Glorious Immortal Atman! Blessed Children of Light and Immortality! Beloved Seekers on the Pathway to the Divine! How privileged we are to be able to gather here in this holy morning hour to bathe ourselves in the glorious stream of meditation and the Divine Name! Such an hour is a gift from God. It is a bestowal of love from One who is ever eternal, from One who is our source, One in whom we eternally abide, and in whom we are all one. Such a gift should be accepted with love, received reverentially, and with devotion utilised by us all. Indeed, the token of our true recognition of God's continuous compassion and grace upon us would be to ever try to make ourselves worthy of such marks of His grace and to that extent we would be drawing nearer and nearer to Him. We should ourselves live our lives in such a way that, seeing one of us, He, the indweller (who knows our true aspirations, our innermost desires) would tell Himself: "Here is a child that has wearied of the toys of this mortal earth-plane, that has wearied of the worthless, passing and perishable objects, that has wearied of the appearance, the names and forms, of this great game of Mine, this drama of life, and now wishes to turn to Me and, therefore, I should not tarry". Thus recognising, He brings into the life of one who is truly in need of Him, who truly desires Him and Him alone, who is earnest in his quest, all that is needed for his spiritual unfoldment and the attainment of the highest. The yearning, the strong aspiration, therefore, is our part. That is the step the finite takes, and that being sincere and earnest, the fulfilment of it becomes His task. Thus it is that the great Master Jesus said, "Ask and it shall be given". The asking of it is the task of each individual soul and the giving of it is verily the Father's task through wise love. And, as sure as the glorious dawn and the radiant sun do follow the darkness of the night, so sure and certain is the fulfilment of the true aspiration of the sincere soul in earnest quest of the Supreme. Such occasions as this-of prayer, of worshipfulness, of meditation-are not only proofs of the tangible presence of Grace in our life, but from our part is proof of our sincere desire for Him. Every time we turn away from earthly pursuits, every time we set aside mere things of this world and collect ourselves in the stillness of our inner being, and sit to worship Him and a call goes out to the Infinite, "Here I am. I need You. Be Thou gracious. Reveal Thyself unto me. I turn away from the passing and seek the Eternal", it becomes as it were, a true token of the sincerity and earnestness of the soul, of the innermost being's sincere desire.

THE NATURE OF MEDITATION AND ITS PLACE IN YOGA

Meditation, therefore, is the exercise of the deepest part of your being. It is, in truth, the highest and the noblest exercise of the supreme prerogative, the supreme blessedness of human birth. There is no exercise loftier than worship upon this earth-plane. Let us be thankful, therefore, for this beautiful morning, for this solemn hour and for the privilege of sitting at the altar of the Divine Presence, entering into the silence and bathing ourselves in the glorious radiance of His presence. Let us be thankful for this privilege of trying to purify ourselves of all that is earthly within us, trying to fill ourselves with the Divine. Such acts of meditation form but a variation of the process, which our entire life is meant to be. Our life is meant to be a constant opening of ourselves unto the Divine-a process of stilling our nature, a constant process of turning away from the perception of the non-self, a continuous process of rejecting the call of the non-eternal upon our being and a resolute, a persistent, and an insistent opening of ourselves to the Atman (Soul), to the Imperishable, to the Eternal. Our entire life is meant to be an attempt to turn away from the unreal and move towards the real, an attempt to reject the pull of darkness and seek light and light alone, a resolute rising up from this plane of mortality to the recognition of the immortal nature of the Self within. And meditation is the same process intensified in a systematic and deliberate way, canalised at a specific time. Meditation is intensified living in the Spirit, and our entire life (and its movements) is a diffused flow of the spirit of meditation, of the spirit of our spiritual quest. These two processes, therefore, should have no specific break or barrier separating them. Meditation should supply the dynamism for our living. Meditation should be the re-charging of our life battery in an intense manner. Meditation should be the spiritualising force for all our life-for all our thoughts, feelings, ideas, sentiments and aspirations-for all our dealings with the world. Our perception of the whole world and of all life should be a movement fully bearing out the inner spirit of meditation. These two, viz., life and meditation, are contiguous and continuous processes. They are not two processes with a clear-cut separating barrier.

Meditation is not some isolated act that you do in life and which has no bearing on life, which is entirely of a different nature altogether, and something which goes against the normal current of your life. Yet, it may be going in a direction opposite to the normal current of your lower self, of the desire nature of the mind, of the object-ward movement of the senses. Such outward movements are the inherent tendencies of the mind and meditation may go in opposition to these, but these outward movements do not constitute your Self; the senses do not constitute your Self; the mind and the desire nature do not constitute your Self. Your true being is as a river rushing towards the ocean. Thus, in that being, there should be no separation between your meditation and your living. If this point is not borne in mind, you will find that between meditation and the rest of your day-to-day life there is a sharp divergence, and meditation becomes, as it were, a tug-of-war with the impulses generated by your day-to-day life. It becomes a hard process-one part of the mind contradicting the other, opposed to the other, with much waste of essential energy. There is much conflict within, in the self of the being. The harmony, the peace and the joy with which meditation can flood your being and fill your countenance, that is lacking in your expression; even though you meditate, there is not the calmness in the eye. But where this inner secret has been recognised and life and meditation go hand-in-hand, are fully in sympathy and rhythm, one finds that in such a meditator the calmness of meditation flows through his life; the peace of meditation shines through his eyes; the joy of meditation pulsates and radiates through his entire being. Such, indeed, is the place of meditation in your life. Such, indeed, is the role of meditation in the day-to-day living of your entire being.

HOW TO START THE CURRENT OF MEDITATION — THE TECHNIQUE

We being embodied beings and our mind being what it is, our everyday life does have a certain impact upon our soul consciousness, the innermost awareness, and the senses again and again cloud the radiance of the inner consciousness. Therefore, when you sit for meditation, instead of starting the process immediately, you should allow a certain time for the movement or the momentum of the external life to calm down. Give a little time. Let the thoughts subside, and then, after the mind has ceased its whirl of objectification, and is settling down, then gently lift it up out of the self-awareness, out of the consciousness of its union with its immediate surroundings and with the body. And to that end, the chanting of the Divine Name, of Divine Mantras, produce wonderful spiritual vibrations, divine in their potency, which help to lift the mind up into a state of subtle awareness of the Divine. In the state of calmness and upliftment generated by the quietness in the withdrawal of the mind, the Divine Name evokes your concept of the Supreme, your idea of the Great Reality. The whole body, the entire mind and the senses quieten; and the mind is elevated. It is ready to contemplate upon the higher ideas. Gently, the clinging of the mind to lower ideas gets loosened. You should, therefore, prepare your mind for meditation by filling it with Divine Bhav - a feeling or attitude of spiritual affection - spiritual Bhav. It is somewhat like this: after having travelled through a vast area of mountains and valleys and jungles and variegated scenery, you suddenly come to the ocean-shore and all these multifarious names and forms and ever-changing objects cease and you see just a vast expanse. Your gaze is absolutely undisturbed by any object. You gaze only upon vastness, only upon stillness. From the many, you arrive at the vision of the One.

These processes of stilling the mind, of withdrawing yourself, of calming yourself, of lifting up your consciousness through Mantras, through chants, brings you to a state where the mind is rid of all multifarious objects and is just centred on the God within-on Brahman or the Atman or the Reality, the one Absolute Truth, the Supreme Being, the Changeless Infinite. And even as from the far horizon of the eastern ocean the orb of the sun rises up into that indescribable vastness, your concept of that Being rises in the vastness of the ocean of Pure Being. It may be in the nature of a sound, a Divine Personality, a formless concept, a special idea or a set of ideas you have of the Divine. And, as though the ocean itself has turned into a wave, no different from itself, not separate from it, being the same, and yet appearing for the time being as a wave pattern, you invoke upon this ocean of Pure Being, gently, the appearance of your particular concept of God in the form of your idea or set of ideas and then slowly, gently, flow forth to that idea, that set of ideas or that personality. Let your entire being melt and flow in a continuous stream of love and adoration, reverence, worshipfulness, prayerfulness and faith until your entire being just seems to be a continuous stream of such divine sentiments calmly flowing towards your concept of God.

This pattern should be kept up-a continuous and unbroken flow of loving God-thought. This is the very essence of meditation. It is a state of mind when the entire mind is filled with God and God alone, nothing else besides God. It is very necessary to recognise the process of meditation as such, for there are various wrong conceptions, wrong ideas about meditation, one of them being that it is an attempt to make the mind empty. When this concept is presented to me, I always remember the good old saying that an empty mind is the devil's workshop. Anything can come into the mind when it is empty. It is a very difficult concept to break away from the minds of people, because it contains a grain of truth. If there is a complete falsehood, you can contradict it, but if there is a part that has a grain of truth, it becomes very difficult to contradict. Uttering a half-truth is more dangerous than a hundred percent falsehood. So, to these people who seem to have grasped the meaning of a part of the process of meditation and who completely ignore the true process, I repeat: "Meditation is filling the mind with God-thought" and, therefore, it means emptying the mind of all thought other than that of God. This emptying the mind of all that is non-Atman or non-Self or non-Divine is only a part of the process; it is only a thing that is implied by the true process. The actual process is to fill the mind with God. The awareness is always there. If you empty the mind, a blank is not created, a void is not created, but God fills it. The Supreme, the Ideal, the Truth, the Reality, the Light of Pure Being-That floods the entire field of your consciousness. God fills it, and where He is, the world cannot be. It is said, "Where there is the Supreme, there is no desire for the world". So, where God is to come, there should be no desire for the world; for, where the world is, He cannot be. God says, "I am a jealous Master. I will not tolerate the presence of anyone else in that place which is meant for Me. It is Mine". The heart of the individual is the royal throne of God, and if there are other things there, He looks in and says, "No, it is not ready for Me to come".

So, meditation is emptying ourselves of all that is not-God and filling the mind with God. The particular conception of God or the Divine does not at all matter, and the greatest curse are those who advocate and inflict upon the human race one certain religion and one certain concept of the Divine and insist that God or the Divine is such-and-such and only such-and-such and insist that all think of Him only in a particular way, with a particular book. For, that is the very destruction of the pure idea of God, the destruction of the very spiritual core within. God cannot be defined. He cannot be comprehended. We cannot conceive of Him, but He is everything which one can conceive of in love. He allows Himself to be known in any way. Just as, when a child pulls the hair of the mother, twists her nose, slaps her, twists and pushes her face, or sticks its finger into her eye, or does anything, the mother loves the child and bends when it pulls her hair, and allows her face to be pushed whichever way the child wishes. Why? On account of love - love of the mother for the child, and love of the child for the mother also. In the same way, if the loving heart conceives of God in whatever way it can, then that is God. Lord Krishna said, "In whatever way the sincere one seeketh Me, I reveal Myself to the seeking soul in that very way". And if you try to confine Him rigidly to your set conception, you destroy the very conception of God as the Infinite, as the Omnipresent, as the Omnipotent. What can He not do? What is He not? He is everything. There is nothing which He is not. Therefore, even though we know that He is absolute, that He is transcendent, that He is beyond all name and form, beyond the reach of mind and thought, yet He is everything. He is all.

The Vedanta is the grand culmination of all the attempts at giving the Supreme some sort of recognisable form. It says, "You, of countless names and countless forms, are infinite. You are everything". So, conceive of Him in any way. Do not be disturbed. Do not have any anxiety, for He knows when you are sitting for meditation. He knows. He can see even where you are sitting. When you start the thought in meditation, He knows even the thought.

Take, for instance, the father of a family, a good man, loved by all, and just imagine how differently he is conceived of by everyone in the family. The son and the daughter look upon him as the father, someone gracious, someone elderly, protecting them, looking after them, and an ideal to follow. His brother looks upon him, not as a father, but as a gracious brother. The wife looks upon him as her master and lord and loving husband. And his own parents look upon him as a son, the father of their grandchildren. And his neighbour will think of him in a way entirely different from all these. These conceptions - in the parents' minds, in the children's minds, in the brother's mind, in the wife's mind, and in the neighbour's mind-all differ. So they all have different conceptions in their minds of this one being and all these are valid and right.

SATURATE THE MIND WITH GOD-THOUGHT

In the same way, you should think of God in whatever way your heart conceives of Him, and you should start the day with a prayer: "O Lord, I come with love before Thee to the altar. I seek to humbly offer myself to Thee. I come to Thee with love. Raise my consciousness to the realm of Thy great divine nature. May You be pleased to lift me up unto yourself. The clamour of the senses, of the mind - may they be stilled. I pray that they may not intrude upon this solemn moment. I want to think of You and You alone. I want to be completely absorbed in Thee". Say this prayer and then begin to meditate on God. If other thoughts arise in the mind, do not be concerned. Just ignore the mind. Just say, "Do what you wish, but I shall think of the Lord. I shall think of my Beloved, no matter what you do".

Do not try to subdue the mind. Do not try to forcefully evict the thoughts. Do not use force, for then you will hamper the very object of your meditation, which is to think of God; and instead you will be thinking of the mind. Your attention, instead of being focussed on Him, will be diverted and misapplied and misused in a negative process. You should not waste your energy in a negative process. Do not think of the thoughts, do not think of the mind-ignore these and just hold tight to the Divine. If the mind begins to fall away from the Divine idea, chant "OM OM OM OM...", with thoughts of the Limitless, the Eternal, the Infinite, the Transcendental, filling the mind. Or chant the Name of your Ishta (Personal Deity), and in this way, wipe clean the mind of all earthly-thoughts and think only of God. And now and again repeat the Name of God and start conversing with God and offer a prayer: "My God, thou art all-in-all. I offer up unto Thee this entire love of my heart, of my whole being".

The idea is just to saturate yourself with God-thought, with the beauty, the radiance, the light, the divine idea, forgetting all other things and trying to get the feeling of being in the presence of God - of just being there with Him. Every moment that you do this, a transforming process takes place in the depth of your own consciousness. More and more the Light of the Soul begins to fill your entire being. For the moment that you are thinking thus, completely absorbed in God, you are actually transformed into the realm of God. For that moment, your entire being becomes transformed into the God-nature, and when you come out of meditation, this impress of the God-nature which you created in meditation persists. And if you do this again and again, daily, without a single break, what happens is that this impression of the Divine Nature gets to be part and parcel of your consciousness and you feel always one with the Divine. You feel, "I am not this body. I am not this mind. I am not the senses, not the intellect. I am a part of the eternal Sun of God, made in His image, one with Him, a resplendent ray of the Great Radiant Light within". The mind takes up the form of that idea upon which it dwells with much reverence, love and in-gathered attention and concentration.

I pray to the Divine that He may bless you all with wonderful concentration of mind and success in deep meditation.