Practicing the techniques of meditation, Paramhansa Yogananda said, is like cooking a meal.
“If you eat your dinner and then run, you won’t be able to enjoy your meal; you may only get indigestion. But if you rest afterward, you will find that this is the best time to enjoy the effects of your meal.” Similarly, he counseled, if you practice techniques alone,and then jump up from meditation you miss the full benefit of your meditation practice.
Be sure to spend at least 25-30 percent of your total meditation period enjoying the after-effects of your practice. Expand your consciousness into the peace, joy, love or other divine quality awakened through the techniques. This will help you live more and more in those higher states of awareness on a continual basis. Yogananda also said that the time we spend absorbed in that divine awareness is when intuition – “the soul’s power of knowing God”- is developed.
