle of meditation is this – whatever the object of your meditation be,
that has to be taken as Absolute.
62. Success
is achieved in meditation in proportion to the extent of the honest feeling
within ourselves that Brahman is the only Reality, and is the one aim of life.
63. Sadhana
(practice) concludes only in experience and never before. It is also possible
that even though one practises enquiry and meditation till death, yet the Atman
has not been realised.
64. Seeing
the noumenon is the art of meditation; the merger of object with the subject
and vice-versa.
65. Subject
wanting the other, the object. This is materialistic meditation and not
spiritual meditation.
66. Study,
reflection and meditation are the processes of the method of
Self-transcendence.
67. That
act of uniting the reason with the feeling is meditation.
68. Thought
is Being; consciousness is Existence. If this is asserted, then meditation will
succeed.
69. The
resting of the consciousness in its own self, which is universality of Being,
is the highest Yoga or meditation.
70. The
object of meditation is not just one among the many objects of the world; it is
rather the only object before us.
71. The
quickness of the process of attainment depends upon the intensity of the power
of meditation, both in its negative and assertive aspects.
72. Unless
the idea becomes God, the meditation will not yield results.
73. The
Vaishvanara meditator is in communion with the universe, with the very self of
all beings, attuned to the Supreme Being.
74. Vidya
is a meditation, an art of thinking on the Supreme Goal.
75. When
the mind is tired and unwilling, you should not meditate.
76. When
meditation deepens, you can lessen your activities and take to meditation more
and more.
77. We
must remember that ritualistic worship also is a kind of meditation. Worship is
not a mechanical action.
78. When
Prarabdha dies, all activities cease, but while it functions, it cannot be
overcome even by the force of meditation.
79. When
there is an abandonment of interest in names and forms, meditation on Brahman
becomes unobstructed in every way.
80. When
you meditate on the Absolute, you are equally thinking of yourself. The Atman
is the Paramatman only. You are merging with it.
81. When
one sees a stone, for example, its existence-aspect should be separated from
its name and form and, thus, its exsitence should be meditated upon as an
aspect of Brahman.
82. Whenever
you breathe, you get connected with the Cosmic Prana. The intention of
meditation is to connect one's Prana with the Cosmic Prana.
83. We
should not meditate when we are possessed by our ego.
84. We
live religion when we are in a state of meditation, because religion is the
relation between man and God, between the soul and the Absolute.
85. When
one sits for meditation, there should be no anxiety.
86. When
we want to be seated for a long time for meditation or Japa, if we have some
sort of restraint and control over the functions of the body, it yields to our
requirements.
87. It
is a well-known fact that the process of meditation in the field of spiritual
life is centralised in the attempt of consciousness to concentrate itself on
Ultimate Reality.
88. Unite
yourself with that One Person. Then you will have no problems. This is called
Yoga, spirituality, religion, or meditation, and that is the aim of life.
89. You
are part and parcel organically entwined with the whole universal fabric. If
you can maintain this consciousness always, you are perpetually in a state of
meditation.
90. If
sometimes one is tired of meditation, we have only to conclude one has only
engaged oneself in another kind of activity, calling it meditation, while
really it was not so.
91. Aspirants
on the spiritual path are generally conversant with the fact that meditation is
the pinnacle of Yoga and the consummation of spiritual endeavour.
92. All
the procedures of meditation are, in the end, ways of awakening the
Soul-consciousness which, in its depth, is, at once, God-consciousness.
93. In
meditation, thought and being coalesce and become one.
94. The
apparently inseparable connection of the body and, in fact, the whole of one's
life, with the physical elements of creation gets gradually loosened when one
progressively advances in meditation.
95. Meditation
is a self-integrating process throughout, from the beginning to the end, and
hence any form of self-alienation is opposed to and becomes a hindrance in
meditation.
96. The
pinnacle of Yoga is the absorption of the mind in the object of its
concentration.
97. But
meditation is adventure, which opens up a new vista before us and surprises us
with our relationships which were not apparent in our waking work-a-day life.
98. When
the meditating consciousness so gets absorbed in the object that the idea of
the object and the name of the object drop out altogether and there is a
consciousness of the object alone, independently, without any kind of external
associations, where one becomes the true friend of the object, not merely an
observer or a judge of the object, but an organic mass of sentience in which
the object is dissolved, as it were, in one's being, – that is to be known as
the great freedom of the self.
99. The
false idea that meditation is an individual affair has to be removed from the
mind.
100.
So, in meditation, the whole mind assumes the
shape of a mass that moves wholly, entirely, totally, completely towards the
object, the great point on which we may be concentrating for the purpose of our
union with it.
101.
The all-pervading nature of God excludes nothing
from its purview and inclusiveness, and that which we regard as the best thing
in our life may be regarded as our object of Meditation.
102.
Even during meditation one may have to face many
difficulties, such as the inability to reconcile apparently contradictory
statements occurring in the scriptures, the persistent feeling that the world
and the body are real, and, finally a sense of hopelessness and a feeling of
impossibility in regard to the achievement of the supreme purpose of life.
103.
Constant meditation on Om allows the individual
consciousness to take the form of Om itself which is unlimited in its nature.
104.
Meditation is our duty. It is not something that
you are doing as an occupation; it is the art of being yourself.
105.
The masquerading veil has to be torn asunder and
we have to see the object 'as such' in meditation, and not as it appears to the
senses and the mind.
106.
The object of meditation is a concentrated focus
of the entire structure of the universe.
107.
It is to be remembered that the value of
meditation does not so much depend on the length of time that you take in
sitting for it, but in the quality or the intensity of feeling operating at
that moment.
108.
When one is in a mood of meditation, one is
practising true religion, but by so doing one does not belong to any particular
religious cult. We live religion when we are in a state of meditation, because
religion is the relation between man and God, between the soul and the
Absolute.
Excerpts from:
A Guide to
Meditation by Swami Krishnananda
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