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What is the Purpose of Meditation?
Meditation is a process. It is a process which we undertake to
reach a destined goal, a predetermined goal. I don't say, "Well,
this train is going; let me go wherever it goes! I will end up in Howrah,
instead of Vijayawada, and there also I will get down only because the
train has reached a junction or a terminus."
Meditation is a training to apply the mind for the purpose
of regulating the mind by our efforts. If it is automatically
regulating itself, why should we meditate? We are already
rishis! As Babuji said, the whole purpose of meditation
is to make a reversal in this fact of life that the mind
is our Master. We have to become the Master of our mind.
It is only this much, just reverse it. But this we have
to do, you know. It is like riding a horse. You have to
ride it and train it. You cannot show a book and say, "Allow
me to ride you properly. This is what a good horse should
be!" You have to ride, you have to risk being thrown
a few times, you have to ride it gently, but with total
control over its reigns. You must be kind, yet you must
be firm.
The mind should be regulated by our sadhana; and this can
be possible only by the initial discipline of applying it
to meditation. This means that a little discipline is first
necessary to bring about the bigger discipline and the ultimate
discipline. So, this little discipline is what we need,
first physically, that little discipline of coming to meditate
first; mentally, that little discipline of trying to meditate
on what we should be meditating upon; thereby achieving
greater and greater regulatory control over our own mind;
which leads to greater and greater physical discipline resulting
out of that. Because it is the mind which feeds into the
body its actions, its desires.
Therefore, meditation is the most important activity, if
we want to discipline ourselves. Because initially, it makes
mental discipline possible; that makes physical discipline
possible, regulating our lives; bringing order into it;
generating more and more mental discipline; resulting in
a self-sustaining cycle - you know some sort of cycle which
sustains itself which makes our goal achievable. Therefore,
without this little discipline, the goal cannot be achieved.
So the goal is possible as long as we have some discipline
within us.
If there is no mental discipline, physical discipline cannot exist.
That is why we meditate; to achieve regulation over the mind, make it
disciplined, make it possible for us to apply the mind where we choose,
apply it, not use it, apply it - and thereby achieve a 100% strength
of the mind, which makes possible that promise of yoga
, that a yogi will be skillful in anything he does.
WHY WE DON'T MEDITATE ON OTHER POINTS? The point between the
eyebrows - at this point there is a plexus, a yogic centre located which
is responsible for distributing power through the system, the power
of existence - shakti as we call it in Sanskrit. When
one meditates here, one has the ability or one achieves the ability
to control shakti as such. The same reasoning applies to meditation
on the point of the nose, where we are told, you can acquire certain
different siddhis, for instance the ability to see things which you
don't see with the eyes, smell things which you don't smell with the
nose.
In Sahaj Marg ,
power has nothing to do with spiritual evolution. In fact
one evolves to the highest and one has, one day, to slip
out of one's body into the hereafter. All power, all other
achievements are left behind here. So what does one do with
power? Power is something that one uses so long as one is
in this temporal world, temporal existence and it falls
off.
WHY WE DO NOT MEDITATE ON OTHER OBJECTS AND FORMS? How do I
meditate on the Divine? My Master says, "So long as you meditate
on limited forms, limited names, there is a limitation. The moment you
say Shiva, he is only a Shiva, may be, with Trishul and this and that
and the snake around the neck. The moment you say Vishnu, he is only
a Vishnu." So my Master says, "Go beyond these forms, they
are only functionaries of Nature. One is the God of creation, one is
the God of preservation, one is the God of destruction. They are functionaries.
The ultimate principle is that which you call the PARA which has no
names, no forms no attributes." He has no form; so, we don't have
a form. He has no name, so, we don't have a 'mantra' in our system.
When we try to meditate with two systems, or two gurus,
or two different warring things in our mind, even if one
is good in itself, we are damaging ourselves. Therefore,
bear in mind, meditation only according to the system -
which ever system you adopt. If you want to take to Sahaj
Marg meditation you should take to it completely, fully,
to the exclusion of everything else. We cannot have two
Gods; we cannot have two methods; we cannot have two concurrent
currents in the mind. It is like trying to create vegetarian
beef. It's not possible.
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