Meditation can be practiced by anyone. But meditating with “the belief or openness to the possibly of a Higher power than ones own understanding,” can help remove barriers to experiencing oneness, or expanding beyond one’s own intellect and ego.

The word “ego” as I’m using it, is that part of us that is attached to, and identified with the body, personality, and the particular point of view associated with them. This part of our consciousness is needed to function in the world, but is only one limited aspect of who we are. Proper development of the ego is needed before understanding of its limitations or acquiring freedom from them is possible. For this reason different approaches to meditation that seem contrary to each other are needed. Your own experience is the best guide to what approach or technique will work for you. There is no single approach that fits everyone.

It’s obvious that God is not limited to any specific religious form or even to my guru but I still worship God in this way.  This is necessary for me because I can’t get my mind around the totality of what “God” really is. But I believe that “God” is what makes selfless Love possible. The sweetness we experience with our loved ones, immediate family, or friends on the spiritual path offer a doorway for us to experience realities more subtle than the actual people or things themselves.  When they are gone, we never lose the memory, and the love is still just as real as when they were here. Meditation on these experiences offers an opportunity for us to go beyond them into a deeper experience of the divine. A direct experience of the divine is always available. If we are not having it, it is only because there is a block or filter between the full experience and our own perception of it.

A too-strict belief in God as a specific form or as expressed in any religion can be just as limiting as not believing at all. No matter what we think before climbing the mountain, our understanding will evolve as we move toward the top.  The universe is far too complex for the human mind to reason out. Dogmatic adherence to our own point of view, especially to the point of pushing it on others is a clear display of the ego driven ignorance that causes all suffering in man.

My guru has taught me everything I know about meditation. I even visualize him during meditation. But my guru is only a channel. God is the true guru and this is the same one God that spoke through Jesus, Krishna, Buddha and many others. By attuning to God through one channel, I can go deeper into my exploration of God than I can by sampling from several sources. Why? For the same reason I can obtain more understanding of anything subtle by learning one language well and studying in that, than by learning three or four half as well and trying to gain the same result. There is another reason for accepting the channel that God has sent me. It requires trust and humility and develops faith to do so. It requires a certain humility that the ego doesn’t like at first. It requires the ego to “let go of the wheel” and let someone who knows the way drive for a while.  This is what my guru taught. It ‘s not for everyone, in fact it is only for a very few.

After all is said and done, meditation is a way to expand ones awareness of self beyond their current understanding and experience.  By going deep into a state of love and gratitude toward my channel for the divine, I can transcend this relationship and take my meditation into the experience of love itself. This love has no direction. It is impersonal, and requires nothing from me but receptivity and stillness. Is this any different than when a child loves a doll and cares for it all of the time, and later becomes a mother and all of that practice helped prepare her for the real relationship with her child?

I suggest to those who are interested- to practice love in your meditation. Point it wherever you feel inspired and feel it flow from your heart toward the subject of your devotion. At the same time, watch the feeling in the heart and relax into it. Feel deep gratitude for the ability to feel what you feel and offer that feeling upward as if through the body into the forehead and send it out like a beam of light. Write with this light in the heart of the divine the message of your love and gratitude. Then offer all of yourself in willingness and service to the highest truth as you perceive it in your own self. Now sit quietly for as long as you can and bathe in this experience. Let this be your reality during your meditation and watch what happens in your life.

“It is more blessed to give than receive.”

turiya