Swami Vivekananda About Meditation

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MEDITATION (Delivered at the Washington Hall, San Francisco, April 3, 1900)

Volume 4, Lectures and Discourses

 

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.

 

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.

 

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. ...

 

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.

 

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Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prashant Jalasutram