How can I improve my morning meditation?
Every morning you have to offer your gratitude to God for having awakened your consciousness while others are still sleeping, and for all His infinite blessings to you. If you offer just a fragment of your gratitude, you will feel God's Compassion. Then, when you feel God's Compassion, try to offer yourself. Say, "I will try to please You only in Your own way. So far, I have asked You to please me in my own way, to give me this and that so that I can be happy. But today I am asking for the capacity to please You in Your own way." If you can say this sincerely, automatically your morning meditation will be better. God is ready to dawn in your mind's chaos, but being a perfect gentleman, He awaits your gracious invitation and precious dedication. How do you feel about collective meditation or group meditation? Individual meditation should be done early in the morning at home, when you are alone. But collective meditation also has its time. When you enter into the spiritual life you try to widen your consciousness. If you claim to be a member of a larger spiritual family, then it is your duty to be of service to others. When you meditate with others you can be of real help to them, and they can be of real help to you.
Nobody meditates well every day. Let us say that today you are in a very high state of consciousness, while the person who is sitting beside you is not in his highest consciousness. If both of you are meditating together, your aspiration and even your very presence will inspire and lift up that person. Then, tomorrow it may happen that you are not inspired to go high, whereas the other person is in a high consciousness. At that time he will be able to lift you up. So collective meditation is meant for mutual help.
You have to feel that collective meditation is like a tug-of-war. Suppose that you are in a very high state of consciousness and the seeker beside you is also in a very high state of consciousness. If ten persons meditate together and they are all in a very high state of consciousness, then it is like ten persons on one side in a tug-of-war against ignorance. Since ignorance is only one person, then naturally it will lose the tug-of-war. If you are meditating at home alone and are fighting against ignorance all by yourself, then you may soon become exhausted and give up. But if you can meditate with others, it becomes much easier.
When you meditate in a group, you have to feel your oneness with others. You should not feel that you are competing with anyone else, or that you are stronger or weaker than anyone else. Each individual has to feel that he is strong only by virtue of his oneness with the others. He has to feel that he is strong because he has become one with the aspiration of his brothers and sisters.
During collective meditation try to feel that others are not separate entities. Feel that you are the only person meditating, and that you are entirely responsible for the meditation. When everyone has entered into you, when everyone is flowing in you and through you, at that time you will get the maximum benefit from your collective meditation. If twenty persons are sitting together, they have to feel that they are only one vessel. They are not individuals; they have become one vessel, and they are one in their receptivity. But each one has to feel that it is his obligation and responsibility to do his part. You cannot feel, "Oh, since we are all one, let him meditate for me."
During collective meditation you should have a good feeling for the other persons meditating with you, but do not think of them specifically. If you think of someone in particular, and that person is not aspiring, then your meditation will be on that unaspiring person and not on God. You have to feel that the highest consciousness is the goal, the target, and you are aiming your aspiration-arrow at the target. On the outer plane, if one member of the team scores a goal, that is enough, But in meditation each person has to score. If ten persons can score at the same time, only then does the group get a very high mark.
