Meditation : Meditation is now a well-known term, but the deeper and broader significance of meditative practices are not fully understood. This article answers some of the frequently asked questions on meditation.

There are two words used in English to express the Indian idea of dhyana, “meditation” and “contemplation”. Meditation means properly the concentration of the mind on a single train of ideas which work out a single subject.  Contemplation means regarding mentally a single object, image, idea so that the knowledge about the object, image or idea may arise naturally in the mind by force of the concentration.  Both these things are forms of dhyana, for the principle of dhyana is mental concentration whether in thought, vision or knowledge.

There are other forms of dhyana.  There is a passage in which Vivekananda advises you to stand back from your thoughts, let them occur in your mind as they will and simply observe them and see what they are.  This may be called concentration in self-observation.

This form leads to another, the emptying of all thought out of the mind so as to leave it a sort of pure vigilant blank on which the divine knowledge may come and imprint itself, undisturbed by the inferior thoughts of the ordinary human mind and with the clearness of a writing in white chalk on a blackboard. You will find that the Gita speaks of this rejection of all mental thought as one of the methods of yoga and even the method it seems to prefer.  This may be called the dhyana of liberation, as it frees the mind from slavery to the mechanical process of thinking and allows it to think or not to think, as it pleases and when it pleases, or to choose its own thoughts or else to go beyond thought to the pure perception of Truth called in our philosophy Vijnana.

Meditation is the easiest process for the human mind, but the narrowest in its results; contemplation more difficult, but greater; self-observation and liberation from the chains of Thought the most difficult of all, but the widest and greatest in its fruits.  One can choose any of them according to one’s bent and capacity.  The perfect method is to use them all, each in its own place and for its own object; but this would need a fixed faith and firm patience and a great energy of Will in the self-application to the yoga.

[SABCL, 23:721-22]

[CWM2, 8:89]

There are all kinds of meditations… You may take an idea and follow it to arrive at a given result – this is an active meditation; people who want to solve a problem or to write, mediate in this way without knowing that they are meditating.  Others sit down and try to concentrate on something without following an idea – simply to concentrate on a point in order to intensify one’s power of concentration; and this brings about what usually happens when you concentrate upon a point: if you succeed in gathering your capacity for concentration sufficiently upon a point whether mental, vital or physical, at a given moment you pass through and enter into another consciousness.  Others still try to drive out from their head all movements, ideas, reflexes, reactions and to arrive at a truly silent tranquility.  This is extremely difficult; there are people who have tried for twenty-five years and not succeeded, for it is somewhat like taking a bull by the horns.

There is another kind of meditation which consists in being as quiet as one can be but without trying to stop all thoughts, for there are thoughts which are purely mechanical and if you try to stop these you will need years, and into the bargain you will  not be sure of the results; instead of that you gather together all your consciousness and remain as quiet and peaceful as possible, you detach yourself from external things as though they do not interest you at all, and all of a sudden, you brighten the flame of aspiration and throw into it everything that comes to you so that the flame may rise higher and higher, higher and higher; you identify yourself with it and you go up to the extreme point of your consciousness and aspiration, thinking of nothing else – simply, an aspiration which mounts, mounts, mounts, without thinking a minute of the result, of what may happen and specially of what may not, and above all without desiring that something may come – simply, the joy of an aspiration which mounts and mounts and mounts, intensifying itself more and more in a constant concentration. And there I may assure you that what happens is the best that can happen.  That is, it is the maximum of your possibilities which is realized when you do this.  These possibilities may be very different according to individuals.  But then all these worries about trying to be silent, going behind appearances, calling a force which answers, waiting for an  answer to your questions, all that vanishes like an unreal vapour. And if you succeed in living consciously in this flame, in this column of mounting aspiration, you will see that even if you do not have an immediate result, after a time something will happen.

[CWM2, 4:104-05]

There are no essential external conditions, but solitude and seclusion at the time of meditation as well as stillness of the body are helpful, sometimes almost necessary to the beginner.  But one should not be bound by external conditions.  Once the habit of meditation is formed, it should be made possible to do it in all circumstances, lying, sitting, walking, alone, in company, in silence or in the midst of noise etc.

The first internal condition necessary is concentration of the will against the obstacles to meditation, i.e. wandering of the mind, forgetfulness, sleep, physical and nervous impatience and restlessness etc.

The second is an increasing purity and calm of the inner consciousness (citta) out of which thought and emotion arise, i.e. a freedom from all disturbing reactions, such as anger, grief, depression, anxiety about worldly happenings etc. Mental perfection and moral are always closely allied to each other. Sri Aurobindo

[SABCL, 23:722-23]

It [a dynamic meditation] is a meditation that has the power of transforming your being.  It is a mediation which makes you progress, as opposed to static mediation which is immobile and relatively inert, and which changes nothing in your consciousness or in your way of being.  A dynamic meditation is a mediation of transformation.

I think everyone has his own mode of meditation.  But if one wants the meditation to be dynamic, one must have an aspiration for progress and the meditation must be done to help and fulfil this aspiration for progress.

[CWM2, 8:88-89]