Why Do We Meditate?

Passages taken from Sri Chinmoy's writings on meditation.

If You want to simplify your life, Meditation is the answer. If you want to fulfil your life, Meditation is the answer. If you want to have joy And offer joy to the world at large Then meditation is the only answer.

Why do we meditate? We meditate because this world of ours has not been able to fulfil us. Take peace for example. This so-called peace that we feel in our day-to-day life is five minutes of peace after ten hours of anxiety, worry and frustration... It is only through meditation that we can get lasting peace, divine peace. In the morning if we have meditated soulfully and received peace for only one minute, that one minute of peace will permeate our whole day.

Meditation is like going to the bottom of the sea, where everything is calm and tranquil. On the surface there may be a multitude of waves, but the sea is not affected below. In its deepest depths the sea is all silence. When we start meditating first we try to reach our own inner existence - that is to say, the bottom of the sea. Then, when the waves come from the outside world, we are not affected. Fear, doubt, worry and all the earthly turmoils will just wash away, because inside us is solid peace. Thoughts cannot touch us, because our mind is all peace, all silence, all oneness. Like fish in the sea, they jump and swim but leave no mark. So when we are in our highest meditation we feel that we are the sea, and the animals in the sea cannot affect us. We feel that we are the sky, and all the birds flying past cannot affect us. Our mind is the sky and our heart is the infinite sea. This is meditation.

When we meditate, what we actually do is enter into the deeper part of our being. At that time, we are able to bring to the fore the wealth that we have deep within us. Meditation shows us how we can aspire for something and, at the same time, how we can achieve it. If we practice meditation daily, then we can be rest assured that the problems of our life, inner and outer, are solved.

All excerpts by Sri Chinmoy

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