What is meditation?

Meditation means our conscious growth into the Infinite. When we meditate what we actually do is enter into a vacant, calm, silent mind and allow ourselves to be nourished and nurtured by Infinity itself. When we are in meditation we want only to commune with God. Now I am speaking in English and you are able to understand me because you know English well. Similarly, when we know how to meditate well, we will be able to commune with God, for meditation is the language we use to speak with God.

Meditation is like going to the bottom of the sea, where everything is calm and tranquil. On the surface there may be a multitude of waves, but the sea is not affected below. In its deepest depths, the sea is all silence. When we start meditating, first we try to reach our own the inner existence, our true existence-that is to say, the on bottom of the sea. Then, when the waves come from the outside world, we are not affected. Fear, doubt, worry and all the earthly turmoil will just wash away, because inside us is solid peace. Thoughts cannot trouble us, because our mind is all peace, all silence, oneness. Like fish in the sea, they jump and swim but leave no mark. So when we are in our highest meditation we feel that we are the sea, and the animals in the sea cannot affect us. We feel that we are the sky, and all the birds flying past cannot affect us. Our mind is the sky and our heart is the infinite sea. This is meditation.

What can meditation give us?

Increased capacities

If we pray and meditate every day, we increase our inner capacity. The body's capacity and the soul's capacity, the body's speed and the soul's speed, go together. ¹

Many people are not born poets or born artists. But by practising meditation, they bring into their system literary capacities, painting capacities, musical capacities, because meditation means new life.²

More poise

When you pray and meditate your whole being becomes flooded with Peace. Then no matter what other people do, you will just feel that they are your own children playing in front of you. You will say, “These are all children. What more can I expect from them?” But right now, because they are grown up in terms of years, you become angry and upset instead. If you pray and meditate regularly, you will soon feel that your peace is infinitely stronger, more fulfilling and more energising than the unfortunate situation that they create. ³

Better health and life-energy

If you are tired, you will get from your meditation new energy, new enthusiasm, new promise. Meditation is a process to awaken or acquire the energy that is not within you at this moment or the energy that is waiting for you to invoke it. In meditation, you invoke cosmic energy.

The energy that we have most of the time is very limited. We work a little and then we have to sleep or rest to recuperate. But if we can throw ourselves into the cosmic energy, we will never be at a loss for energy. ⁴

True happiness

How can one be eternally happy? By making thousands of dollars a person may become happy for five minutes or for a day or for a few months. Then he becomes an ordinary beggar because his inner life is a barren desert. Eternal happiness is what he wants and needs. This eternal happiness he can get only from meditation.⁵

If you make progress, you are bound to feel happiness. That happiness comes from inside you. When you are happy, you look at the world, you look at a flower and you get joy. And this joy is so solid. Even when you see your worst enemy, you are getting joy because he is also a creation of God's. Each and every thing, each and every individual at that time gives you joy, because they are all creations of God’s.⁶

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1. Sri Chinmoy, Sri Chinmoy answers, part 29, Agni Press, 2001↩︎

2. Sri Chinmoy, Art's life and the soul's light, Agni Press, 1974↩︎

3. Sri Chinmoy, Flame-Waves, part 1, Agni Press, 1975↩︎

4. Sri Chinmoy, Flame-Waves, part 10, Agni Press, 1978↩︎

5. Sri Chinmoy, Meditation: God's Duty and man's beauty, Agni Press, 1974↩︎

6. Sri Chinmoy, Sri Chinmoy answers, part 35, Agni Press, 2004↩︎