Meditation FAQ
From New Age Village
Q&A: Meditating only at home
Q: Is it necessary to meditate only at home, or can we try to meditate wherever we are?
A: Right now you are only a beginner. You can meditate at your best only when you are alone in your room or in the presence of your spiritual Master. If you try to meditate while driving or walking or sitting on the subway, you will not be able to go very deep. Again, it is not enough just to be seated before your shrine. While you are seated before your shrine, you have to feel an inner shrine within your heart; otherwise, you will not have a satisfactory meditation. Wherever you meditate, you must enter into your heart, where you can see and feel the living shrine of the Supreme. At your inner shrine you are safe and protected. You are guarded by the divine forces there. If you can meditate at this inner shrine, you are bound to make the fastest progress, because there you will meet with no opposition.
After you have meditated very sincerely for several years and developed some inner strength, at that time you will be able to meditate anywhere. Even if you are standing in the subway or walking along the street, you will not be disturbed. Eventually you have to learn how to do the highest meditation and, at the same time, be aware of what is happening in the outer world.
Q&A: Concentrate on certain objects or meditate on something that has no form
Q: During meditation and prayer, some people concentrate on certain objects, like photographs or some other things. Is it wise for them to cling to these objects, or is it wiser for them to meditate on something that has no form, that they cannot see?
A: When they meditate on something, they are not worshipping that particular thing as God. They are only receiving inspiration from that thing. I look at a candle and I see the flame, but I am not taking the flame as God. I am taking the flame as a source of inspiration. This flame inspires me and increases my aspiration to climb upward with a burning inner cry. I may keep a flower before me when I meditate. The flower is not God, although inside the flower is God. But the flower inspires me and offers me purity. I may bum incense. Incense itself is not God for me, but incense gives me a feeling of purity, and helps me in my spiritual progress.
Anything that inspires me I shall use in order to increase my aspiration, whether it is a picture, a candle or a flower. For when my inspiration and aspiration increase, I feel that I have taken one step more toward my goal. But the candle or the picture or the flower itself is not the object of my adoration.
Q&A: Meditate after eating
Q: Is it all right to meditate after eating, or is fasting desirable?
A: It is not good to meditate just after eating a large meal. The body has thousands of subtle spiritual nerves. These nerves become heavy after a big meal and will not permit you to have the highest type of meditation. The body will be heavy, the consciousness will be heavy, the nerves will be heavy, and your meditation will not be good. When you meditate properly, you feel that your whole existence, like a bird, is flying high, higher, highest. But when your consciousness is heavy, you cannot go up.
So it is always advisable to meditate on an empty stomach. At least two hours should elapse between your meal and the time that you sit down to meditate. But again, if you are really pinched with hunger when you go to meditate, your meditation will not be satisfactory. Your hunger, like a monkey, will constantly bother you. In that case, it is advisable to have just a glass of milk or juice before meditating. This will not ruin your meditation.
But to refrain from eating a large meal before meditation is not the same as fasting. Fasting is not at all necessary for meditation. By fasting you can purify yourself to some extent. Once a month, if you wish, you can fast for a day to purify your existence of outer aggressions and greed. But by fasting frequently, you approach death rather than God. Fasting is not the answer for self-purification. The answer is constant, soulful meditation, unreserved love for God and unconditional surrender to God.
Q&A: Being a vegetarian in order to follow the spiritual life
Q: Is it necessary to be a vegetarian in order to follow the spiritual life?
A: The vegetarian diet does play a role in the spiritual life. Purity is of paramount importance for an aspirant. This purity we must establish in the body, in the vital and in the mind. When we eat meat, the aggressive animal consciousness enters into us. Our nerves become agitated and restless, and this can interfere with our meditation. If a seeker does not stop eating meat, generally he does not get subtle experiences or subtle visions.
At one time the animal consciousness was necessary for forward movement. Animals are by nature aggressive but, at the same time, there is some dynamic push forward in the animal consciousness. If we had not had animal qualities, we would have remained inert, like trees, or we would have remained in the stone consciousness where there is no growth or movement. But unfortunately the animal consciousness also contains many unillumined and destructive qualities. Now we have entered into the spiritual life, so the role of the animal consciousness is no longer necessary in our life. From the animal consciousness we have entered into the human consciousness, and now we are trying to enter into the divine consciousness.
The mild qualities of fruits and vegetables help us to establish, in our inner life as well as in our outer life, the qualities of sweetness, softness, simplicity and purity. If we are vegetarians, this helps our inner being to strengthen its own existence. Inwardly, we are praying and meditating; outwardly, the food we are taking from Mother-Earth is helping us too, giving us not only energy but also aspiration.
Some people feel that it is meat that gives them strength. But if they go deep within, they may discover that it is their own idea about meat that is giving them strength. One can change that idea and feel that it is not meat but the spiritual energy pervading one's body that gives one strength. That energy comes from meditation as well as from proper nourishment. The strength that one can get from aspiration and meditation is infinitely more powerful than the strength one can get from meat.
Many spiritual seekers have come to the conclusion that a vegetarian is in a position to make quicker progress in the spiritual life. But along with a vegetarian diet, one must pray and meditate. If one has aspiration, the vegetarian diet will help considerably; the body's purity will help one's inner aspiration to become more intense and more soulful. But again, if one is not a vegetarian, that does not mean that one will not make spiritual progress or will not be able to realise God.
Q&A: Prayer and Meditation
Q: I would like to know whether I should pray for something I want or whether I should just pray for God's Will to be done?
A: To pray for God's Will to be done is the highest form of prayer. But a beginner finds it almost possible to pray to God sincerely to fulfil him in God's own way. So when the seeker is just starting out, it is advisable for him to pray to God for whatever he feels he needs most, whether it is patience, purity, sincerity, humility, peace and so forth. Then God will give the seeker a little peace, light and bliss, which are the precursors of something infinite that is going to come into his inner being. Once the seeker has received some peace, light and bliss and they have become established to some extent in his inner being, at that time he will have some confidence in God's operation and also in his own life of aspiration.
When one is making very fast progress or is a little advanced, he feels that there 'is some reality within himself and that this reality is not going to disappoint or desert him. Then he feels that God is fully aware of what he desperately needs and is eager to supply him with those things. When a seeker feels this kind of confidence within him, that is the time for the seeker to pray, "Let Thy Will be done." At that time he can sincerely say, "God, I want to please You only in Your own way."
Q&A: Praying For Others
Q: What is the best way to pray for others?
A: First, before you even start praying, you should invoke the presence of the Supreme. When you invoke His presence, He will definitely come in a subtle form. You will not see Him in a human body, but you will be able to feel His presence. Inside God's presence, try to see and feel the person for whom you are praying. If you can invoke the Supreme's presence and feel inside His presence those for whom you are praying, that will be the most effective way of helping them through your prayer.
But before asking the Supreme through your prayer to help someone, first ask Him whether you are supposed to pray for that particular person. If you get a message or inner feeling that you should pray for that particular person, only then should you do it. Suppose somebody is very sick and you want to pray to God to cure him.
You have to know that perhaps God wants him to have this experience right now for his own inner development. You have to know that God has infinitely more love for that particular person than you or any other human being could possibly have. If you ask God to cure him, you may only be opposing God's Will. But if you pray for oneness with God's Will, then God may say, "You have become one with My Will. Now I will be happy if you ask me to cure the person."
Q&A: Praying Effectively
Q: How can we pray effectively?
A: To pray most effectively, your prayer should be outwardly inaudible, but you may form a sentence of a few words that will convince your aspiring mind. The heart is already aspiring, but the mind needs to aspire. So it is better for the prayer to take the form of words.
You may form the sentence by writing it on the tablet of your heart. Then try to see it there. Once the words are written, you can return many times to see them. If you want to repeat the sentence, good, but it is not necessary. When you repeat your prayer you have a choice. Either write it once on the tablet of your heart and read it again and again, or continuously write the same thing-whichever gives you more joy.
Q&A: Inconsistent quality of meditation
Q: I often find that the quality of my meditation goes up and down. I always hope that I will not fall down again, but it happens constantly.
A: In the beginning everybody experiences ups and downs in the spiritual life. When a child is learning to walk, in the beginning he stumbles and falls again and again. But after a while he learns to walk properly, and finally to run. Eventually he can run as fast as his capacity will allow. But a small child cannot expect to run as fast as his father does, because his father has much more capacity.
You experience ups and downs in your meditation. When you are up, you have to feel that you are getting a glimpse of your eventual capacity. When you are down, you should simply feel that this is only a temporary incapacity. Just because you see that those who are more advanced than you in the spiritual life are running, you must not be discouraged. Once upon a time they also stumbled.
Right now the sky may be full of clouds, but a day will come when the sun will shine again with its full effulgence. When you experience low moments of fear, of doubt, of lack of aspiration, you should feel that these won't last forever. Like a child who has fallen, you must try to stand up again. Someday you will be able to walk, then run, and finally run the fastest without falling.
Q&A: Personal effort in meditation
Q: When you meditate and you cry for something, should you also make an effort to achieve it, or just let it take place naturally?
A: At the beginning you have to make a personal effort; later it becomes spontaneous. Unless and until it becomes spontaneous, you have to make the personal effort. When a sprinter starts a race, his hands make such a vigorous movement. In the beginning he consciously moves his arms and hands very fast. He is making strong personal effort. But after fifty or sixty metres, when he is going at top speed, everything becomes spontaneous. At that time he is not striving to move his arms. But at the start, he did.
It is like sailing a boat. Before you start you move this thing and adjust that thing. You have to do all kinds of things at the beginning. While you are getting ready, you are very dynamic. But that is only your preparation. Still the boat is near the shore. It is only when you are actually well on your way that the boat can sail without your constant personal effort. In your meditation this spontaneous movement is an act of Grace from above.
If you are sincere, then you will say that at the very beginning of your journey God's Grace also descended. Otherwise, you would not have been inspired even to enter into the boat. But when you start out, you feel that you are making a tremendous personal effort. But there comes a time when you realise that this personal effort is nothing other than Compassion from above. Why are you getting up early to pray and meditate, whereas your friends are still wallowing in the pleasures of lethargy? It is because God's Grace has descended into you. So the deeper you go, the clearer it becomes that God's Grace enables you to make progress through your personal effort. Either God is pleased with you, or out of His infinite Compassion He is helping you.
Personal effort is of paramount importance at the beginning, because at that time we don't feel that God is our unconditional friend. As human beings, we always say that if I give you something, then you will give me something in return. But if I don't give you anything, then you are under no obligation to give me anything. But God is not like that. God gives unconditionally, whether we claim Him as our own or not. This moment I may pray to God to fulfil my desire. But the next moment, after He fulfils my desire, immediately I will say, "Oh, I don't need You. I don't want to be Your child." But God cannot do that. God always claims us as His own no matter how bad we are, because He sees that in hundreds or thousands or millions of years, He will make us perfect. A child, at his sweet will, can leave his parents; but can the parents leave the child? Impossible! Similarly, I can disown God, my eternal Father, because I am angry with Him or because He has not fulfilled my desires. But He will never disown me, because I am His child.
Self-effort is necessary. God's Grace is indispensable.
So personal effort is necessary because we do not feel that God is constantly loving us and blessing us unconditionally. Once we can feel that He is doing everything for us unconditionally, then personal effort is not necessary. Just because we don't have that kind of feeling, so-called personal effort is of paramount importance. But when we become sincere, when we become humble, and especially when we become pure, at that time we will feel that it is God who has inspired us to exercise our personal effort. So credit goes to God from the beginning to the end. In the beginning we give 50 percent of the credit to ourselves, because we got up to pray and meditate, and 50 percent to God, because He responded to our prayers and inspired us during our meditation. But if we are sincere, devoted and absolutely pure, then we will say that 100 percent of the credit goes to God.
Q&A: Sleepiness during meditation
Q: Sometimes during my morning meditation, I fall into a doze - not a sound sleep, but just a doze. Is this a bad thing?
A: Unfortunately, it is not a good thing. It is not sound sleep, but you are not fully awake either. When you meditate, you have to be absolutely dynamic. Do not allow sleepiness to enter into you. When you sit down to meditate, feel that you are entering into the battlefield where you have to fight against ignorance, imperfection and death.
Unfortunately, many seekers do not get enough inspiration to energise them for morning meditation. Some mornings you get inspiration all at once; other days you do not get any inspiration at all. If the fire is already burning inside, you do not have to do anything. But when there is no fire, what do you do? The best thing is to breathe in deeply a few times before you meditate and make your whole body energetic. This dynamic energy will help you enter into meditation. If possible, take a small quantity of hot juice or hot milk before you begin your meditation also.
Q&A: Struggling to stay awake during meditation
Q: Sometimes it seems like I spend my whole time trying to keep myself awake and I don't really meditate.
A: 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: Falling asleep during meditation
Q: How can I keep myself from falling asleep after about five minutes of meditation?
A: First of all, before you start meditating please breathe in deeply a few times. With each breath, try to feel that a stream of energy is entering into you. Then try to feel that you are breathing in through different parts of your body: your eyes, your ears, your forehead, your shoulders, the crown of your head and so on. Feel that each of these places is a door, and when you breathe in feel that you are opening this door. At that time, energy enters into you from the Universal Consciousness.
Then try to invoke the power aspect of the Supreme. Do not invoke peace or light; only try to bring forward divine power from within or bring it down from above. This divine power will make you feel that your body is burning with fever, although you are not actually running a temperature, and immediately you will feel energised. You can also imagine a blue-green forest or field, and feel that you are walking through it. Then, no matter how tired you are, you will feel energised. You can also pinch yourself as hard as possible, and try to feel that somebody else is pinching you. While you are pinching yourself, you have to know that it is your conscious self that is pinching your unconscious self. But you have to feel that another person is doing the pinching.
Another technique is to repeat the name of the Supreme as fast as possible. With tremendous concentration see how many times you can repeat "Supreme" with each breath. The power inside the repetition of this name will inundate your whole being and you are bound to feel a new flow of life-energy.
At meditation time always try to feel inside you a dynamic and progressive movement, but not an aggressive one. If there is a dynamic and progressive movement, then you cannot fall asleep. Inside you, feel that a train is speeding towards the destination. Feel that you yourself are an express train with only one destination. The driver of that train is constantly repeating God's name to derive energy, strength, stamina and all divine qualities. An express train stops only at the Final goal, the end of its journey; on the way it does not stop at all. Your goal will be to reach or achieve a profound meditation.
Q&A: Energising ourselves for meditation
Q: If we feel tired when we sit down to meditate, how can we energise ourselves so that we don't fall asleep?
A: When you feel that you are tired, exhausted, please take several deep breaths quietly and try to feel that you are breathing in from various places in your body. Try to feel that you are breathing in through the eyes, the ears, the forehead, through the crown of the head, through the shoulders and so on. When you are breathing in, if you are conscious of your breath, then you will not feel sleepy. But being conscious of your breath does not mean that you will make a sound. You will just feel that a stream of energy is entering into you with every breath.
Feel that every place you are breathing in is a door. Each time you breathe in, you open a door here, there or somewhere else. Naturally, when you open the door, light also enters, and light is another form of energy.
When you are meditating very well, you may feel that you are spontaneously doing this-drawing energy not only through your nose, but through your head and other places. Energy is available everywhere, and that universal energy wants to enter into you by various doors. Naturally, the more energy you can draw inside you, the higher will be your meditation.
Q&A: Fear in meditation
Q: When I try to meditate, there is something that holds me back.
A: The thing that holds you back is fear. If you want the wealth which is deep inside you, then you have to dive within bravely. Only if you have inner courage can you receive the inner wealth. Fear of the unknown and the unknowable prevents you from diving deep within. But what is unknowable today becomes merely unknown tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow it becomes known.
The vastness of truth will never harm you. It will only embrace and fulfil you. You feel afraid of something because you do not feel that that particular thing is part of you. But through meditation you establish your conscious oneness with the infinite Vast. At that time you see and feel that everything is part of you. So why should you be afraid?
Q&A: Tension
Q: When I was meditating I felt really tense. My head was hurting and I felt I was pulling. What should I do in a case like that?
A: If you get that kind of tense feeling, immediately breathe in and out very quickly. When the rhythm of your breathing increases, the tension goes away. Try to feel that you are climbing up a flight of stairs or a ladder that has many rungs. As you climb up you are breathing in. If you feel this ascent, then tension goes away. Tension comes when you are stuck at one place. But when you are climbing, you are like a bird flying up into the sky. When the bird is soaring, where is the tension? Similarly, if you are climbing up, there will be no tension.
Q&A: Headaches from meditation
Q: 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?
A: 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.
Q&A: Meditate on peace
Q: I don't think that I am pulling, but still I get a headache when I meditate in the morning.
A: In your particular case, you are meditating on the wrong thing. You are meditating on divine power, but because your inner vessel is not pure enough, instead of power, an aggressive quality comes into you. This aggression you feel as a headache. So when you meditate in the morning, you should meditate on peace. Inundate your inner and outer being with peace; then you will not get a headache. Peace itself is power; it can solve all your problems.
Q&A: Pressure in forehead
Q: I feel a pressure in my forehead when I meditate. What causes this and how can I stop it?
A: The reason you feel pressure in your forehead is because you are meditating in the wrong place; you are meditating in the mind rather than the heart, You want to play a game, but unfortunately you have gone to the wrong playing field. When you feel pressure in your head or your forehead during meditation, it means that your mind has pulled down light and power beyond its capacity. The door to your consciousness is closed, so you are trying to break through the ceiling and pull God into your room. At that time, poor God is entering into an unprepared, unreceptive and unillumined vessel. Naturally the vessel resists, and then you get a headache.
You may also feel pressure because your mind-vessel is filled with impure thoughts and ideas. By sheer will to you are trying to kill these undivine thoughts, and again the resistance of the mind causes you pain. The pressure can also mean that there is an obstruction such as fear inside you. When the mind-vessel is filled the with impure thoughts and you pull down peace, light and bliss, you unconsciously become frightened. You never expected these things to be so brilliant and divine. Your mind is filled with all kinds of obscure thoughts and impurities, and suddenly divine peace, light and bliss come. At that time they seem like strangers to you, so you resist them. You are driving at top speed and suddenly you feel fear, so you try to stop.
When you feel this kind of pressure, what you should do is immediately focus your attention on your heart. Feel that you do not have a head at all; you have only the heart's soft, sweet feeling of oneness with God, your Inner Pilot. In the heart there is no fear or resistance. No matter how intensely you meditate in the heart, no matter how much peace, light and bliss you draw into the heart, you will never feel tension or pressure. There will only be joy, love and a feeling of oneness.
The safest and best way to meditate is in the heart. But if you want to use the mind, then you have to try to make the mind very calm, quiet, pure and receptive, Always feel that inside the aspiring mind there is vessel that you can enlarge with your sincere aspiration. Try to make the vessel very large so that it can hold more purity and luminosity. But do not try to pull anything. Only let the divine Grace flow in and through you by praying and meditating most soulfully. Then you will not feel pressure or tension in your head.
Q&A: Losing energy
Q: When I meditate I lose energy and get tired. Is it because I meditate too much?
A: No. If you are losing energy while meditating, it means that your meditation is incorrect. If you meditate well, you will gain energy. Meditation is the way to gain infinite energy, light and bliss. But if the particular method you are using is wrong, then you will lose energy instead of gaining it.
Q&A: Being upset an obstacle to meditation
Q: I shall tolerate the world, I shall. Only by tolerating the world shall I be able to help my mind to ascend and my heart to transcend. When I get upset with someone who does something to me, I can't meditate the way I want to. How can I overcome this?
A: When you are upset, naturally you cannot tare. You cannot welcome a friend and an enemy into your house at the same time. Your enemy is your agitation and anger, and your friend is meditation. Suppose someone does something to you and you become angry with him. Even when several hours have elapsed and you have forgotten your anger, it can still pull you down. You have forgotten, but you have not forgiven. Unless you have forgiven, you have not illumined your anger. Sometimes you will quarrel with the members of your family and then go to sleep. The next morning you will find that you cannot meditate. You have totally forgotten the incident, but while you were sleeping the strength and velocity of your anger have increased. So it is always better to illumine the anger immediately.
When somebody does something wrong to you, try to feel that it is an extended part of your own consciousness that has made this deplorable mistake. Enlarge your heart and feel that it is you yourself who have done wrong. In that way you won't become upset. What you have to do is stop thinking of others and think only of perfecting yourself. That does not mean that you are ignoring the world's problems. No. Your own perfection will help others. When you achieve something, you will see that very thing in a small measure in others. Similarly, if you see something wrong in others, tomorrow you will see that very thing in yourself. And if you see something good in someone else but not in yourself, that particular thing will soon develop in you. If you see a person who is sincere and you are not sincere, just because you are conscious of his sincerity, your own inner sincerity will come to the fore. Your inner being will try to communicate with the sincerity of that particular person and, like a magnet, it will draw sincerity from that person or from the Supreme, who is the Source.
From now on, try to perfect your own nature instead of looking around to see whose imperfections are standing in your way. Pay all attention to your own self-discovery. When you have perfected yourself, you will see that everybody on earth will gain in perfection through you.
Q&A: Meditating too much
Q: How can I tell if I am meditating too much?
A: If you are meditating too much-that is to say, beyond your capacity-then you will get a kind of tension or pain in the area of the third eye. Also, you may get a haughty attitude. You may feel, "I am so divine and perfect, whereas everyone else is undivine and imperfect." If you are trying to pull down peace, light and bliss from above beyond your capacity, then you may no longer get any joy or satisfaction from your earthly activities. You may come to feel that this earthly existence of yours is useless and meaningless. If you get this kind of disgust or depression which makes you want to withdraw from the world, then you may be trying to meditate beyond your capacity.
Q&A: Gratitude
Q: Is there anything I can do to always have a good meditation?
A: It is through gratitude, the gratitude that is inside the heart, not inside the mind, that you can make your meditation excellent. Just for a fleeting second, remember that once upon a time you were the same as your friends and neighbours. Now look at the difference between you. It is like day and night. They may be rich on the material plane, but on the spiritual plane they are totally bankrupt. When you see the difference, automatically a spring of gratitude will well up inside you.
If you can have a drop of gratitude, inside that gratitude you will find a world of new creation. Once the seed has been sown, it starts germinating and grows into a plant. So when you are not getting a good meditation, the best thing is to think of what you were and what you are going to become. Once upon a time you could not even crawl; now you are running in the spiritual life. Once you see the difference, you are bound to have gratitude to the Supreme, for He is the Doer. It is He who has inspired you and acted in and through you. He has inspired you and He has given you the fruit of your action, so naturally your gratitude will come to the fore and you will be able to have a good meditation.
Q&A: Receptivity
Q: I am not as receptive in meditation as I would like to be. Why is this?
A: Sometimes this happens because our consecration to the Supreme is not yet complete. Sometimes the mind resists, sometimes the vital resists and sometimes the physical or even the subtle physical resists. If there is any such resistance, negative forces can enter us, and our receptivity is lessened. Until we are really sure whether we want the life of desire or the life of aspiration, negative forces will stand between our desire and our aspiration. These forces are always on the alert. They try to separate our aspiration from our desire. Then they try to strengthen our desire and kill our aspiration, and very often they succeed. But a spiritually alert person will take aspiration and enter into desire in order to transform it. If desire enters into aspiration, then aspiration is ruined. If aspiration enters into desire, at that time desire is transformed.
At other times you may not be receptive because you have become too secure; you have become complacent. You do not feel an inner cry because you are satisfied with your material possessions or with the things that you already have in your inner life. Once you are satisfied with what you have, why should you cry for something more? When you have this kind of complacent feeling, your inner cry ceases, and your receptivity also comes to an end.
Q&A: Maintaining our consciousness
Q: After we stop meditating, how can we maintain the level of consciousness that we reached during our meditation?
A: 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.
Q&A: Losing joy
Q: Sometimes after meditation I lose the joy that I have received from my meditation, and I feel very bad. Why do I lose my joy?
A: There are two reasons why you lose your joy. One reason is that your mind starts functioning most powerfully and vehemently. While functioning in this way, it allows obscure, impure and undivine thoughts to come in either consciously or unconsciously. When impurity enters, joy has to disappear. But if purity is well-established in the mind, the joy will last for a long time.
Another reason why you lose your joy is that your inner vessel is small, and you have taken light, which is joy itself, beyond your capacity. The quantity of light that you have received during your meditation has satisfied you, but your inner vessel is not large enough to hold it. When you lose it, you feel sad.
Q&A: Sadness after meditation
Q: Sometimes I feel very sad when I come down from meditation.
A: The sadness that you feel is quite natural, because you were in a higher world and then you had to come back to the earthly level. At that time, the worries and problems of the world enter into you. But if you meditate sincerely for a few years, these problems will not stand in your way, because when you come down from your meditation, you will have tremendous peace, poise, joy and love for humanity.
Right now you have boundless love for your child. But after you have meditated for a few years, you will have even more love for your child, because you will feel the presence of God inside him. Right now you do not feel the presence of God inside your child all the time. If he is naughty or if he breaks something, then you do not think that God is operating inside him. At that time you are exasperated and you say, "No, no, this is not God; this is the devil incarnate." But there will come a time when you will see God inside your son all the time, no matter what he does or what he says. When you progress to that point, you will not feel drained when you come down from your meditation. On the contrary, even when you enter into the activities of ordinary life you will be able to maintain the same joy, delight, peace and poise.
When you are meditating you have to feel that you are climbing a tree. You are going up high, higher, highest to collect the mangoes and bring them down for distribution. But if you feel sad when you come down, that means you want to eat them all by yourself at the top of the tree. You don't want to bring them down and share them with others. So when you go up, always go up with joy; and when you come down, also come down with joy. When you go up, feel that it is for achievement of the highest; and when you come down from meditation, feel that it is for distribution.
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