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Meditation Instruction by
Paramahansa Yogananda
(recording of
Yogananda's voice)
MEDITATION
What is Meditation?
Meditation is the science of God-realization. It is the most practical science in the world. Most people would want to meditate if they understood its value and experienced its beneficial effects. The ultimate object of meditation is to attain conscious awareness of God, and of the soul's eternal oneness with Him. What achievement could be more purposeful and useful than to harness limited human faculties to the omnipresence and omnipotence of the Creator? God-realization bestows on the meditator the blessings of the Lord's peace, love, joy, power, and wisdom.
Meditation utilizes concentration in its highest form. Concentration consists in freeing the attention from distractions and in focusing it on any thought in which one may be interested. Meditation is that special form of concentration in which the attention has been liberated from restlessness and is focused on God. Meditation, therefore, is concentration used to know God.
In response to the love of great devotees, God has manifested Himself in various cosmic forms. He also manifests Himself in truth, in divine qualities, in the creative power and beauty in nature, in the lives of great saints and avatars (divine incarnations), and in the soul of every man. Thus meditation on any of these concepts brings a deep realization of the omnipresent Absolute, of Him who is ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss. And because meditation gives direct perception of God, it raises the practice of religion above the differences of dogma.
Complete instruction in the theory and practice of scientific meditation techniques is given in the Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons. (Metaphysical Meditations)
Meditation—concentration upon God—is the portal through which every seeker of every faith must pass in order to contact God. Withdrawal of the consciousness from the world and the senses for the purpose of communing with God was taught by Christ in these words: "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet (draw the mind within), and when thou hast shut thy door (the door of the body and senses), pray to thy Father which is in secret (within you)" (Discourse 12)
Meditation Place
The yogi's seat, in a clean place, should be firm (not wobbly), neither too high nor too low, and covered, first, with kusha grass, then with a deer or tiger skin, then with a cloth.
—The Bhagavad Gita VI:11
In the modern world, in both East and West, neither kusha grass nor animal skin is necessary for the meditation seat. (In India it was customary for a forest-dwelling yogi to make his seat on the skin of a tiger or leopard or deer that had died a natural death.) A very satisfactory substitute is a seat made of a folded woolen blanket, with a silk cloth placed over it. Silk repels certain earth currents better than does cotton.
The yogi should meditate on a firm seat, one that is clean—untainted by dirt or unspiritual vibrations of others. The thought or life force emanating from an individual saturates the objects he uses and his dwelling.
The devotee should choose for his meditation a quiet place. Noise is distracting. Only a yogi who can go into ecstasy at will can meditate in both quiet and noisy places. The devotee should begin his meditation with the practice of the techniques of Kriya Yoga, by which he can disconnect his mind from the outer sensory world. (Chapter VI, God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita by Paramahansa Yogananda)
As the parlor awakens social consciousness, the library fosters reading consciousness, and the bedroom suggests sleeping, so everyone should have a room or a screened-off corner, or a well-ventilated closet, used exclusively for the purpose of silent meditation. (Discourse 28)
Meditation Time
There is a proper time and proper place for performing one's different duties. Just as sleep takes place at night in a quiet bedroom, as business is carried on during working hours in an atmosphere of business, and as intellectual studies are carried on in scheduled times in the halls of learning or in a quiet library, so, there should be a proper time and place for meditation, or God-communion. Whatever be one's sanctuary of solitude, he will find it especially beneficial to pray and meditate any time during the following periods: from the earliest hour of dawn, from 5 to 8 a.m.; noontime from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.; evening from 5 to 8 p.m.; and night time from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. The masters of India have taught that the hours surrounding the transitional times of dawn, noon, sunset, and midnight of each solar day are conducive to the cultivation of spiritual development. The magnetic cosmic laws of attraction and repulsion that affect the body are more harmoniously equilibrated during the above four periods. This helps a meditating individual to interiorize himself in divine communion. To meditate in the quietness of the early mornings and at night is to meditate in a solitary place. During those times, most people are asleep, and the city, or one's surroundings, are quiet. The results of peace realized from meditation are easily obtained due to less noise and wrong vibrations of restless people. (Discourse 25)
Meditation Posture
Firmly holding the spine, neck, and head erect and motionless, let the yogi focus his eyes at the starting place of the nose (the spot between the two eyebrows); let him not gaze around in various directions.
—The Bhagavad Gita VI:13
A majority of Gita translators and commentators have misinterpreted the word nasikagram to mean "tip of the nose." The word literally means "origin of the nose." The origin or starting place of the nose is the spot between the two eyebrows, the seat of spiritual vision.
Meditation involves the withdrawal, through the spine, of life current from the sensory nerve branches, and the concentration of that accumulation of life force within the spherical spiritual eye. A straight spine and erectness of the neck and head are important in effective meditation. If one adopts an improper posture—his body bent, or his chin tilted up or down—his crooked vertebrae pinch the spinal nerves. This pressure obstructs the reversed flow of mind and life force from the sensory channels to the brain; there is then no reinforcement of the power of the inner telescopic eye to perceive Omnipresence.
One should sit in a comfortable posture with the spine erect. The lumbar region of the spine (opposite the navel) should be gently crooked forward, the chest up and shoulders back (which places the inner edges of the shoulder blades closer together). Each hand, palm upturned, should be put on the corresponding thigh at the juncture of the thigh and abdomen to prevent the body from bending forward. The chin should be parallel to the floor. While maintaining this correct position, undue tension in the muscles should be relaxed. When the yogi holds the spine in the form of a bow by the above-mentioned posture, he is ready successfully to engage his reversed mind and life force in a battle with the outwardly pulling senses. Without any strictures or pinching of the spinal nerves, the mind and life force are easily directed upward by the yogi.
The proper bodily posture, one which produces calmness in body and mind, is necessary to help the yogi shift his mind from matter to Spirit.
Lotus Posture
Those Western yogis, especially youths, who can squat on the floor like Orientals, will find their knees pliable, owing to their ability to fold their legs in an acute angle. Such yogis may meditate in the lotus posture, or in the more simple cross-legged position.
No one should try to meditate in the lotus posture unless he is at ease in that position. To meditate in a strained posture keeps the mind on the discomfort of the body. Meditation should ordinarily be practiced in a sitting position. Obviously, in a standing posture (unless one is advanced) he may fall down when the mind becomes interiorized. Neither should the yogi meditate lying down, for he might resort to the "practiced" state of slumber.
(Chapter VI, God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita by Paramahansa Yogananda)
Meditation Length
If anyone, even twice daily, during the hours of dawn and in the depth of night, worships God in the temple of meditation for fifteen minutes to one hour, he will find the spiritual habit of peace diminishing his worry-producing material habits.
But there will be those who cannot bring themselves to set aside even a half hour out of twenty-four to meditate: the so-called too-busy person—busy until death with a myopic foolish pursuit of perishable treasure to satisfy unsatisfying desires. Stocks and bonds and vain accumulations cannot pass through the pearly gates of the afterlife, leaving the astral being to rue its paucity of spiritual wealth. Such persons ought at least to make their best effort weekly to commune with God at church or temple or other place of worship—not merely bringing the body to services while the heart and mind are rehashing the worries of the business week, but giving one's devotion to God with attentive sincerity, a calm body, and a quiet mind. (Discourse 39)