Conscious Aspiration and Effort

Spirituality cannot be achieved by pulling or pushing. We cannot pull down spiritual light by hook or by crook. When it comes down on its own, only on the strength of our aspiration will we be able to receive it. If we try to pull the light beyond our capacity of receptivity, our inner vessel will break. How do we receive this light from above? How do we expand our consciousness so that our receptivity will increase? The answer is meditation.

Meditation does not mean just 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.

Meditation is the language of God. If we want to know what God's Will is in our life, if we want God to guide us, mould us and fulfil Himself in and through us, then meditation is the language that we must use.

When we think that it is we who are trying to meditate, then meditation seems complicated. But real meditation is not done by us. It is done by our Inner Pilot, the Supreme, who is constantly meditating in and through us. We are just the vessel, and we are allowing Him to fill us with His whole Consciousness. We start with our own personal effort, but once we go deep within, we see that it is not our effort that is allowing us to enter into meditation. It is the Supreme who is meditating in and through us with our conscious awareness and consent.

Each person's soul has its own way of meditating. My way of meditating will not suit you, and your way of meditating will not suit me. There are many seekers whose meditation is not fruitful because they are not doing the meditation that is right for them. If you do not have a spiritual Master who can guide you, then you have to go deep within and get your meditation from the inmost recesses of your heart.

This is very difficult for a beginner. You have to go deep, deep within and see if you get a voice or thought or idea. Then you have to go deep into this voice or thought and see if it gives you a feeling of inner joy or peace, where there are no questions or problems or doubts. Only when you get this kind of feeling, can you know that the voice that you have heard is the real inner voice which will help you in your spiritual life.

But if you have a teacher who is a realised soul, his silent gaze will teach you how to meditate. A Master does not have to explain outwardly how to meditate, or give you a specific technique of meditation. He will simply meditate on you and inwardly teach you how to meditate. Your soul will enter into his soul and learn from his soul. All real spiritual Masters teach meditation in silence.

The ultimate aim of meditation is to establish our conscious union with God. We are all God's children, but right now we do not have conscious oneness with God. Someone may believe in God, but this belief is not a reality in his life. He just believes in God because some saint or Yogi or spiritual Master has said there is a God, or because he has read about God in spiritual books. But if we practise meditation, a day comes when we establish our conscious oneness with God. At that time, God gives us His infinite peace, infinite light and infinite bliss, and we grow into this infinite peace, light and bliss.