Concentration, Meditation and Contemplation
A lecture by Sri Chinmoy
in St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University in New York
Why do we concentrate? We concentrate because we want to reach the Goal. Why do we meditate? We meditate because we want to live in the heart of the Goal. Why do we contemplate? We contemplate because we want to become the Goal.
How do we concentrate? We concentrate with the mind's illumining one-pointedness. How do we meditate? We meditate with the heart's expanding vastness. How do we contemplate? We contemplate with the soul's fulfilling oneness.
Where do we concentrate, meditate and contemplate? We concentrate, meditate and contemplate in the heart. When we concentrate in the heart, God the Divine Warrior energises us. When we meditate in the heart, God the Divine Knower enlightens us. When we contemplate in the heart, God the Divine Lover immortalises us. The Warrior energises us with His secret Power. The Knower enlightens us with His sacred Light. The Lover immortalises us with His supernal Delight. The Warrior's Power is our ceaseless capacity. The Knower's Light is our endless divinity. The Lover's Delight is our birthless and deathless reality.
When a beginner meditates, it is nothing but struggle. When an advanced seeker meditates, it is smooth sailing.
When an advanced seeker contemplates, he becomes a portion of the Universal Consciousness. When a yogi contemplates, he becomes the Universal Consciousness.
An occultist's intimate friend is concentration. A yogi's intimate friends are meditation and contemplation. An occultist cares very little for meditation and contemplation. A yogi cares very little for concentration.
When an occultist concentrates, it is terribly frightening. When a yogi meditates and contemplates, it is unimaginably charming.
Concentration, meditation and contemplation: in form they are three but in spirit they are one. Concentration exterminates threatening obstructions. Meditation expedites our teeming possibilities. Contemplation places us on the throne of Divinity's Reality and Reality's Immortality. Concentration demands from us sincerity. Meditation demands from us purity. Contemplation demands from us integrity.
Yesterday concentration, meditation and contemplation were seething amazements to us. Today they are unusual surprises to us. Tomorrow they will be normal experiences to us.
Concentration is God's Protection in man. Meditation is God's Height in man. Contemplation is God's Victory in man. Human doubt surrenders to concentration. Human fear surrenders to meditation. Human ignorance surrenders to contemplation.
Concentration is the last word on speed. Meditation is the last word on progress. Contemplation is the last word on success. Love of God is humanity's fastest speed. Devotion to God is humanity's greatest progress. Surrender to God is humanity's mightiest success.
When a seeker concentrates on God, God blesses the seeker's devoted head. When he meditates on God, God blesses his loving heart. When he contemplates on God, God blesses his surrendered entire being. When God concentrates on a seeker, the seeker starts his journey towards the Goal unknowable. When God meditates on a seeker, the seeker is in the midst of his journey towards the Goal unknown. When God contemplates on a seeker, the seeker completes his journey and reaches the Goal: Infinity's Smile, Eternity's Embrace, Immortality's Pride.
Published in Promised Light from the Beyond
Sri Chinmoy holds 127 sessions of meditation at Public School 86 in Jamaica, New York. He chants AUM or SUPREME to start and rings a small bell to end each session, which lasts for one or two minutes.
After the final meditation, shortly before 2:00 a.m., Sri Chinmoy gives the following soulful talk:
Realise Me
by Sri Chinmoy
at PS 86, Jamaica, New York
I hope some of you will realise who I am, either in this incarnation or in one of your future incarnations. Once you realise who I am, then you do not have to do anything, you do not have to say anything, you do not have to become anything. Once you know who I am, you will make me truly happy and you yourselves will be truly happy. Before you know who I am, I will not be happy and you will not be happy.
So, either in this incarnation or in one of your future incarnations, try to realise me. Then only your earthly journey will be fruitful. Otherwise, many times you have come to earth and many, many more times you will come in the future, but it will all end in vain.
Dear children, always keep one thing in mind, and that is to realise me, realise who I eternally am. I am not this body; I am something else. That something else you will realise if you stay in my boat and please me always, always, always in my own way. Think only of me: what I say, not what others say; what I do, not what others do. If you please me, then you have pleased the Real in me; you have pleased the Supreme. If you do not please me, then no matter whom you have pleased, or whom you are going to please, your life will be a barren desert from the beginning to the end. But if you please me in my own way and if I am satisfied with you, then our Absolute Beloved Supreme is pleased with you. And if He is pleased with you, then there is nothing either on earth or in Heaven that you need. Everything is useless, everybody is useless except the one Reality: the Supreme in your Guru, the Supreme with your Guru, the Supreme for your Guru and the Supreme as your Guru.
Realise me. Then only you will discover the meaning of your life. Realise me. Then only satisfaction — Eternity’s satisfaction, Infinity’s satisfaction, Immortality’s satisfaction — will all be yours.
Realise me... Realise me...
Published in Our Sweetest Oneness
Stories by Sri Chinmoy
About his recent trip to India
A letter to the editor
As you know, a very nice article came out about me in The Illustrated Weekly of India, which is like America’s Time magazine. The following week an Indian wrote four or five lines highly appreciating that article. It came out as a letter to the editor. I saw it when I was in India.
The deceitful taxi driver
Indian taxi drivers are notorious for deceiving people. On this trip deception started at the Bombay airport. From the airport to the hotel is a very short distance. The taxi ride normally costs only seven rupees, but the driver asked for two hundred rupees. I started arguing with him in Hindi. Perhaps I made some grammatical mistakes, but he understood me perfectly. From two hundred he finally came down to sixty. So I gave him sixty rupees. What could I do? The following morning, when I went from the hotel to the airport, another driver charged me the correct amount - seven rupees. So you can see what a rogue the first driver was!
The missing notebook
The following day, while I was waiting to board the plane to Madras, I was writing poems. After some time I put my notebook on the seat next to me and began meditating. Suddenly I noticed that my notebook had disappeared. I started asking myself, “Where did it go?”
I looked for the notebook in my blue bag, but it was not there. Then I started looking around me. There were about seventy or eighty people waiting to get on the plane, and it was almost boarding time. Then I saw that somebody was holding the notebook. He was not reading the poems; he was only appreciating the beautiful parrot that was on the cover.
I said to him, “Excuse me, this is my book.”
He said, “Your book? I found it on a seat. Nobody was sitting there, so I took it because I liked the bird.”
Fortunately I got my notebook back at the last minute. Otherwise, ninety-nine poems would have been lost.
The lightning call
When I arrived in Calcutta after leaving Pondicherry, I wanted to phone my family. My sisters and brothers had driven me to the Madras airport, and then they had to make the three-and-a-half-hour drive back to Pondicherry. So I was worried about them. I felt sorry, because going and coming back came to seven hours of driving altogether. For me, it was only an hour-and-a-half plane ride from Madras to Calcutta. So after about three hours I started phoning Pondicherry to see if they had gotten back all right.
The operator said that the Pondicherry line was out of order and that it could be that way for two or three more days. Quite often when I try to call from New York, the operator says that the Pondicherry line is out of order. The first day I believed the operator. The second day when I tried to call, again the operator said that it was out of order. I said, “O God, what does the government do if it has to make an urgent call?”
The operator said, “Oh, the government has a special line that is used only for lightning calls. If you make a lightning call, you have to pay eight times more.”
I said, “Look here, I am willing to pay eight times more.”
The operator said, “Eight times more? Are you sure?”
I said, “I have the money, so please do it.”
So the operator made the lightning call around one-thirty in the morning, but nobody answered. My mind was worried that perhaps something had gone wrong. One is allowed to try a lightning call only twice, and then the call is cancelled. They made the second call a half hour later and still there was no answer. What had happened was this: the Calcutta hotel operator had put through the lightning call, but the rogues in Madras had used a wrong number. All the time I thought that something had gone wrong with my family’s phone. It turned out that our phone was all right, but the Madras operator was putting me through to a wrong number.
The following day I tried to make another lightning call two times, but again it didn’t go through. Whenever the call does not go through, you don’t have to pay; but you always get a scolding from the operator. The operator barks at you because a lightning call is only supposed to be made by very rich or great people. They did not feel that I was rich or great enough.
My family couldn’t call me because they didn’t know at which hotel I was staying. Finally, I called my house in New York. Since nobody there had heard from my brothers and sisters, I said, “That means that everything is all right. If anything had gone wrong, they would have called New York.” From New York one of the girls tried calling Pondicherry, but she had the same fate. She could not get through. Finally, she sent a telegram to my family asking if everyone was all right.
The next day I told the operator that I had been trying to call Pondicherry for three days. She put in another lightning call, and in two minutes the call went through. My brother answered the phone and I immediately said to him, “Why have you not been answering the phone?”
At the same time he said to me, “Where is your concern for us? Why have you not called us for four days? One of us has always been near the phone, worrying.”
I said, “I have tried to make lightning calls twenty times.”
So everything was all right. The first day when they didn’t answer, I felt that perhaps my sister was tired and exhausted from travelling, and therefore she didn’t hear the phone ringing. It turned out that my brother was there, but the phone line was not working at all. For three days the Pondicherry line was not working. I said, “What kind of worries the telephone can create!” I was blessing the telephone like anything.
I was so happy that I finally got through to Pondicherry that I called the hotel telephone operator. I had heard her say her name, Mrs. Dasgupta. She was Bengali, but we started talking in English because telephone operators always prefer to speak English. She told me, “You asked for a lightning call, but I did not make a lightning call. I have a friend in Madras and I told her to make it a special call without saying it was a lightning call.” It would have cost me six hundred rupees, but now I had to pay only one hundred ten rupees. So I was very grateful to her.
I put a hundred rupees in an envelope to give her, and then I went downstairs to the hotel telephone office. The place was so dirty! I stood at the door and said, “I would like to speak to Mrs. Dasgupta.” So many people were working there. How could I go in and give her the envelope when there were so many other girls around? I said to the guard, “Can you ask her to come here?”
The guard came back and said, “They are asking you to come in.”
I said to myself, “I am in trouble now. I can’t just give her this envelope in front of everyone.”
So I gave her a copy of the small Galaxy of Luminaries. When she saw my picture with the Pope, she could not believe it. She said to me “Where do you come from?”
I said, “I am Bengali. Why?”
She said, “But when you talked to your family, it was not in Bengali.”
I said, “I come from Chittagong.”
She said she could not understand a word of our Chittagong dialect.
I said, “This is what you do? You listen to people’s private conversations?”
She said, “Oh no, I just wanted to see if you got through to your party. Then I heard something very peculiar.” Then she added, “You don’t have a Chittagong accent.”
I said to myself, “Not in vain did I stay at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. There I spoke real Bengali.”
Then she started appreciating my Bengali. I didn’t have the heart to tell her how many books, poems and songs I have written in Bengali. Then she said, “Is your mother alive?”
I said, “No.”
She said, “The person who would have been the happiest to see this picture is not alive.”
I said, “I lost her when I was quite young.”
She said, “I am so sorry that you have lost your mother. She would have been the happiest person.
I said, “There is something called Heaven, so she can be proud of her son from Heaven.”
She was very moved. Then I gave her the envelope and said, “This is a gift.”
I thought she would show false modesty and say, “No,” and I would have to insist. But she just took it and thanked me. Inwardly I said, “You deserve it! You saved me from paying for a lightning call.”
Published in The World-Experience-Tree-Climber, part 1