The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 4/Lectures and Discourses/Meditation
MEDITATION
(Delivered at the Washington Hall, San Francisco, April 3, 1900)
Meditation has been laid stress upon by all religions. The meditative state
of mind is declared by the Yogis to be the highest state in which the mind
exists. When the mind is studying the external object, it gets identified
with it, loses itself. To use the simile of the old Indian philosopher: the
soul of man is like a piece of crystal, but it takes the colour of whatever
is near it. Whatever the soul touches ... it has to take its colour. That is
the difficulty. That constitutes the bondage. The colour is so strong, the
crystal forgets itself and identifies itself with the colour. Suppose a red
flower is near the crystal and the crystal takes the colour and forgets
itself, thinks it is red. We have taken the colour of the body and have
forgotten what we are. All the difficulties that follow come from that one
dead body. All our fears, all worries, anxieties, troubles, mistakes,
weakness, evil, are from that one great blunder — that we are bodies. This
is the ordinary person. It is the person taking the colour of the flower
near to it. We are no more bodies than the crystal is the red flower.
The practice of meditation is pursued. The crystal knows what it is, takes
its own colour. It is meditation that brings us nearer to truth than
anything else. ...
In India two persons meet. In English they say, "How do you do?" The Indian
greeting is, "Are you upon yourself?" The moment you stand upon something
else, you run the risk of being miserable. This is what I mean by meditation
— the soul trying to stand upon itself. That state must surely be the
healthiest state of the soul, when it is thinking of itself, residing in its
own glory. No, all the other methods that we have — by exciting emotions,
prayers, and all that — really have that one end in view. In deep emotional
excitement the soul tries to stand upon itself. Although the emotion may
arise from anything external, there is concentration of mind.
There are three stages in meditation. The first is what is called [Dhâranâ],
concentrating the mind upon an object. I try to concentrate my mind upon
this glass, excluding every other object from my mind except this glass. But
the mind is wavering . . . When it has become strong and does not waver so
much, it is called [Dhyâna], meditation. And then there is a still higher
state when the differentiation between the glass and myself is lost —
[Samâdhi or absorption]. The mind and the glass are identical. I do not see
any difference. All the senses stop and all powers that have been working
through other channels of other senses [are focused in the mind]. Then this
glass is under the power of the mind entirely. This is to be realised. It is
a tremendous play played by the Yogis. ... Take for granted, the external
object exists. Then that which is really outside of us is not what we see.
The glass that I see is not the external object certainly. That external
something which is the glass I do not know and will never know.
Something produces an impression upon me. Immediately I send the reaction
towards that, and the glass is the result of the combination of these two.
Action from outside — X. Action from inside — Y. The glass is XY. When you
look at X, call it external world — at Y, internal world . . . If you try to
distinguish which is your mind and which is the world — there is no such
distinction. The world is the combination of you and something else. ...
let us take another example. You are dropping stones upon the smooth surface
of a lake. Every stone you drop is followed by a reaction. The stone is
covered by the little waves in the lake. Similarly, external things are like
the stones dropping into the lake of the mind. So we do not really see the
external . . .; we see the wave only. . . .
These waves that rise in the mind have caused many things outside. We are
not discussing the [merits of] idealism and realism. We take for granted
that things exist outside, but what we see is different from things that
exist outside, as we see what exists outside plus ourselves.
Suppose I take my contribution out of the glass. What remains? Almost
nothing. The glass will disappear. If I take my contribution from the table,
what would remain of the table? Certainly not this table, because it was a
mixture of the outside plus my contribution. The poor lake has got to throw
the wave towards the stone whenever [the stone] is thrown in it. The mind
must create the wave towards any sensation. Suppose . . . we can withhold
the mind. At once we are masters. We refuse to contribute our share to all
these phenomena.... If I do not contribute my share, it has got to stop.
You are creating this bondage all the time. How? By putting in your share.
We are all making our own beds, forging our own chains.... When the
identifying ceases between this external object and myself, then I will be
able to take my contribution off, and this thing will disappear. Then I will
say, "Here is the glass", and then take my mind off, and it disappears....
If you can take away your share, you can walk upon water. Why should it
drown you any more? What of poison? No more difficulties. In every
phenomenon in nature you contribute at least half, and nature brings half.
If your half is taken off, the thing must stop.
... To every action there is equal reaction.... If a man strikes me and
wounds me it is that man's actions and my body's reaction. ... Suppose I
have so much power over the body that I can resist even that automatic
action. Can such power be attained? The books say it can. ... If you stumble
on [it], it is a miracle. If you learn it scientifically, it is Yoga.
I have seen people healed by the power of mind. There is the miracle worker.
We say he prays and the man is healed. Another man says, "Not at all. It is
just the power of the mind. The man is scientific. He knows what he is
about."
The power of meditation gets us everything. If you want to get power over
nature, [you can have it through meditation]. It is through the power of
meditation all scientific facts are discovered today. They study the subject
and forget everything, their own identity and everything, and then the great
fact comes like a flash. Some people think that is inspiration. There is no
more inspiration than there is expiration; and never was anything got for
nothing.
The highest so-called inspiration was the work of Jesus. He worked hard for
ages in previous births. That was the result of his previous work — hard
work. ... It is all nonsense to talk about inspiration. Had it been, it
would have fallen like rain. Inspired people in any line of thought only
come among nations who have general education and [culture]. There is no
inspiration. . . . Whatever passes for inspiration is the result that comes
from causes already in the mind. One day, flash comes the result! Their past
work was the [cause].
Therein also you see the power of meditation — intensity of thought. These
men churn up their own souls. Great truths come to the surface and become
manifest. Therefore the practice of meditation is the great scientific
method of knowledge. There is no knowledge without the power of meditation.
From ignorance, superstition, etc. we can get cured by meditation for the
time being and no more. [Suppose] a man has told me that if you drink such a
poison you will be killed, and another man comes in the night and says, "Go
drink the poison!" and I am not killed, [what happens is this: ] my mind cut
out from the meditation the identity between the poison and myself just for
the time being. In another case of [drinking] the poison, I will be killed.
If I know the reason and scientifically raise myself up to that [state of
meditation], I can save anyone. That is what the books say; but how far it
is correct you must appraise.
I am asked, "Why do you Indian people not conquer these things? You claim
all the time to be superior to all other people. You practice Yoga and do it
quicker than anybody else. You are fitter. Carry it out! If you are a great
people, you ought to have a great system. You will have to say good-bye to
all the gods. Let them go to sleep as you take up the great philosophers.
You are mere babies, as superstitious as the rest of the world. And all your
claims are failures. If you have the claims, stand up and be bold, and all
the heaven that ever existed is yours. There is the musk deer with fragrance
inside, and he does not know where the fragrance [comes from]. Then after
days and days he finds it in himself. All these gods and demons are within
them. Find out, by the powers of reason, education, and culture that it is
all in yourself. No more gods and superstitions. You want to be rational, to
be Yogis, really spiritual."
[My reply is: With you too] everything is material What is more material
than God sitting on a throne? You look down upon the poor man who is
worshipping the image. You are no better. And you, gold worshippers, what
are you? The image worshipper worships his god, something that he can see.
But you do not even do that. You do not worship the spirit nor something
that you can understand. ... Word worshippers! "God is spirit!" God is
spirit and should be worshipped in spirit and faith. Where does the spirit
reside? On a tree? On a cloud? What do you mean by God being ours? You are
the spirit. That is the first fundamental belief you must never give up. I
am the spiritual being. It is there. All this skill of Yoga and this system
of meditation and everything is just to find Him there.
Why am I saying all this just now? Until you fix the location, you cannot
talk. You fix it up in heaven and all the world ever except in the right
place. I am spirit, and therefore the spirit of all spirits must be in my
soul. Those who think it anywhere else are ignorant. Therefore it is to be
sought here in this heaven; all the heaven that ever existed [is within
myself]. There are some sages who, knowing this, turn their eyes inward and
find the spirit of all spirits in their own spirit. That is the scope of
meditation. Find out the truth about God and about your own soul and thus
attain to liberation. ...
You are all running after life, and we find that is foolishness. There is
something much higher than life even. This life is inferior, material. Why
should I live at all? I am something higher than life. Living is always
slavery. We always get mixed up. ... Everything is a continuous chain of
slavery.
You get something, and no man can teach another. It is through experience
[we learn]. ... That young man cannot be persuaded that there are any
difficulties in life. You cannot persuade the old man that life is all
smooth. He has had many experiences. That is the difference.
By the power of meditation we have got to control, step by step, all these
things. We have seen philosophically that all these differentiations —
spirit, mind, matter, etc. — [have no real existences. ... Whatever exists
is one. There cannot be many. That is what is meant by science and
knowledge. Ignorance sees manifold. Knowledge realises one. ... Reducing the
many into one is science. ... The whole of the universe has been
demonstrated into one. That science is called the science of Vedanta. The
whole universe is one. The one runs through all this seeming variety. ...
We have all these variations now and we see them — what we call the five
elements: solid, liquid, gaseous, luminous, ethereal. After that the state
of existence is mental and beyond that spiritual. Not that spirit is one and
mind is another, ether another, and so on. It is the one existence appearing
in all these variations. To go back, the solid must become liquid. The way
[the elements evolved] they must go back. The solids will become liquid,
etherised. This is the idea of the macrocosm — and universal. There is the
external universe and universal spirit, mind, ether, gas, luminosity,
liquid, solid.
The same with the mind. I am just exactly the same in the microcosm. I am
the spirit; I am mind; I am the ether, solid, liquid, gas. What I want to do
is to go back to my spiritual state. It is for the individual to live the
life of the universe in one short life. Thus man can be free in this life.
He in his own short lifetime shall have the power to live the whole extent
of life....
We all struggle. . . . If we cannot reach the Absolute, we will get
somewhere, and it will be better than we are now.
Meditation consists in this practice [of dissolving every thing into the
ultimate Reality — spirit]. The solid melts into liquid, that into gas, gas
into ether, then mind, and mind will melt away. All is spirit.
Some of the Yogis claim that this body will become liquid etc. You will be
able to do any thing with it — make it little, or gas pass through this wall
— they claim. I do not know. I have never seen anybody do it. But it is in
the books. We have no reason to disbelieve the books.
Possibly, some of us will be able to do it in this life. Like a flash it
comes, as the result of our past work. Who knows but some here are old Yogis
with just a little to do to finish the whole work. Practice!
Meditation, you know, comes by a process imagination. You go through all
these processes purification of the elements — making the one melt the
other, that into the next higher, that into mind, that into spirit, and then
you are spirit.[1]
Spirit is always free, omnipotent, omniscient. Of course, under God. There
cannot be many Gods. These liberated souls are wonderfully powerful, almost
omnipotent. [But] none can be as powerful as God. If one [liberated soul]
said, "I will make this planet go this way", and another said, "I will make
it go that way", [there would be confusion].
Don't you make this mistake! When I say in English, "I am God!" it is
because I have no better word. In Sanskrit, God means absolute existence,
knowledge, and wisdom, infinite self-luminous consciousness. No person. It
is impersonal. ...
I am never Râma [never one with Ishvara, the personal aspect of God], but I
am [one with Brahman, the impersonal, all-pervading existence]. Here is a
huge mass of clay. Out of that clay I made a little [mouse] and you made a
little [elephant]. Both are clay. Melt both down They are essentially one.
"I and my Father are one." [But the clay mouse can never be one with the
clay elephant.]
I stop somewhere; I have a little knowledge. You a little more; you stop
somewhere. There is one soul which is the greatest of all. This is Ishvara,
Lord of Yoga [God as Creator, with attributes]. He is the individual. He is
omnipotent. He resides in every heart. There is no body. He does not need a
body. All you get by the practice of meditation etc., you can get by
meditation upon Ishvara, Lord of Yogis. ...
The same can be attained by meditating upon a great soul; or upon the
harmony of life. These are called objective meditations. So you begin to
meditate upon certain external things, objective things, either outside or
inside. If you take a long sentence, that is no meditation at all. That is
simply trying to get the mind collected by repetition. Meditation means the
mind is turned back upon itself. The mind stops all the [thought-waves] and
the world stops. Your consciousness expands. Every time you meditate you
will keep your growth. ... Work a little harder, more and more, and
meditation comes. You do not feel the body or anything else. When you come
out of it after the hour, you have had the most beautiful rest you ever had
in your life. That is the only way you ever give rest to your system. Not
even the deepest sleep will give you such rest as that. The mind goes on
jumping even in deepest sleep. Just those few minutes [in meditation] your
brain has almost stopped. Just a little vitality is kept up. You forget the
body. You may be cut to pieces and not feel it at all. You feel such
pleasure in it. You become so light. This perfect rest we will get in
meditation.
Then, meditation upon different objects. There are meditations upon
different centres of the spine. [According to the Yogis, there are two
nerves in the spinal column, called Idâ and Pingalâ.They are the main
channels through which the afferent and efferent currents travel.] The
hollow [canal called Sushumnâ] runs through the middle of the spinal column.
The Yogis claim this cord is closed, but by the power of meditation it has
to be opened. The energy has to be sent down to [the base of the spine], and
the Kundalini rises. The world will be changed.[2] ...
Thousands of divine beings are standing about you. You do not see them
because our world is determined by our senses. We can only see this outside.
Let us call it X. We see that X according to our mental state. Let us take
the tree standing outside. A thief came and what did he see in the stump? A
policeman. The child saw a huge ghost. The young man was waiting for his
sweetheart, and what did he see? His sweetheart. But the stump of the tree
had not changed. It remained the same. This is God Himself, and with our
foolishness we see Him to be man, to be dust, to be dumb, miserable.
Those who are similarly constituted will group together naturally and live
in the same world. Otherwise stated, you live in the same place. All the
heavens and all the hells are right here. For example: [take planes in the
form of] big circles cutting each other at certain points. . . . On this
plane in one circle we can be in touch with a certain point in another
[circle]. If the mind gets to the centre, you begin to be conscious on all
planes. In meditation sometimes you touch another plane, and you see other
beings, disembodied spirits, and so on. You get there by the power of
meditation. This power is changing our senses, you see, refining our senses.
If you begin to practise meditation five days, you will feel the pain from
within these centres [of conciousness] and hearing [becomes finer].
[3] ...That is
why all the Indian gods have three eyes.That is the psychic eye that opens
out and shows you spiritual things.
As this power of Kundalini rises from one centre to the other in the spine,
it changes the senses and you begin to see this world another. It is heaven.
You cannot talk. Then the Kundalini goes down to the lower centres. You are
again man until the Kundalini reaches the brain, all the centres have been
passed, and the whole vision vanishes and you [perceive] . . . nothing but
the one existence. You are God. All heavens you make out of Him, all worlds
out of Him. He is the one existence. Nothing else exists.
- Notes
- ↑ This purification of the elements, known as Bhuta-shuddhi, is part of the ritualistic worship. The worshipper tries to feel that he is dissolving earth, water, fire, air, and ether with their subtle essences, and the sense-organs into mind. Mind, intellect, and sense of individual ego are merged into Mahat, the cosmic ego; Mahat is dissolved into Prakriti, the power of Brahman, and Prakriti merges into Brahman, the ultimate Reality. The Kundalini, the coiled-up power at the base of the spine, in his thoughts is led to the highest centre of consciousness in the brain, where he meditates on his oneness with the supreme Spirit.
- ↑ See Complete Works, Vol. I
- ↑ See Complete Works, Vol. I