The benefits of meditation

When I meditate,
I feel I am vast,
Very vast.

-Sri Chinmoy-

Meditation means -

Sri Chinmoy writes:-

Meditation means many things to many people. Each individual has a way of learning the art of meditation. In our case when we meditate we empty our minds of unwanted thoughts and then fill our minds with something divine from our spiritual heart.

Meditation means conscious awareness, conscious expansion and conscious self-discovery. This discovery is the recognition and experience of our own unlimited potential, our own true Self, our own highest transcendental Reality.

Simplicity, fulfilment, peace, joy, wisdom and oneness -

Meditation is absolutely necessary for those who want to lead a better and more fulfilling life. If you want to simplify your life, meditation is the answer. If you want to fulfil your life, meditation is the answer. It is in simplicity, not in complexity, that the real truth abides.

If you want to have peace of mind, receive joy and offer joy to the world at large, meditation is the answer. If we meditate regularly, then we can rest assured that all our problems, inner and outer will be solved.

When you meditate try to feel that you have gained something real: peace, light, bliss, power. When you meditate in the morning you have to feel that you have gained some inner wealth, and this inner wealth you have to keep inside your heart. When you are thrown into multifarious activities, you can use this inner wealth whenever you need it.

Everybody meditates. But we all meditate according to our capacity and our receptivity. When we think of God and meditate on God, this is one form of meditation. When we cherish or treasure a good thought, this is another kind of meditation. Anything that helps us in our self-expansion is meditation.

Expansion of consciousness -

When we meditate, we firstly enter into a vacant, calm and still, silent mind. Then we go deep within, into the deeper part of our being, our spiritual heart, and approach out true existence, which is the soul. At that time we are able to bring to the fore the wealth that we have deep within us.

In meditation we dive into the vast sea of consciousness. The deeper we go in meditation, the more we expand our own consciousness, the more abundantly the qualities of Light, Peace and Bliss grow inside us.

When we meditate we try to expand our consciousness, to experience vastness. Meditation is immediate expansion. Always think of your enlarged existence; you are constantly expanding, expanding, expanding yourself. We have to expand ourselves like a bird spreading its wings, soaring higher and higher.

A calm and quiet mind –

During your meditation there comes a time when the mind is absolutely calm and quiet. There is only purity, serenity and profundity in your mind. Inside the inmost recesses of your heart, where everything is flooded with purity, there is no disturbing thought, no struggling thought. When you meditate please try to feel the necessity of opening your spiritual heart fully and closing your finite physical mind fully.

To listen to the whispers
Of the heart,
We all need a mind of tranquillity.

-Sri Chinmoy-

Meditation does not just mean sitting quietly for five or ten minutes. It requires conscious effort. The mind has to be made calm and quiet. At the same time it has to be vigilant so as not to allow any distracting thoughts or desires to enter. When we can make the mind calm and quiet, we will feel that a new creation is dawning inside us. When the mind is vacant and tranquil and our whole existence becomes an empty vessel, our inner being can invoke infinite peace, light and bliss to enter into the vessel and fill it. This is meditation.

In meditation your mind is all peace, all silence, all oneness. When thoughts or ideas want to come in, if you control them with your inner peace they will not be able to affect you.

Inner peace and tranquility -

In the final analysis, one has what one becomes. We have deep within us the things that we have always been longing for: Eternity, Infinity, Immortality, infinite peace, infinite light, infinite bliss. But right now we are not aware that we have these things. Right now we are looking there and elsewhere for these things, without knowing where to search for them. But if we meditate sincerely, there will come a time when we will realise the Truth. At that time we will realise that the things we have been searching and crying for are things we have deep with us. We embody these very things.

Meditation is not theoretical, but practical. Meditation teaches us how to become inseparably one with the world at large. When we cry for the Vast, for the ultimate Truth, meditation is the immediate answer. When we want to achieve boundless Peace, boundless Light, boundless Bliss, meditation is the only answer. The world needs one thing, and that one thing is peace, and meditation is the only answer.

Meditation is not an escape. Meditation is the acceptance of life in its totality, with a view to transforming it for the highest manifestation of the divine Truth here on earth. The world around us is not perfect, but we are also not perfect. When we meditate soulfully, devotedly, we have to accept humanity as our very own. We have to transform the face of the world on the strength of our dedication to the divinity in humanity. It is through meditation that we accept, transform and transcend limitation, bondage and imperfection.

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