Question: After we have finished meditating, how do we go about contemplating?

Sri Chinmoy: At this stage of your life you need not do contemplation. Contemplation comes after quite a few years, when one is very advanced in the spiritual life. Contemplation is the highest rung of the ladder. First comes concentration, then meditation and finally contemplation. Here among my disciples, only very, very few have the capacity of limited contemplation; otherwise, all are up to the meditation state. The contemplation state is a very high state. Even those very, very few who do have the capacity to contemplate cannot do so at their sweet will. So in your case, please only think of meditation right now. Contemplation will take some time. When the time for contemplation comes, I will tell you.

Contemplation is required before God-realisation, so it cannot be ignored or avoided. But, in your case, the necessity for contemplation has not come, because your concentration is not yet perfect, your meditation is not yet perfect. When your concentration is perfect and your meditation is perfect, at that time also your contemplation will have to be perfected. Then you will be able to climb up these three rungs in the ladder of self-realisation. Then you will really be able to enter into the Highest. But now the time has not yet come for you to learn contemplation.