Sri Chinmoy Meditation

Translation by John Kart

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1.
Meditation: the language of God
Why do we meditate...?
Meditation is not a withdrawal from life
Conscious striving and effort
Questions and answers
Chapter 2
First of all, the most important thing: how to start
Where do I begin ?
Some basic tricks
Inner Pilot
Exercises
Questions and answers
Chapter 3
Mastering the essential
Preparing for Meditation
Posture is important.
Eyes open or eyes closed?
Breathing exercises Questions and answers
Chapter 4
calming the mind
Mind free
Beyond the mind
Exercises
Questions and answers
Chapter 5
Your spiritual heart: the abode of peace
Discovering your inner treasure
Heart and soul
Questions and answers
Chapter 6
Concentration, meditation and contemplation:
Three steps to self-realization
Arrow and bow
The power of concentration
The indomitable will of the soul
Concentration from the heart
Touching Infinity: Meditation
Sea of ​​calm
Becoming Truth: Contemplation
Meditation Versus Contemplation
Exercises в концентрации
Exercises в медитации
Exercises в созерцании
Questions and answers
Chapter 7
Two Wings to Fly: Prayer and Meditation
I pray, I meditate
May your will be done
Two roads to realization
The Need for Prayer
Questions and answers
Chapter 8
The power of the mantra
Chant: mantra and japa
Achieving complete cleansing
Internal sound
Essence of OM
Questions and answers
Chapter 9
Music and Meditation: Sound and Silence
Universal language
Questions and answers
Chapter 10
Receptivity - opening yourself to the light
What is susceptibility?
Gratitude
Exercises
Questions and answers
Chapter 11
Am I good at meditating?
What is good meditation?
Do not despair.
Questions and answers
Chapter 12
Saving joy
Guarding your inner treasure
Questions and answers
Chapter 13
Your daily meditation: food for the soul
Rendezvous with God
Morning meditation is the best
Evening meditation
Constant time is important
Questions and answers
Chapter 14
Never give up!
Call like a child
Questions and answers
Chapter 15
Meditation: A Practical Tool for Solving Problems
Is meditation practical?
Questions and answers
Chapter 16
Meditation in Action: Service others
How to share meditation?
Questions and answers
Chapter 17
Guru is your personal mentor
Guru - who is it?
Questions and answers
Chapter 18
Meditation for followers of Sri Chinmoy
Your own personal guide.
Individual meditation
What does the Guru take on?
Meditation on the portrait of Sri Chinmoy
Questions and answers
Chapter 19
Understanding your inner feelings
Fruits on the Path of Meditation
Questions and answers
Chapter 20
Samadhi: the pinnacle of divine consciousness
What is samadhi?
Questions and answers
About Sri Chinmoy

Chapter 1
Meditation: the language of God
Meditation tells us only one thing: God exists.
Meditation reveals only one truth to us: our dreams are about God.
Why do we meditate?
Why do we meditate? We meditate because our world cannot satisfy us. The so-called peace that we experience in our daily lives is five minutes of peace after ten hours of worry, worry, and frustration. We are constantly at the mercy of the hostile forces around us - envy, fear, doubt, excitement, anxiety and despair. These forces are like monkeys. When they let us go for their short rest, we say that we enjoy peace. But this is not real peace at all, and the next moment they attack us again.
It is only through meditation that we can find lasting peace, divine peace. If we meditate in the morning, putting our whole soul into it, and experience peace for only one minute, that one minute of peace will spread throughout the day. When we meditate at the highest level, then we really get permanent peace, light and delight. We need meditation because we want to grow in the light and manifest ourselves in the light. If this is our aspiration, if this is our craving, then meditation is the only way.
If we feel that we are satisfied with what we have and with what we are, then there is no need for us to enter the realm of meditation. The reason we turn to meditation is our inner hunger. We feel that there is something bright inside of us, something boundless, something divine. We feel we need it badly, but we just don't have access to it right now. Our inner hunger comes from our spiritual need.

Meditation is not a withdrawal from life
If we enter the path of meditation in order to to get away from the world and forget our suffering, then we do it for the wrong reason. If we enter the spiritual life out of frustration or dissatisfaction, then we may not stay in the spiritual life. Today I have not been able to satisfy my desires, so I am not satisfied with the world. But tomorrow I'll say, "Let's try again. Maybe this time I'll be satisfied." But eventually we will feel that the desire-life will never satisfy us. We will feel the need to turn to the inner life. This is the aspiration.
What is meditation? Meditation is the self-awakening of man and the self-surrender of God. When man's self-awakening and God's self-surrender meet, man becomes immortal in the inner world, and God becomes manifest in the outer world.
In the aspiring life we ​​need only God. If we sincerely need God, then naturally He will give Himself to us. But He will do it in His own way and at His own appointed time. If we pray and meditate with a sincere desire to acquire certain qualities, then even if God does not bestow them on us, we will still be satisfied. We'll just say to ourselves, "He knows best. I'm not ready for this right now. But He will definitely give them to me the day I'm ready." In the aspiring life, it is not our achievements that bring us satisfaction, but our aspiration. Aspiration itself is our satisfaction.
Conscious striving and effort
For gaining spirituality, the "push and push" method is not suitable. We cannot attract spiritual light by force. When it descends by itself, only thanks to our striving will we be able to perceive it. If we try to attract more light than we can handle, our inner vessel will collapse. How do we perceive this light coming from above? How do we expand our consciousness to increase receptivity? The answer is meditation.
Meditating is not just sitting quietly for five or ten minutes. Meditation requires conscious effort. The mind must be brought to a state of peace and silence. At the same time, he must be vigilant not to allow any distracting thoughts or desires to enter him. When we can bring the mind into a state of peace and silence, we will feel that a new creation is being born within us. When our mind becomes free and calm, and our whole existence becomes an empty vessel, our inner being can call on infinite peace, light and bliss to enter this vessel and fill it. This is what meditation is.
Meditation is the language of God. If we want to know what the Will of God means in our lives, if we want God to guide us, shape us, and manifest Himself in and through us, then meditation is the language we must use.
When we think that it is we who are trying to meditate, then meditation seems difficult. However, real meditation is not done by us. It is performed by our Inner Pilot, the Supreme, who is constantly meditating in and through us. We are just a vessel and we allow Him to fill us with all of His Consciousness. We start with our own personal effort, but once we go deep within ourselves, we realize that it is not our effort that allows us to go into meditation. It is the Almighty who meditates in and through us with our knowledge and conscious consent.
The soul of each person has its own way of meditation. My way of meditation will not suit you, and your way of meditation will not suit me. There are many seekers whose meditation is not fruitful because they are doing meditation that does not suit them. If you do not have a spiritual Master who can guide you, then you need to go deep within yourself so that meditation comes from the innermost depths of your heart.
This is very difficult for a beginner. You have to go deep, deep inside yourself and see if you are hearing a voice, a thought, or an idea. Then you need to dive deep into this voice or thought and see if it gives you a feeling of inner joy or peace, where there are no questions, no problems, no doubts. Only when you have this feeling can you be sure that the voice you have heard is the true inner voice that will help you in your spiritual life.
But if you have a Master who is a realized soul, his silent gaze will teach you how to meditate. The teacher should not verbally explain how to meditate or give a specific meditation technique. He will simply meditate on you and inwardly train you to meditate. Your soul will enter his soul and learn from his soul. All true spiritual Masters teach silent meditation.
The ultimate goal of meditation is establish a conscious union with God. We are all children of God, yet we do not currently have a conscious oneness with God. Someone may believe in God, but this belief is not a reality in his life. He simply believes in God because some saint or yogi or spiritual Master said that God exists, or because he has read about God in spiritual books. But if we meditate, the day comes when we establish conscious oneness with God. And then God gives us His infinite peace, infinite light and infinite bliss, and we turn into this infinite peace, light and bliss.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Q How to meditate?
A There are two ways to meditate. One of them is to calm the mind. The ordinary man feels that if he silences his mind he will become a fool. He feels that if the mind does not think, then the mind has lost everything. But this is not true in the spiritual life. In the spiritual life, when we silence the mind, we see that a new creation is born in the mind, a new promise to God. At the present moment, we have not fulfilled our promise to God, we