Swami Satyananda Said: " Yoga is meditation and meditation is yoga - Never forget it". Yoga and meditation can both be seen as processes and goals." According to Swami Chinmayananda: " Meditation has been glorified as the most sacred vocation. Humans alone are capable of the highest effort, by which they can hasten their own evolution. In preparing ourselves for meditation, we should first acquire the ability to look within. You must learn to go about your daily routine and uninterruptedly watch the mind…Let it be a silent observer of the workings of your inner life and estimate the motives, intentions and purposes that lie behind your thoughts, words and deeds. " Meditation has often been misunderstood as thinking or contemplation. But it is not so, As Swami Bhajananda (Former Editor of the journal Prabuddha Bharat and trustee of Ramakrishna Mission) says: " Meditation is not an entirely independent discipline but a stage in concentration common to almost all spiritual paths. In every path, the aspirant begins with a large number of thoughts in the mind. These gradually become reduced, and the aspirant reaches a stage when there exists only one thought in the mind. " Self realisation is possible when science blends with spirituality.. As Vethathiri Maharishi a spiritual teacher says: " Meditation is a scientific method of enhancing the capacity of the mind. It fixes the mind on one's magnetic force, enhancing the ability to focus. This is the key to self realization. " As Osho says: " The whole purpose of meditation is to make you aware of your kingdom, to make you aware of your highest potential. " Dr. Adam Burke ( a research psychologist & an assistant professor at San Francisco State University) has been studying brain wave patterns and states of mind during meditation states. He says: " Meditation is the study of attention. Attention is cognitive phenomenon. Meditation is the capacity of the brain to attend to something over a period of time. "
Swami Vivekananda :
Meditation has been laid stress upon by all religions.
The meditative state of mind is declared by the Yogis to be the highest state in which the mind exists.
The soul of man is like a piece of crystal, but it takes the colour of whatever is near it.
Suppose a red flower is near the crystal and the crystal takes the colour and forgets itself, thinks it is red. We have taken the colour of the body and have forgotten what we are. All the difficulties that follow come from that one dead body. All our fears, all worries, anxieties, troubles, mistakes, weakness, evil, are from that one great blunder — that we are bodies. This is the ordinary person. It is the person taking the colour of the flower near to it. We are no more bodies than the crystal is the red flower."
EACH SOUL IS POTENTIALLY DIVINE.
THE GOAL IS TO MANIFEST THIS DIVINE
WITHIN, BY CONTROLLING NATURE, EXTERNAL
AND INTERNAL.
DO THIS EITHER BY WORK, OR WORSHIP, OR
PSYCHIC CONTROL, OR PHILOSOPHY, BY ONE,
OR MORE, OR ALL OF THESE—AND BE FREE.
THIS IS THE WHOLE OF RELIGION.
DOCTRINES, OR DOGMAS, OR RITUALS, OR
BOOKS, OR TEMPLES, OR FORMS, ARE BUT
SECONDARY DETAILS.
The Bhagavad Gita : The Sixth Chapter
Make a habit of practising meditation and do not let your mind be distracted. In this way you will come finally to the Lord who is the light-giver, the highest of the high.
Buddhism :
The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this life. For it is only through meditation that you can undertake the journey to discover your true nature, and so find the stability and confidence you will need to live, and die, well. Meditation is the road to enlightenment.
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