Q&A: Keeping your joy

After we stop meditating, how can we maintain the level of consciousness that we reached during our meditation?

Here in the meditation hall we are all aspiring; that is why our consciousness is elevated. When we go home, our consciousness will go down. Some as calamity may take place or we will just enter into ordinary activities, and we will lose our aspiration. Even if there is no outer disturbance, still we find it difficult to remain in our highest consciousness because we are not used to living there. We aspire for half an hour with utmost sincerity, and then relaxation starts. We feel that we have worked very hard, so now we are entitled to take rest for an hour or two. We do not value what we have achieved. We feel, "even if I lose it, I will get it back tomorrow." So we start reading a newspaper or watching television, and in this way we enter into relaxation.

If we want to maintain the height of our aspiration, he then our aspiration has to flow continuously. Suppose we have meditated for an hour or so and we do not have the capacity to continue meditating. Still, we can do something which will maintain and preserve our meditation. We can read spiritual books, sing spiritual songs or listen to soulful music. We can go to visit a spiritual friend or, if that is not possible, call him on the phone and speak about spiritual matters. Another thing we can do is write about our experiences, not with the thought of publishing them but just to keep them in our consciousness. While we are writing down an experience, we are revealing our own inner light. Then, each time we read about one of our own experiences, we get new inspiration and aspiration. Even while we are eating we can remember what experiences we had during our morning meditation. Like charging a battery, we are charging our memory with spiritual energy. In this way we can remain in the spiritual flow that we had during our meditation, and keep our consciousness high until our next meditation.

If we want to maintain our height and make the utmost progress, we have to be very wise in our day-to-day lives in how we spend each second. A time will come when we will not have to have any restrictions in our life; our life itself will be a continuous flow of aspiration. But now we have to use our conscious mind in order to aspire.

Now is the time to make good use of time. Today is the day to begin a perfect day.

Q&A: Keeping your joy

What qualities are most important for the absorption of light?

The absorption of light demands absolute sincerity and purity. Anybody who is one hundred percent sincere and pure in his spiritual life can immediately absorb light. The sincerity that I am speaking of is not ordinary human sincerity, but spiritual sincerity, which is infinitely more subtle. Spiritual sincerity asks whether you are ready to make all sacrifices in order to please God. If God asks you to give up everything for His sake, if He says, "Give up everything and walk with Me, run with Me," and you are ready to do it, that is called true spiritual sincerity. Spiritual sincerity is constant inner and outer sacrifice. If there is no sacrifice in the inner life or the outer life, then sincerity cannot take birth. Constant self-sacrifice to realise the Highest is called real sincerity.

But if there is no purity, immediately you will lose the light that you have received. Purity is actually the vessel inside you which holds spiritual light, peace, bliss and power. Very often you receive things and then you lose them because impurity enters into you. Impurity does not only have to do with lower vital movements. Doubt, fear, jealousy and insecurity are all forms of impurity. One of the undivine qualities that goes hand-in-hand with impurity is self-deception, so you have to be very careful. If you want to expedite your spiritual journey, then purity must come first. Otherwise, no matter how much light you have received or are going to receive, you will not be able to keep it.

Each conscious step of purity is a precious milestone-victory along my heart's aspiration-road.

Q&A: Keeping your joy

At the end of meditation I feel very good. Is there anything I should do with that feeling, or any way to utilise it?

Whatever you feel should be preserved. How can you preserve it? By offering gratitude to the Inner Pilot. Also, you can try to feel that whatever you have achieved can be transcended.

If you have received or achieved a dollar's worth of peace, then next time you I can try to get ten dollars' worth of peace. And if you feel that you have developed an inner muscle to receive, then you can continue strengthening that muscle. In this way you can develop a very powerful inner capacity.

Chapter 2: How to Begin

This is the second chapter of Meditation: Man-Perfection in God Satisfaction by Sri Chinmoy.

From the spiritual point of view, every seeker is a beginner. A beginner is he who has the inner urge to grow into something ever more divine, ever more illumining and ever more fulfilling. The moment you want to make constant and continuous progress, the moment you want to surpass yourself and enter into the ever-transcending Beyond, at that moment you become an eternal beginner.

If you are an absolute beginner, then you can start by reading a few spiritual books or scriptures. These will give you inspiration. You should read books by spiritual Masters in whom you have implicit faith. There are Masters who have attained the highest consciousness, and if you read their books, you are bound to get inspiration. It is better not to read books written by professors or scholars or aspirants who are still on the path and have not yet attained illumination. Only those who have realised the Truth will have the capacity to offer the Truth. Otherwise, it is like the blind leading the blind.

It is also a good idea to associate with people who have been meditating for some time. These people may not be in a position to teach you, but they will be able to inspire you. Even if you just sit beside them while they are meditating, unconsciously your inner being will derive some meditative power from them. You are not stealing anything; only your inner being is taking help from them without your outer knowledge.

In the beginning you should not even think about meditation. Just try to set aside a certain time of day when you will try to be calm and quiet, and feel that these five minutes belong to your inner being and to nobody else. Regularity is of paramount importance. What you need is regular practice at a regular time.

Every day there is only one thing to learn:
how to be honestly happy.
 

Some basic exercises

For a beginner it is better to start with concentration. Otherwise, the moment you try to make your mind calm and vacant, millions of uncomely thoughts will enter into you and you will not be able to meditate even for one second. If you concentrate, at that time you challenge the wrong thoughts that are trying to enter you. So in the beginning just practise concentration for a few minutes. Then, after a few weeks or a few months, you can try meditation.

When you start meditating, always try to feel that you are a child. When one is a child, one's mind is not developed. At the age of twelve or thirteen, the mind starts functioning on an intellectual level. But before that, a child is all heart. A child feels that he does not know anything. He does not have any preconceived ideas about meditation and the spiritual life. He wants to learn everything fresh.

First feel that you are a child, and then try to feel that you are standing in a flower garden. This flower garden is your heart. A child can play in a garden for hours. He goes from this flower to that flower, but he does not leave the garden, because he gets joy from the beauty and fragrance of each flower. Feel that inside you is a garden, and you can stay in it for as long as you want. In this way you can learn to meditate in the heart.

If you can remain in the heart, you will begin to feel an inner cry. This inner cry, which is aspiration, is the secret of meditation. When an adult person cries, his cry is usually not sincere. But when a child cries, even if he is crying only for candy, he is very sincere. At that time, candy is the whole world for him. If you give him a hundred-dollar bill, he will not be satisfied; he cares only for candy. When a child cries, immediately his father or mother comes to him. If you can cry from deep within for peace, light and truth, and if this is the only thing that will satisfy you, then God your eternal Father and eternal Mother is bound to come and help you.

You should always try to feel that you are as helpless as a child. As soon as you feel that you are helpless, somebody will come to help you. If a child is lost in the street and he begins to cry, some kind-hearted person will show him where his home is. Feel that you are lost in the street and that there is a storm raging. Doubt, fear, anxiety, worry, insecurity and other undivine forces are pouring down on you. But if you cry sincerely, somebody will come to rescue you and show you how to get to your home, which is your heart. And who is that somebody? It is God, your Inner Pilot.

The Inner Pilot

God can appear with form and without form. But during your meditation, it is best to think of the Supreme as a human being.

The beginner should always meditate on the personal God. Otherwise, if you try to see God in His impersonal aspect, you will be confused by His immensity. So start with the personal God and from there you can go to the impersonal God.

Today you may be a beginner in the spiritual life, but do not feel that you will always be a beginner. At one time everybody was a beginner. If you practise concentration and meditation regularly, if you are really sincere in your spiritual search, then you are bound to make progress.

The important thing is not to be discouraged. God-realisation does not come overnight. If you meditate regularly and devotedly, if you can cry for God like a child cries for his mother, then you will not have to run to the goal. No, the goal will come and stand right in front of you and claim you as its own, very own.

 

Q&A: Meditation

Sometimes it seems like I spend my whole time trying to keep myself awake and I don't really meditate.

Lethargy and sleep come during meditation because sincere interest is lacking. If sincere interest is there, there will be no tendency to sleep. When a student wants to be first in school, when he has a real, sincere interest, then he studies without being forced by his parents. But some students feel that if they just pass the examination, that is more than enough. If this is their reeling, then they do not have any energetic drive or enthusiasm for their school work.

You should always try to be eager and enthusiastic about meditation. If you feel that you cannot meditate for half an hour, then plan to meditate for ten minutes. Then you will feel, "Oh, only ten minutes. Easily I can do that." If your goal is very near, then you will give it all your energy. If it is quite far, you will say, "Oh God! To keep running at top speed for such a long time is impossible." But anybody can meditate for ten minutes. If you have to run twenty miles, you will be scared to we death. But if you see that the goal is within sight, then you will say, "Oh, I can easily reach it. Let me run as fast as possible."

Q&A: Meditation

Sometimes, even though I concentrate on my heart, my head pulls down energy and I can't seem to stop it, and I just end up with a headache. Is there any way I can get back to the heart?

The pain that you are feeling in your head is the result of resistance. What is happening is that your heart is receiving through the mind. Something is coming from above and is trying to enter into the heart, but the mind is not allowing the heart to receive fully. The mind allows the heart to receive to some extent; that is why the force is coming through the mind. But then the mind becomes jealous of the heart and it starts resisting.

At that time try to feel that inside the heart there is something which is infinitely more powerful than the mind. It is the soul, which has immense power. So bring forward your soul's inner strength and say to the mind, "You allowed me to remain quiet for a few minutes, and I am grateful. But I am still praying and meditating, I am still crying for peace, light and bliss, and now you are not allowing me to continue." Then just grab the mind and pull it into the flood of the heart.

The mind is like a naughty child. Previously it was asleep, so the mother was able to remain silent and pray to God. But now the child is awake and it wants to cause mischief. It does not want to allow the mother to aspire any longer. So what will the mother do? She will threaten the child and say, "I am still praying, I am still meditating. You must not disturb me, or I will punish you."

As long as the mind allows you to meditate, you do not have to worry. But when it starts bothering you and creating pain, that means that it does not want to allow you to receive more peace, light and bliss from above. So you have to use your soul's power and pull it into the heart.

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