SWAMI VIVEKANANDA'S QUOTES ON " THE ART OF MEDITATION"
- The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation (Dhyana). In meditation we divest ourselves of all material conditions and feel our divine nature. We do not depend upon any external help in meditation. The touch of the soul can paint the brightest color even in the dingiest places; it can cast a fragrance over the vilest thing; it can make the wicked divine - and all enmity, all selfishness is effaced. The less the thought of the body, the better. For it is the body that drags us down. It is attachment, identification, which makes us miserable.
- Meditation is one of the great means of controlling the rising of these waves. By mediation you can make the mind subdue these waves, and if you go on practicing meditation for days, and months, and years, until it has become a habit, until it will come in spite of yourself, anger and hatred will be controlled and checked.
- Think and meditate that you are the omnipresent ATMAN. " I am neither the body, nor the mind, not the Buddhi (determinative faculty), neither the gross not the subtle body" - by this process of elimination, immerse your mind in the transcendent knowledge which is your nature. Kill the mind by thus plunging it repeatedly in this. Then only you will realize the ESSENCE O INTELLIGENCE, or be established on your real nature.
- That which is nearest is least observed. The ATMAN is the nearest of the near, therefore the careless and unsteady mind of man gets no clue to it. But the man who is alert, calm, self-restrained, and discrimination, ignores the external world and diving more and more into the inner world, realizes the glory of the Atman and becomes great. Then only he attains to the knowledge of the Atman and realizes the truth of such scriptural texts as, " I am the Atman", "Thou art That, O Shvetaketu", and so on. Do you understand?
- Meditation is the focusing of the mind on some object.. If the mind acquires concentration on one object, it can be so concentrated on any object whatsoever.
- The greatest thing is meditation. It is the nearest approach to spiritual life - the mind meditating. It is the one moment in our daily life that we are not at all material - the SOUL thinking of Itself, free from all matter - this marvelous touch of the Soul!
- Do not spend your energy in talking but meditate in silence; and do not let rush of the outside world disturb you. When your mind is in the highest state, you are unconscious of it. Accumulate power in silence and become a dynamo of spirituality.
- Think of a space in your heart, and in the midst of that space think that a flame is burning. Think of that flame as your own soul and inside the flame is another effulgent light, and that is the Soul of your soul, God. Meditate upon that in the heart.
- Within there is the lion - the eternally pure, illumined and ever-free Atman; and directly one realizes Him through meditation and concentration, this world of Maya vanishes.
- There is the infinite joy, unchanging. Meditation is the gate that opens that to us. Prayers, ceremonials, and all the other forms of worship are simply kindergartens of meditation.
- Practice hard; whether you live of die does not matter. You have to plunge in and work, without thinking of the result. If you are brave enough, in six months you will be a perfect yogi.
- Meditation again is a constant remembrance (of the thing meditated upon) flowing like an unbroken stream of oil poured out from one vessel to another. When this kind of remembering has been attained ( in relation to God) all bandages break.
