Questions and Answers

Questions and Answers

When I sit down to meditate, I have to concentrate so hard on keeping my mind still that I cannot contact my inner self.

You may not know it, but you are doing the right thing. When you are trying to make your mind calm and quiet, you are concentrating. In concentration, you try to control your thoughts and emotions. Concentration has to pave the way for meditation. In order to meditate you must have already disciplined your emotional life and restless mind to some extent. When you are successful in chasing away all the thoughts that disturb your mind, sooner or later your inner self will come to the fore, like the blazing sun clearing away the veil of clouds. Right now, the inner sun is overcast with clouds: thoughts, ideas, doubts, fears and so forth. When you can chase them away, you will see that your inner self is shining, bright and radiant, right in front of you.

How can one know whether one is doing concentration or meditation?

When it is concentration, there is tremendous intensity; it is like an arrow entering into a target. If you feel an intense force energising you, then this is the result of your concentration. But in meditation, there is peace and a feeling of vastness all around, especially in the mind. If you feel deep within an immense sea of peace, light and bliss, then that is due to your meditation. Meditation is all peace, poise and vastness. Intensity is there, but the intensity is flooded with luminosity. In concentration there need not be and often is not me highest luminosity.

Also, concentration wants immediate results. It is ready to do anything to achieve its goal. Meditation feels that it has infinite time at its disposal. That does not mean that meditation neglects the fleeting time. No, it appreciates fleeting time, but inside fleeting time it sees endless time. That is why meditation has infinite peace inside it.

Do not give any preference to either experience. If the Supreme wants to concentrate in you and through you, then you will allow it. Again, if He wants to meditate in and through you, that also you will allow.

Once we have learned how to meditate, should we no longer practise concentration?

As a general rule, seekers who are just entering the spiritual life should start with concentration for a few months at least. Once they have learned to concentrate, then meditation becomes easy. But even when you are able to meditate, it is a good idea to concentrate for a few minutes before you start your daily meditation. If you concentrate, you are like a runner who clears the track of obstacles before he starts to run. Once the track is cleared, you can run very fast. At that time you become like an inner express train that stops only at the final destination.

After we have finished meditating, how do we go about contemplating?

Contemplation comes after many years, when one is very advanced in the spiritual life. Contemplation is the highest rung of the inner ladder. Very, very few spiritual aspirants have the capacity to do even limited contemplation, and they certainly cannot do so at their sweet will.

Contemplation must be mastered before God-realisation, so it cannot be ignored or avoided. But, in your case, the necessity for contemplation has not come because your concentration and your meditation are not yet perfect. When your concentration is perfect and your meditation is perfect, at that time your contemplation will also have to be perfected. Then you will really be able to enter into the Highest.

How can you succeed in your outer life when you do not have the power of concentration? How can you proceed in your inner life when you do not have the peace of meditation?