If you deliberately take an attitude, a posture, in order to meditate, then it becomes a plaything, a toy of the mind. If you determine to extricate yourself from the confusion and the misery of life, then it becomes an experience of imagination- and that is not meditation. The conscious mind or the unconscious mind must have no part in it; they must not even be aware of the extent and beauty of meditation - if they are, then you might just as well go and buy a romantic novel.

 

Meditation is hard work. It demands the highest form of discipline- not conformity, not imitation, not obedience- but a discipline, which comes through constant awareness, not only of the things about you outwardly, but also inwardly. So meditation is not an activity of isolation but is action in everyday life, which demands co-operation, sensitivity and intelligence. Without laying the foundation of a righteous life, meditation becomes an escape and therefore has no value whatsoever. A righteous life is not the following of social morality, but the freedom from envy, greed and the search for power - which all breed enmity. The freedom from these does not come through the activity of will but by being aware of them through self-knowing. Without knowing the activities of the self, meditation becomes sensuous excitement and therefore of very little significance.

 

It’s curious how all-important meditation becomes; there is no end to it nor is there a beginning to it. It’s like a raindrop: in that drop are all the streams, the great rivers, the seas and the waterfalls that drop nourishes the earth and man; without it, the earth could be a desert. Without meditation the heart becomes a desert, a wasteland.

 

In the total attention of meditation there is no knowing, no recognition, nor the remembrance of something that has happened. Time and thought have entirely come to an end, for they are the centre, which limits its own vision.