What do we Achieve by Meditation?

The first step of the yoga of Sahaj Marg is, "Try to bring the mind together into one solid beam and focus it." And the meditative activity is supposed to achieve this. We try to meditate on one object, and hold the mind there by an effort of will, thus strengthening the mind by the application of the will. And the repeated application of the will strengthens the will itself to greater performance. And when we have been able to achieve this, we have a mind which has a solid focussable beam behind it; and then it becomes the instrument of revelation in the sense that on whatever you apply it, reveals itself.
By mastering the ability to think continuously of some thing, 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. Because God, not being an object, cannot be the object of concentration. Therefore, no concentration can ever reveal the presence of God. Concentration can do nothing but reveal that which is in its true colours.

In meditation we go in towards the centre, look into the heart. To make this possible, we say, "Imagine a divine light," the presence of light there. It is a mere supposition. Because it is something on which to focus my attention, and train my mind to look in. And when I have trained my mind to look in, it can plunge into the eternity without seeking an object. Because there is no object. The centre is not a place. It is not a thing. It is not a location in space or time. So how to search for it? How to look for it? How to seek it? When? How? Why? All this is simple when we sit in meditation.

EVERY MEDITATION IS A TRAINING IN DYING In Hinduism, we have this idea that the moment a child is born, it has begun to die. I mean, it's a fact. It is not going to die 60 years later or 100 years later. It has already begun to die. It is like when you wind up a clock, it has already begun to unwind itself.

So, when is death? It is the moment you are born. Effectively this is death. Birth is death. Of course it may take time. That is all it takes. There is nothing else. It may take 60 years, it may take 3 days, it may take 17 years, it may take 124 years. But death is over. The moment you are born, you are literally dead. But, we think this is life. Now, per contra, the moment I am dead, my life has begun. So, that we are afraid of, this we are happy about. Now how foolish it is, you see.

We are born because we have certain samskaras which make it necessary for us to come and exist again, and learn the lessons that we have to learn again. The mistakes we have made in the past on our way, our evolutionary path, we have to correct.

So, in this life there comes a point when we cannot learn any more, when we are saturated as it were. So the soul in its infinite wisdom says, "Enough. Now I have to change." It vacates this body, and if it has to come back again to learn its lessons again, it chooses its next environment, its next body, everything that is necessary. So it is our choice. We choose how long we shall live, where we shall live, to whom we shall be born. The soul chooses everything.

But what happens? After we are born, again this blessed world takes hold of us. Again the desires start flourishing, temptations start rising, and the course that has been charted out is missed, and we are now going on the wrong track. So the lesson of the life is not learned. Our living becomes futile. In that sense, our dying was futile, because we died only to live again. We died so that we could build for ourselves a fresh opportunity to evolve. And that opportunity we are destroying ourselves.

If we think of death in the right way, we should say to ourselves, "We have wasted our life, let us not waste our death." This should be our last thought you see. Because what I could not achieve in life, I can surely achieve in death again, if I know what I'm doing. Therefore at the moment of death, it is necessary to be at least 'be conscious of our purpose and die.'

To ensure that we have the right thought at the moment of oblivion is all this problem that we are facing - Meditation, Constant Remembrance, developing love for the Master. So that if we have established it as a continuing truth in our existence, it cannot depart from us at the moment of death. We shall die with this thought, with this condition.

And therefore, there is no more question of being reborn and of not being liberated. Hinduism says, even if you are not able to do this, if at the end of your life, at that moment you are able to think of God in His Absolute Form which is formless, attributeless, nameless existence, then too this is possible.

Death doesn't exist you see. If I take off my shirt and put it in the wash basket it doesn't mean it is dead, not does it mean that I am dead. Both are still there, the only thing is they are not together. The shirt is somewhere, I am still somewhere. What is there to worry about? What is there to be afraid about?
As long as we are afraid to die, we will not be liberated, but we will continue to be imprisoned within that cycle of birth and death of which we are so afraid. That means one who is afraid of death will have to die again and again until he loses his fear of it.

Every Meditation is a training in dying. Because when you go really deep into yourself, and you come out after it and say, "I was absorbed. I don't know where I was. I didn't even know whether I was sleeping or meditating," you have literally been not there. In a sense you were dead to this existence. Therefore meditation is training in dying. And if we have done it correctly, we should be masters of death, masters of the act of dying; one who can die when he wishes, one who can die when he chooses, coming back again and again if he wishes, so that his death is not really a death.

"THAT which never was, shall never be; THAT which is today must have been and will ever exist," says an ancient Upanishad. The soul is eternal. It is part of the Divine Essence, the Ultimate, the Infinite, the Godhead.

God is not born, He does not die. Therefore, I am not born, I cannot die. All that I see and experience of birth and death are my problems imposed upon myself by my observing people being born and people being dead. Therefore I think I was born and I am going to die. The truth is that my body came into existence and will cease to be. I am eternal.