Meditation is only one of the ways to progress spiritually though neither the only one nor the easiest one. Bhakti is the swiftest but it is not something that can be practiced as a method. Works or karmayoga is the widest and because it makes us grow through life, it is also the widest and most natural.
Meditation is done by training the mind to focus on a chain of connected thoughts centered around an idea of the Divine. Reading the scriptures such as the Gita, Upanishads, Works of Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother helps prepare the mind for Meditation.
Another form of Meditation is to simply step back within and be a non-judgmental witness to all that is happening within and offer it to the Divine.
A third way is contemplation on a single idea, not thinking about it but concentrating upon it. One can also concentrate upon one of the subtle centres in the centre of the chest, middle of the forehead or even above the head on the Divine Presence taking the support of a Mantra or a Name and Form of the Divine.
It is difficult to describe the details here but the main thing is not the method or the technique but the aspiration. What we do and what happens during meditation depends upon why we are meditating.
Let me quote a letter of Sri Aurobindo on the subject
‘1) What meditation exactly means.
There are two words used in English to express the Indian idea of Dhyana, “meditation” and ” contemplation “. Meditation means properly the concentration of the mind on a single train of ideas which work out a single subject. Contemplation means regarding mentally a single object, image, idea so that the knowledge about the object, image or idea may arise naturally in the mind by force of the concentration. Both these things are forms of dhyana; for the principle of dhyana is mental concentration whether in thought, vision or knowledge.
There are other forms of dhyana. There is a passage in which Vivekananda advises you to stand back from your thoughts, let them occur in your mind as they will and simply observe them & see what they are. This may be called concentration in self-observation.
This form leads to another, the emptying of all thought out of the mind so as to leave it a sort of pure vigilant blank on which the divine knowledge may come and imprint itself, undisturbed by the inferior thoughts of the ordinary human mind and with the clearness of a writing in white chalk on a blackboard. You will find that the Gita speaks of this rejection of all mental thought as one of the methods of Yoga and even the method it seems to prefer. This may be called the dhyana of liberation, as it frees the mind from slavery to the mechanical process of thinking and allows it to think or not think as it pleases and when it pleases, or to choose its own thoughts or else to go beyond thought to the pure perception of Truth called in our philosophy Vijnana.
Meditation is the easiest process for the human mind, but the narrowest in its results; contemplation more difficult, but greater; self-observation and liberation from the chains of Thought the most difficult of all, but the widest and greatest in its fruits. One can choose any of them according to one’s bent and capacity. The perfect method is to use them all, each in its own place and for its own object; but this would need a fixed faith and firm patience and a great energy of Will in the self-application to the Yoga.
2) What should be the objects or ideas for meditation?
Whatever is most consonant with your nature and highest aspirations. But if you ask me for an absolute answer, then I must say that Brahman is always the best object for meditation or contemplation , and the idea on which the mind should fix is that of God in all, all in God and all as God. It does not matter essentially whether it is the Impersonal or the Personal God or, subjectively, the One Self. But this is the idea I have found the best, because it is the highest and embraces all other truths, whether truths of this world or of the other worlds or beyond all phenomenal existence,—”All this is the Brahman.”
3) Conditions internal and external that are most essential for meditation.
There are no essential external conditions, but solitude and seclusion at the time of meditation as well as stillness of the body are helpful, sometimes almost necessary to the beginner. But one should not be bound by external conditions. Once the habit of meditation is formed, it should be made possible to do it in all circumstances, lying, sitting, walking, alone, in company, in silence or in the midst of noise etc.
The first internal condition necessary is concentration of the will against the obstacles to meditation, i.e. wandering of the mind, forgetfulness, sleep, physical and nervous impatience and restlessness etc.
The second is an increasing purity and calm of the inner consciousness (citta) out of which thought and emotion arise; i.e. a freedom from all disturbing reactions, such as anger, grief, depression, anxiety about worldly happenings etc. Mental perfection and moral are always closely allied to each other.’
Affectionately,
Alok Da
