The way of meditation

The highest objective in life lies in self-realization. Yoga is another means to achieve this objective.

A person who has not been successful in renouncing desire cannot become a yogi. A person who is able to successfully withdraw his mind from sense objects and all manner of desire is described in the Bhagavad Gita as “one who has ascended in yoga”.

Mastery of thought, word and action is essential on the path of yoga. Such mastery helps the aspirant on the path of mediation to reach the innermost depths of his Self. In this state of tranquility, he experiences silence which is the said to the language of the Absolute. 

It is in the stillness resulting from silence that the presence of the Absolute is experienced. Mediation is the path that helps the aspirant reach this state.

The scriptures distinguish between three states including the waking state, the dream state and the state of dreamless sleep. They also distinguish between three bodies in every human being including the gross, the subtle and the causal. Meditative silence should be distinguished from deep sleep. In deep sleep, there is no awareness. 

In meditative silence, there is awareness even in sleep. The yogi is beyond all the three states of wakefulness, dream and deep sleep; his awareness remains unbroken in all three states.

According to Swami Rama: “Those who are not meditators experience only the known level of life. But with the help of meditation, one can have profound knowledge of all the subtle states within and ultimately attain the deep state of silence.

Such an aspirant alone can experience both the known and unknown levels of life. The human being is a citizen of the inner world; he is an inner dweller first and a denizen of the external world afterwards. But ordinary people remain citizens of the external world and aliens to the internal world”.

Swami Rama describes contemplative meditation as the conquest of the lower self by the higher self. The lower self is the body, breath, senses and the conscious and unconscious mind. It is called lower because it constantly undergoes change. It exists only as a reflection of the higher self which is pure, unchanging and eternal. It is not subject to death as it was never born.

“The great leaders and guides of humanity,” writes Swami Rama, do not change their attitudes and lose their calm and balance because someone opposes them, someone misunderstands them or someone does not follow them.

 They neither hate nor uselessly praise. This state of mind is called the witnessing state; one learns to witness what is going on but does not involve himself in it.”