Meditation Synopsis

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Meditation

"Meditation is the most important activity if we want to discipline ourselves."

(1) Remembrance, (2) Meditation, (3) Bhajan. Whenthe practice of these three is associated with external things, the result would be birth and bondage. And when they are practised at heart internally keeping the goal constantly in view, it will result in freedom from external and surface bondage.
(1) Remembrance means remembering again and again,
(2) Meditation means having the idea,
(3) Bhajan means contemplation or continuous meditation.

Excerpts taken from Truth Eternal - Shri Ram Chandraji of Fatehgarh U.P.

The proper method to control the activities of the mind is to fix it on one sacred thought just as we do in meditation, and dispel from it everything unwanted or superfluous. In course of time after constant practice, the mind gets disciplined and regulated and much of the inner disturbance is eliminated. The best course to free yourself from unwanted ideas is to treat them as uninvited guests and remain unmindful of them. They will then wither away like unwatered plants and ultimately the same sacred thought will remain predominant. The only way to accomplish it is, therefore, meditation under the guidance of a capable master. By constant practice in meditation the mind will become calm and peaceful and the unwanted ideas will cease to trouble you.

Meditation is the foundation of spirituality. If you meditate having your real goal before you, you are sure to arrive at the destination.

Excerpts taken from Complete Works of Ram Chandra, Volume I - Shri Ram Chandra

The method of meditation on the heart is to think of the Godly light within it. When you begin meditation in this way please think once only that Godly light within is attracting you. Do not mind if extraneous ideas intrude during meditation. Let them come, but you go on with your own work. Sit in an easy posture for one hour in the morning in quite a natural way. If you require the philosophy of this method I shall reveal it to you after some time. You should only meditate. You should not struggle with the ideas and thoughts which generally come in during meditation. Concentration is the result of meditation. Those who want concentration for the sake of meditation and force their mind to it generally meet with failure. It must be remembered that while practising these methods one should not force his mind too much, but only sit in a normal way. Sit in an easy posture for one hour in the morning, in quite a natural way. It is better to sit in the grey of the morning for meditation or, if that is not possible, then at any fixed hour convenient to you, the abhyasi. Do not feel disturbed by the outer things but remain engaged with your work, thinking that they are in a way helping you to feel the necessity of greater absorption in your practice.

Under Sahaj Marg the Divine grace is directed towards the abhyasi through the process of pranahuti. As a matter of fact what pranahuti does for the spiritual uplift of the abhyasi in the shortest possible time, independent efforts cannot do even in a full decade. Serious difficulties often arise when meditation is practised independently in accordance with the old methods prescribed in books. Under the old system of abhyas one has to keep on struggling with the mind in order to stop its unceasing activities. The struggle continues all the time without any success in the real sense. Thus practically there is no meditation at all, and all the time is lost in mere struggling and suppressing mental modifications. In order to overcome this very great difficulty, under the Sahaj Marg system we simply connect ourselves with the power of the Master whose mind has become thoroughly disciplined and regulated. His power then begins to flow into the individual regulating his mental tendencies.

Excerpts taken from Complete Works of Ram Chandra, Volume II - Shri Ram Chandra

...in meditation you wait for something and that is God. Waiting produces a sort of attraction automatically on account of continuous effort.

Excerpts taken from The Autobiography of Ram Chandra, Volume I - Shri Ram Chandra

"At death the mind should be made a complete blank. No thoughts must be allowed to come into it, not even of gods or anything like that. It must be made completely blank so that at death it can merge with the source where the condition is that of nothingness. And I tell you, for the abhyasis of our sanstha this is very easy because this is what they are taught to do every time they sit in meditation. To us this becomes second nature. When we sit in meditation the mind becomes thoughtless, and so what we are experiencing, to put it in one way, is a condition somewhat like that at death. You may call it a condition of death-in-life if you like. So when the time comes we automatically get into this state of mind, and there is no impediment even at the last moment." [Babuji]

"Meditation is the only way. But it must be correctly done. Meditation really means that the mind may be accustomed to the Centre itself, instead of working elsewhere. At the human level the mind is wandering hither and thither, dragging us with it. It takes work from us! But by meditation we regulate it, and start taking work from it. I tell you an important thing. The mind is the instrument of realisation. It is also the instrument of our downfall." [Babuji]

Excerpts taken from My Master - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

PR: ...When we start meditation we start thinking of somebody other than ourselves. So the attention is transferred from the self to something else. ...
Now what happens in meditation is that Master gives you an object for meditation, which is light in the heart. And light as the object of our meditation was not accidental, because even though we ultimately try to reach something which is abstract, without qualities, without form, without name, very few people can really meditate on the abstract. For instance, if I say I will give you zero Rupees or zero Marks it makes no sense; but without zero you would have no mathematics. Similarly, Master has given us an object of meditation which has no form, which cannot be described. Light cannot be described. You can only say light is light. Master has said that it is the only object which is an object and yet almost abstract. Now when we meditate on such an object no doubt the mind is put on that, but the mind cannot desire or want to possess it. It is an object which we can love but which we cannot possess. We need light but we never possess light. So the mind becomes trained to forget the self, and to move towards something else which is yet so abstract that we cannot want it, or desire it or possess it. So, in this way, when we train the mind or regulate the mind, naturally and systematically during meditation, no impressions are formed.

PR: ...By meditation we start in the morning, we think of the Master; in the evening we meditate, we think of the Master; at bedtime we meditate, we again think of the Master. This is at least a minimum of three times we think of him, if we do the practice as specified.

Excerpts taken from Sahaj Marg in Europe - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

PR: ...In Sahaj Marg we have a state or condition called sahaj samadhi. It is a condition in which an abhyasi is totally absorbed inside, and yet alert and aware of the outside. It is called sahaj samadhi. It is a natural state which is supposed to be the God-like state. It is a condition of total absorption coupled with total awareness. You will have noticed in our system of meditation that even when you are in the deepest state of meditation, deeply absorbed inside, when Master says, "That is all," you are immediately aware of it. If it was the other traditional type of samadhi, you would have to be forcibly awakened out of it.

Excerpts taken from The Garden of Hearts - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

Meditation means to think continuously about one thing, and we are supposed to take as the object of meditation that which we wish to achieve. And here, because we are involved in realisation, God realisation, Self realisation, therefore the object has to be of that Nature. The goal of Sahaj Marg is an abstract goal called the Ultimate Self. Therefore we cannot have any name or form for meditation. Nor can we have even any qualities or attributes of Divinity. However, Master felt that for most people it would be impossible to meditate on the abstract. So, in Sahaj Marg, our Master has taken as the object of meditation what he thought, what he knows, what he has experienced to be the subtlest thing that we can have for meditation without making it gross or with a form or with a name, and that is: Divine light in the heart. So this has to be very clearly understood that in Sahaj Marg, the object of meditation is Divine light in the heart and nothing else.

When we sit for meditation, we will of course have disturbing thoughts. We are taught not to attend to thoughts but to ignore them. Because Master's research shows that when we attend to those thoughts, the thought takes power from us, and becomes stronger and stronger. So, when we ignore the thought we find it drops off! There may be another thought in its place, but it is treated in the same way. Master says: "Treat them as uninvited guests and they will go away." If we do this systematically and with alertness we will find that in hardly a few months we can reach a state of thoughtlessness.
Here, it is necessary to understand that all these thoughts come from inside us, our own thoughts in the form of samskaras. If we attend to the thoughts when they rise, they become powerful, they multiply and they go back inside. But when we are not attending to them, we allow them to fall off, the inner store of samskara becomes exhausted quickly, that is how we reach a state of thoughtlessness during meditation. It is of course necessary to remember that thoughtlessness is not our goal.

Excerpts taken from Proceedings of the Seminar on Sahaj Marg - Held at Vorauf - Germany, April 27th to May 4th, 1985 Shri P. Rajagopalachari

Meditation must always have a purpose because nothing is purposeless. Even without bringing yoga into the picture, we are almost always meditating on something or the other. When we are looking for a higher standard of living, or when we are keenly pursuing a better job, we are constantly thinking of it. I say this because the correct definition of meditation is to think constantly of something. When we bring yoga into the picture we get confused as to what meditation really means. The only sense in which yogic meditation differs from our normal meditation is in the aim of that meditation, the purpose of that meditation. Therefore we have to meditate with a purpose in mind, and when we come into the field of yoga that purpose is evolution, or the fulfillment of human life to its highest perfect condition.

Excerpts taken from The Principles of Sahaj Marg, Volume I - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

Our Master has often said that "Prayer is begging whereas meditation is receiving."

The only thing that the process of meditation is really meant to teach us is to remind us that there is something above from which we have come here and it is our business to get back where we belong. This is not our home, that is our home. In meditation we experience certain states of existence which make us slowly forget this world. It is not as if we relinquish our hold on this world or we renounce something. In true renunciation we do not renounce anything. The objects which have been enslaving us, they renounce us. It is not we who are attending, it is the whole grasp of our attention which is making us slaves and when our attention goes to something higher, automatically this attraction falls off. Then there is no power in external objects of the world to attract us, to enslave us, to hold us in bondage.
When we start meditation, this memory of our original home is strengthened in us little by little. And as it grows, we find what Master very beautifully calls a state of non-attached attachment.

Excerpts taken from The Principles of Sahaj Marg, Volume II - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

Well, I don't think any of you or any of us, anywhere in this world today, are able to meditate for somebody else's sake. We are meditating for our sake. Each one is on his or her way on this marg, for his personal or her personal evolution to the highest.

Excerpts taken from The Principles of Sahaj Marg, Volume VII - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

Q: Why does Sahaj Marg recommend meditation on the heart?
A: This is an important question because in yogic literature we find that meditation has been recommended on the point of the nose, on the point between the eyebrows and several other points. For instance in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna himself says, "Bhruvormadhye pranamaveshya samyak"-"Bring your life resources in terms of prana to the point between the eyebrows and meditate on that." But in Sahaj Marg, we meditate on the light in the heart. The light is located in the heart. My Master has explained that there are three very important reasons for this.
The first is that, the heart is the seat of Divinity in the human system, as in all other systems. This is something which is universally accepted. All religions seat the Lord in the heart, not in the head or in the stomach but in the heart. So when you want to approach Divinity through your system, you approach Him by His presence in your heart, which is known as the antaryamin-one who resides within. The Gita says, the Lord says in the Gita: "I am in the heart of every created being." So it has not only scriptural authority, it has a sort of universal authority because it is something in which all humanity believes, that if the Lord resides anywhere, it is in our heart.
Secondly, we describe the human being by his heart. For instance we use terms such as: "He is a kind hearted person" or "She is a cold hearted woman" or "He has a soft heart" or "He has a bitter heart" or "His heart is as black as coal" or somebody's heart is hard as stone. So human qualities, human character is defined by the heart. This is how the human being is treated. If the heart is there, he exists. If he doesn't, it is gone.
The third important reason is that the human life itself seems to be centred in the heart, because everything else can fail, you can cut off a man's hands and legs, you can cut off his fingers, you can cut off his nose, but if the heart stops, everything stops. That is another important reason.
The fourth very important reason according to my Master is that when we concentrate on the heart or meditate on the heart, we are in a sense affecting the whole system in a total way because the blood circulation starts and ends with the heart. Everything goes round the system from the heart, pumped out from the heart, comes back to the heart purified through the lungs. And therefore we purify the heart, put love into the heart, which is what we try to do in Sahaj Marg. It is, in a sense, trying to make pervasive the application of a unique force, the power of love, the power of the Master's spiritual attainment into the heart, from where it spreads through the whole system.

Excerpts taken from The Principles of Sahaj Marg, Volume VIII - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

Now, if it is the Centre, such a problem cannot arise. For example, it's like the sun which is the centre of our solar system. It radiates its light and heat; it has no love or hate; it has no favoritism; it has no friends and enemies, it radiates, because that is its function. We can say it is its existence. By its existence it makes the solar system illuminated, and also heats up everything, let us say, by that fact. Now all that is necessary for us to receive its benefits is to present ourselves before it. We don't have to ask, we don't have to pray, we don't have to beg. We only have to expose ourselves. That is what we do in meditation. We imagine that there is a Divine being who has come from the Centre as the Master, and we present ourselves before Him. The Divine has descended in a human form, as the Master. That is all that is necessary.

Excerpts taken from Role of the Master in Human Evolution - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

All that we see during meditation is the release of our samskara. It's like a record playing music. Whatever it is, it comes. You know, if you are cooking potatoes and you stir the pot, you get the smell of potatoes. So we have samskaras here, and when you are meditating it is released and it comes in contact with the mind, so you get the same impression which made the samskaras first. It is not really important, it only shows that something is coming out. A common example, you know, like a child when it eats something and vomits, it can only bring out what it has eaten, it cannot create something and bring it out. So nothing can come which has not been inside. That is why we say, don't give importance to these things.

Excerpts taken from The Fruit of the Tree - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

"Oh, I planted this seed twenty days ago, it is not yet germinating, let me dig it up and see what's happening to the seed." We destroy it. We have to put it in, water it and go on watering it until something appears, and wait. That is why in spirituality, Babuji used to say, "Think that the Divine light is in the heart, try to hold this thought and wait." Somebody once asked him, you know, a very illiterate sort of person asked Babuji, "What exactly is meditation?" He gave a beautiful answer. He said, "Suppose you invite me to dinner tonight at your house, what would you do?" He said, "Master, I would clean the house first, see that everything is shipshape, then my wife would prepare the food, the best that we can possibly offer, then we would make up the place where you are going to eat, lay the plates, or the leaves, and await your coming." He said, "The same thing in meditation-clean your heart, purify it, have everything ready and wait for the appearance of the Master."

Therefore, fear has to be overcome, and that first manifestation of fear is in the inability to meditate. Fear of closing the eyes, looking into the self-that has to go.

Excerpts taken from Heart to Heart, Volume I - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

So we must develop into that stage where, if you close your eyes in meditation, what you see within yourself must be so astoundingly wonderful, and pulling you like a magnet towards Himself, that without the Master's grace we can never come out of it again. It is the Self that must put us into samadhi. Fortunately for us-I mean, don't be afraid-fortunately for us the Master pulls us out every time. Not because it is necessary for us to be here, it is really not necessary for us to be here, but because he is the Master of Nature, he does not want to go counter to the laws of Nature. He brings us back again and again to live out the allotted span of time. So that is why even those of us who are able to plunge into the depths of meditation have to come out.

Q: What is the criterion for good or poor meditation, and something which is not an intellectual interpretation or a misleading sensation?
A: There are no such things as a good meditation or a poor meditation. There is only meditation. If it is rightly done, it is effective. Meditation should be effective. Either we meditate or we don't meditate.

So we are trained to accept reality through meditation. Through perception, we do not accept reality, we only perceive.

...we should remember that even meditation must be with love. But if you approach meditation with the idea of getting something from the Master, again it becomes a commercial transaction. Then we have this idea, "Oh, I have been meditating for six months, I have got nothing." Somebody says, "I have meditated for two years, I have got nothing." But we forget that we don't meditate to get something, we meditate to become something.

Excerpts taken from Heart to Heart, Volume II - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

...we begin with dhyana. The idea being to focus the mind on one object of meditation, taking care to see that the object is not something solid, something without a form, because the effect of our meditation is conditioned or, shall we say, limited by the object that we choose to meditate upon. "As you meditate, so you become," this is a well-known old occult proverb.
So, in our system, we meditate on the abstract, no names of God, no forms, no mantras. But, at the same time, because it is impossible to meditate on nothingness, my Master suggests we meditate on light in the heart, something nearest to divinity. In its own way it is formless, attributeless, nameless, because the goal of the Sahaj Marg system is ultimate union, if possible, with the Absolute, which incidentally is what yoga really means.

Now you may not find it easy to believe, but I can tell you many of the abhyasis of my Master, his disciples, have been able to reach a state of samadhi within a few months of their starting their practice. Whereas, if you read the traditional yogic literature of India, you read that Vishwamitra meditated twenty-five thousand years, Vasishta meditated fifty thousand years. We are confused, you see. "How is it possible? Am I really in a state of samadhi?" And yet it is a fact. It happens, you see, because when you do something right, how much time should it take to give you the result? It should not take any time at all. As my Master said, "If you know how to meditate, the instant you close your eyes you should be in samadhi." And perhaps you will permit me to say, that nowadays I am very often in this situation that, if I close my eyes, I am liable to slip into samadhi and not wake up again. This started soon after I started my Master's method.

I remember once I asked my Master, Babuji Maharaj, "What is the real use of this, asanas and pranayama?" He said, "I will tell you something which perhaps you have never heard before. Will you believe it?" I said, "Certainly, you know I cannot possibly disbelieve." I did have reservations in my mind. He said, "This system of yoga was created by ancient rishis who had to meditate twenty-four hours a day in their caves up in the Himalayas. They could not go for a walk. They could not go for a swim. They could not practise calisthenics. Therefore, they evolved a system of yogic practice, in which seated as they are in meditation, they changed their postures periodically and kept the system revitalized periodically."
And the breathing, pranayama? Well, anybody who has meditated knows this is the matter of practical experience, that when you meditate, and you go into deep meditation, the breathing practically stops. So the system needs oxygen, you see. It is a vital necessity. It is called the prana vayu in Sanskrit, the life-giving gas. So they develop this pranayama to slowly breathe in and out, keep the system replenished with the oxygen. All with only one purpose in mind, that I have to be alive until I reach my destination. No more, you see.

Excerpts taken from Heart to Heart, Volume III - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

To continue with this idea of death. If it is understood in the spiritual context, it is the most remarkable, the most beautiful act of nature. Whereas we have, because of our identification with the body and its life, totally negated that original spiritual value of death, the idea of death, and converted it into something we're afraid of all of our lives. Those who have been deeply absorbed in meditation would have seen that there is nothing to be really afraid of. We are deeply merged in the inner Self. Sometimes when we wake up we don't know where we are, where we have been, how much time has elapsed. It is possible to be in that condition, even after meditation if you have the ability to hold on to that condition. Now when we come out of it, it is so blissful. We find that we have been in a state of bliss, in a state of utter peace. In fact in a state where really nothing exists, and we cannot say what has been, or what was, except to say that it was wonderful, and we are sorry it ended.

We meditate and make meditation a state of life, so that we are eternally in a contemplative mood, even when we are involving ourselves in other activities, which will mean minimum involvement in activities, maximum involvement in contemplation.

Satsangh with a great person liberates you. So in that sense, satsangh means to be always with. Sat-sangh. Sat means the truth, the eternal verity. Sangha means to be with. So in our meditation we are eternally with Him, or we should be if we are meditating in the right way. I am meditating upon the Divine light in the heart. The Divine presence is there, which is shedding its non-luminous luminosity. Who am I with when I meditate? And if I am with Him, where is my liberation? If I have been with Him through life, can I be separated from Him at death? If at death He is with me, does it not mean liberation? Can I go to hell with my God with me? ...
Have faith in what you are doing. Remember that when you meditate you are with God. Remember that when you are not meditating also He is there, because He is here (indicates the heart). My meditation is only to establish a contact with Him, like telephoning a friend and making sure he is there. Or calling, "Mummy, mummy," and she says, "Yes, darling. I am in the kitchen." This is all that is necessary.

Excerpts taken from Religion and Spirituality - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

I started studying a bit of Buddhism. I was tempted to be a Buddhist because again I found the profound truth that God is within. He too meditated, he too found his final goal, his final emancipation, his mahaparinirvana as they say in the Buddhist religion, under the bodhi tree after forty days of meditation.
Jesus the Christ found his goal by meditation. If tradition is to be accepted, Mohammed the Prophet found his goal also by meditation.

Today, we don't understand ourselves, how can you understand anybody else? He who understands himself, understands everybody. One who has not understood himself or herself, can understand nothing.
How to get this understanding? Examine your heart. How to examine your heart? Sit and meditate. What do you do in meditation? Focus your attention on the heart, and then see for yourself the enormously beautiful, wonderful mysteries that are there. And once you look at that, this world becomes meaningless. It is not that we have to run away, you know, and become ascetics and celibates, but it loses its charm. Now we continue to live because we have to live, like a tree lives. I don't think a tree finds any charm in its existence, it is there because it is there-reason enough.

Excerpts taken from Love and Death - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

Shakespeare says, "Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so." So when we don't think, there are no more qualities. In meditation, we don't think. We meditate. Therefore, for one who continues to meditate and becomes, what shall we say, a sage, qualities cease to exist.

Cleaning gets rid of the past, meditation creates the future, remembrance now prevents me from indulging myself in my fancies. In His remembrance, what I do is always right. So you see, the three instruments of Sahaj Marg-cleaning, meditation, constant remembrance-in my mind, they are infallible, unbeatable, totally effective instruments.

So you see, the only way of making things happen without doing anything, is by meditation. There is no other way. And then what happens is what He inside me-which is really 'I' inside me-which is the real me, desires.

Excerpts taken from Revealing the Personality - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

So meditation is a process, it is not an end in itself. I say this because I find often precepors say, "Meditate and everything is solved." Nothing is solved by meditation. By meditation we meditate. What do we achieve by meditation?-then if people ask, you see-well, by mastering the ability to think continuously of something, I gain a regulatory control over my own mind. I have now the possibility of applying that mind where I choose. It is able to reveal to me the truth of whatever I seek. So at its peak, meditation can do nothing but serve as an instrument of revelation, because the mind is perfected, the mind is regulated, and the mind becomes one-pointed and now I can use it for everything except to know God.

Excerpts taken from What is Sahaj Marg? A Preceptor's Guide, Volume I - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

We are telling ourselves that we are powerless. The cause is the over-activity or the hyperactivity of the mind which is indulging in so many fantasies, but not resting upon itself. And this is the secret of meditation: that we bring this hyperactive mind to rest, a state of total rest which becomes samadhi. And then you find the power of the Original Mind is now becoming manifest within itself, not to be used or misused, but just to be aware that it exists, and to be used by turning it upon yourself for your own ultimate spiritual release from this world. And for the further stages of spiritual evolution which we call realisation, layavastha, etc.

Excerpts taken from A Preceptor's Guide, Volume II - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

So the idea is that there must be a certain degree of freedom from the body and its needs before you can really sit down and meditate. This is the fundamental principle. Not everybody can sit on a bed of nails and meditate. Not everybody can sit on cold stone floors in the winter in Shahjahanpur and meditate. Not everybody can meditate on an empty stomach. Therefore, the minimum necessary to liberate your mind from the troubles and the travails of the body inflicting themselves into the presence of the mind are to be avoided, so that we can go about the business of meditation. This is the fundamental principle underlying our providing such comfort as we are able to provide, and which we want to provide. It is nothing more than that.

Excerpts taken from A Preceptor's Guide, Volume III - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

The above quotes form a short synopsis from the Sahaj Marg Educational Series titled Meditation. To purchase the book, follow this link to the bookstore.