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<p class="paracenter">TYPES OF MEDITATION
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<p class="para">The first is to think on one subject in a continuous logical 
order. When, for example, you have to find the solution of a problem, you go 
step by step from one operation to another in a chain till you finally arrive at 
the conclusion. The thought is withdrawn from all other objects and is canalised 
along a single line. This is a kind of meditation, although it may not be 
usually known by that name. It marks a progress in the makeup of the human 
consciousness. For normally the mind moves at random, thoughts run about on many 
subjects, various, contrary and contradictory, from moment to moment. There is 
neither direction, consistency or organisation: it is a confused mass of 
incomplete, half-formed thoughts. The control and organisation of this mass, to 
start with, in a limited sphere and in a definite direction, the rejection of 
the unnecessary and the irrelevent and the marshalling and ordering of the 
required elements form the first exercise towards mental growth. All high 
intelligence, all effective wielding of thought power needs this discipline. 
Under the present circumstances of the world the school-life gives the best
</p>
<br><p class="pageno">Page-11</p>
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<p class="para">opportunity for this development. This is a meditation that 
should be obligatory and universal.
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<p class="para"> The next type we may call 
concentration, instead of meditation. Here we do not pursue a thought-line, but 
fix the thought upon one object unmoved. It means a further process of 
withdrawing the consciousness from its habitual outgoing and dispersive 
movement. The thought is held at a point and attention is focussed upon it: it 
is continuous and unbroken attention, for example, upon an idea, a phrase 
(mantra) or an image. One can concentrate also upon a physical point, say, 
fixing the gaze upon the tip of one's nose, or on a luminous point outside etc. 
In this discipline the whole mind is gathered together and focussed: or, 
everything else is shut out leaving only one thing upon which all the light of 
the consciousness is directed. It is a standstill consciousness, like a flame 
erect and immobile in a windless place.
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<p class="para"> There is a third grade when the 
mind becomes a void, all thoughts being driven out, all vibrations 
tran-quillised. It is a wide silence suffused with a still luminosity. The 
operation is difficult. For it means a kind of continuous and methodical 
drainage or rare-fication which takes more or less a very long time. First you 
throw out well-formed ideas and notions, processes and products of reasoning and 
judgment— the bigger waves, as it were; as soon as these subside
</p>
<br><p class="pageno">Page-12</p>
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<p class="para">you find there are smaller waves below or behind— half-formed 
thoughts, budding ideas, fugitive notions and so on; when these too are quieted 
down, you come across still another layer of smaller ripples of thought, close 
to sensations, nervous reactions, vibrations of the brain-mind, rudimentary 
percepts etc. etc. One may go on like that if not <i>ad infinitum, </i>at least, 
to a considerable length. One arrives in the end at what is practically a 
vacuum, to all intents and purposes a silent mind. Even then it is a difficult 
and arduous process and may not be as absolute as one may expect. There are 
other surer and even perhaps easier processes to attain the same end. Thus 
instead of striving and struggling and forcing your will upon the restless 
waves, you simply relax yourself, by-pass them as it were,<sub> </sub>await and 
aspire and open yourself towards the Silence that is above: call for the silence 
with trust and reliance and it comes not unoften as a massive inundation, a 
glacial sweep and automatically overwhelms you, drowning and filling you from 
top to toe. There is also another way: to contact, to enter into the Mother's 
presence. Mother's Presence means all the realisations to which we aspire 
concretised, brought down, near <i>to </i>us, within our human reach. We have 
not to travel far and wide, mount to inaccessible heights, labour and 
strain—with blood and sweat and tears—to get what we want: all the gettings are 
ready-made there
</p>
<br><p class="pageno">Page-13</p>
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<p class="para">in our atmosphere, we have only to know and perceive, open 
something in us for them to flow in. That is perhaps the action of Grace: 
silence, absolute silence, not only in the mind, but in the whole being, can 
come this way too.
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<p class="para"> The last process gives us the 
clue to the fourth type of meditation—the type, in fact, which is recommended 
for us, both because it is the easiest—following as it does the line of least 
resistance, also because it gives the fullness of the result demanded. Instead 
of trying to manipulate the mental force with one's personal will and effort, 
instead of seeking to control and command the consciousness, the best thing to 
do would be to remain quiet as far as it is normally possible for one without 
struggle and then turn the gaze to the other side, deep inward or high upward, 
become more conscious of the light, the Will that brought you to this Path, to 
be alive with the secret delight, the flaming aspiration that is there within 
you behind all the turbid turmoil of the surface life and consciousness. This 
Presence and Guidance will of itself place before you the elements and movements 
that are to be rejected and those that are to be accepted and given your sincere 
assent help you in doing the necessary gesture. Indeed if you do not resist too 
much, it will throw out what is to be thrown out and bring in what is to be 
brought in. That is how the instrument will be cleansed
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<br><p class="pageno">Page-14</p>
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<p class="para">and refined. Silence will be put in, for that is the basis; but 
not silence alone, for it will be unified with a new dynamism expressing the 
Divine's Will—personal choice there will be none, neither for absolute quietude 
nor for mere activity.
</p>
<br><p class="pageno">Page-15</p>
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