The Art of True Meditation

The love with which a present has been given to you cannot be seen by your eyes. Something in your intelligence understands it. Something in your heart feels it. This something in your heart and intelligence is the instrument of perception of higher things like love.

In the same way also God cannot be seen or understood by the dull physical senses. To comprehend Him you need an adequate instrument of perception.

Meditation is not a mechanical, physical activity, but the functioning of highest perceptive faculties in the intelligence and the heart, the working of love, devotion and faith.

If you want to have a view of the entire town you have to climb on the roof of the highest building. In the same way, if you want to see God, you have to make use of the highest perceptive faculties within you.

Your skin may feel whether the water is cold or hot, but it cannot tell you how much two plus two is. If you want to know this you need the appropriate faculty of your intelligence.

If you want to realise God you have to develop the highest capacities of your soul. But it is very doubtable that these abilities can awaken in you, as long as you are just a mass of flesh that reacts to the universe through its skin. Such a state is natural for an animal, but not for a human being who is able to react to the world through its intelligence and love. Again it would not be appropriate for a saint to react to the world through his intelligence and love. The saint has to react to everything through that which is supreme in his inner consciousness. In order to reach this highest stage of consciousness a number of conditions have to be fulfilled and practised for many years, in fact for several lives.

People all over the world read books on meditation and other spiritual practices, written by persons who have not experienced the Truth, and think this is sufficient to attain God-realisation. Since over sixty years, thousands in the west have studied books on concentration, Yoga, philosophy, Zen and other eastern practices, yet few of them can really be called spiritual aspirants and have made true progress on the spiritual path.

For spiritual progress something more is needed. Not only do you have to fulfil the conditions, not only do you need a great teacher who is rooted in Truth-experience, but the grace of God has to express itself through you in the form of constant, persistent practice of spiritual disciplines.

Without fulfilment of the preconditions there can be no Truth-experience however hard one may try for it. Even as a student of Michelangelo you cannot become a master within one day; many years of hard work and training are necessary - day and night nothing but practising. Incomparably more difficult is the spiritual path. It demands much greater discipline and far more practice.

- Swami Omkarananda