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Meditation
Support
Meditate
to Please God, Not Self
from Awaken
to Superconsciousness by Swami Kriyananda
From
the February 2003 Daily
Meditator
Spiritual progress
should be natural, not forced—like a growing tree, not like
the frenetic struggle of minor actors to achieve fame.
An important
rule in life is: Don't be impatient. This rule is doubly important
for meditation, for whereas the general stricture against impatience
gives hope of finding inner peace in meditation, that hope is demolished
if one applies to meditation itself attitudes that we've developed
in the "rat race." To find God, it is better to be a long-distance
runner than a sprinter. Today's meditative efforts will have to
be renewed tomorrow, and again the day after tomorrow, and the day
after that, and so on for as long as it takes to achieve the consciousness
of the Eternal Now.
Don't let your approach to meditation be so achievement-oriented
that you end up mentally tense. Yogananda, noting my own tendency
toward impatience, once said to me, "The principle of karma
yoga applies to meditative action also. Meditate to please God.
Don't meditate with desire for the fruits of your meditations. It
is best, in the beginning, to emphasize relaxation."
Of course what
he meant was, Don't desire fruits that accrue to your ego. For it
is the ego, not the soul, that experiences impatience. Patience
is the fastest path to God, because it develops soul-consciousness.
The more you seek rest as the consequence of doing, rather than
in the process of doing, the more restless you will become. Peace
isn't waiting for you over the next hill. Nor is it something you
construct, like a building. It must be a part of the creative process
itself.
Learn to be restful, even in the midst of activity, and you will
be able to relax better when you sit to meditate. As Paramhansa
Yogananda put it, "Be calmly active, and actively calm."
"People
have a very distorted notion of what the path is all about.
Visions and phenomena aren't important. What matters is complete
self-offering to God. One must become absorbed in His love."
—Paramhansa Yogananda |
From the
February 2003 Daily Meditator
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