from Art & Science of Raja Yoga, by Swami Kriyananda
What is meditation? It is not, as so many people assume it to be, a process of “thinking things over.” Rather, it is making the mind completely receptive to reality. It is stilling the thought-processes – those restless ripples that bob on the surface of the mind – so that truth, like the moon, may be clearly reflected there. It is listening to God, to Universal Reality, for a change, instead of doing all the talking and “computing” oneself.
This is how all the great discoveries have been made – not by human creation, but by receptivity to rays of inspiration from higher sources than those with which the conscious mind is familiar.
Try meditating every day for at least fifteen minutes (half an hour would be even better). Usually, the best time for meditation will be directly after your practice of yoga postures.
A Meditation Exercise:
Sit very straight and still. Think of your mind as a lake. At first, the ripples of thought may seem very important to you. That is because your awareness is centered in such a small section of your mental lake that even little ripples create a tumult. Gaze mentally outward in all directions; see how vast the lake really is. Mentally expand its shores farther and farther, until you realize how insignificant, in relation to its vastness, are the little thoughts that bob up and down here at the center.
Tell these thoughts to be still, to allow you to listen to the waves lapping on the distant shores of your mind. Then listen intently.
When everything is perfectly calm, feel on the still surface of your mind the soothing breath of Spirit. Do not be impatient. Allow the breezes of divine inspiration gently to caress you, to play over you as they will. Seek not to control them; remember, in nothing in life are you really the doer. Your ego is only an instrument. Offer yourself wholly, ever more deeply and calmly, to the Divine.
AUM, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti!
