Meditation is man’s thirst for the Infinite Real, Eternal Real and Absolute Real. The secret of meditation is to achieve conscious and constant oneness with God. The secret supreme of meditation is to feel God as one’s very own, and finally to realise God for God’s sake, Him to reveal and Him to fulfil.

Meditation has to be practised spontaneously, soulfully and correctly. If it is not, dark doubt will blight your mind and utter frustration will steal into your heart. And you will probably find your whole existence thrown into the depths of a yawning chasm.

For meditation you need inspiration. Scriptures can supply you with inspiration. To buy a spiritual book takes ten seconds. To read that book takes a few hours. To absorb that book takes a few years. And to live the truths thereof may take not only a whole lifetime, but a few incarnations.

For meditation you need aspiration. The presence, physical or spiritual, of a spiritual teacher can awaken your sleeping aspiration. He can easily and will gladly do it for you. Aspiration: this is precisely what you need in order to reach your journey’s goal. You don’t have to worry about your realisation. Your aspiration will take care of it.

Meditation nourishes your self-discipline. Self discipline strengthens your meditation. Meditation purifies your heart. And in a pure heart alone looms large the Godward march of human life. One may know what proper meditation is. One may even practise it, since that is what the divine nature in man needs. But the result or fulfilment of meditation transcends all human understanding, for it is measureless, limitless, infinite.

Meditation tells you only one thing: God is. Meditation reveals to you only one truth: yours is the vision of God.

To my extreme sorrow, some of you in the West have grave misconceptions about meditation. You feel that the acme of meditation is fortunetelling or miracle mongering. Fortunetelling does not rhyme with meditation. Miracle mongering does not rhyme with meditation, either. But realisation perfectly rhymes with meditation. Liberation soulfully rhymes with meditation. Do you really want to realise God? Do you really want God’s Infinite Light, Peace and Bliss? If so, you should keep millions and millions of miles away from fortunetellers and miracle mongers. If you think that they inspire you, then you are mistaken. Go deep within and you will discover that they have just aroused your idle, eyeless and fruitless curiosity. Curiosity is not spirituality. And secretly and consciously the fortunetellers and miracle mongers have offered you something more: temptation. Temptation is the harbinger of destruction. It is here that the divine mission of your life-unsuccessful, unfulfilled-comes to an end. Let us be on the alert. I urge you not to confuse your heart’s genuine meditation with fortunetelling and miracle mongering. Don’t waste your time. Your time is precious. Your meditation is priceless. Your achievement shall be the treasure of timeless Eternity, measureless Infinity and deathless Immortality. Don’t wait. All things come to him who waits, except the realisation that “today” embodies and the liberation that “now” reveals.

Meditation is our soul’s cry for our life’s perfect perfection. Perfection has not yet dawned on earth, but one day it will. Perfection is the ideal of human life. To quote Swami Vivekananda: “None of us has yet seen an ideal human being, and yet we are told to believe in him. None of us has yet seen an ideally perfect man, and yet without that ideal we cannot progress.”

Meditation alone can give birth to perfection. Meditation carries us beyond the frustration of the senses, beyond the limitation of the reasoning mind. And, finally, meditation can present us with the breath of perfection.

The ultimate aim of meditation is to realise the Supreme. The Katha Upanishad has a spiritual message to offer to the world. This message is an inner message.

Higher than the senses are the objects of the senses.
Higher than the objects of the senses is the mind.
Higher than the mind is the intellect.
Higher than the intellect is the Great Self.
Higher than the Great Self is the Unmanifest.
Higher than the Unmanifest is the Person.
Higher than the Person there is nothing at all.
That is the goal. That is the highest course.

Indeed, the Person is the Supreme Himself. On the strength of our highest and deepest meditation we unfailingly gain free access to the Supreme.

At the beginning of our spiritual journey, we feel that meditation is self-effort and perspiration. At the end of our journey’s close, we realise that meditation is God’s Grace, His Compassion Infinite.

The price is never right. Before realisation, it is too high. After realisation, it is too low.

April 23rd, 1969
University of Maryland, College Park, Md.