Meditation

Sister Patricia: I would be interested in knowing how you lead a meditation. How do you go about doing this?

Sri Chinmoy: I just enter into my own highest meditation. [For a few seconds Sri Chinmoy meditates.] In this way I enter into my highest. I keep my heart's door wide open and then everybody enters and together we go to our Goal. Here inside my heart we all go together. Otherwise, individual egos will go in entirely different directions and then we will be lost, totally lost. But if eternally we can walk along the same road, we will have a harmonious, peaceful, fruitful journey together. It all depends on receptivity.

Bishop Kennedy: Do you actually judge the receptivity of the audience?

Sri Chinmoy: I do not actually judge, but I do notice that if they are receptive, they receive more from me. I have not come here to judge anybody. If they keep their heart's door wide open, then the Peace, Light and Bliss that I bring down on the strength of my intense prayer and meditation will enter into them. But if they keep their heart's door closed, then I remain a stranger and what I try to offer they do not receive.

Bishop Kennedy: When you are serving, are you conscious of them moving with you as you go deeper into meditation? Is this something that you recognise?

Sri Chinmoy: It is like touching an object. You touch this object and immediately you get the conscious vibration of that object. When I see a person, I come into contact with that person and I get an immediate reaction: I feel whether that person wants to take some service from me. Out of one hundred people, perhaps only two will be taking my assistance; the others have come out of curiosity. If they come out of curiosity, I can be of little use to them. When we pray together, meditate together, we feel the necessity of collective prayer and meditation. It is of paramount importance. Today I am in a high consciousness and I can lift you. Tomorrow I can be in a very, very low consciousness and you can be in a high consciousness; so you can pull me up. That is why we give importance to the collective meditation. One day your consciousness may be very high and her consciousness may be very low. So you come and save her; you become her saviour.

Bishop Kennedy: If we are meditating together and you are in a state of high consciousness, then if I open my heart, you are going to help me?

Sri Chinmoy: It is like an elevator. An elevator can lift you up and, again, the same elevator will bring you down. It is like climbing up a tree. Some people cannot climb up a tree. others can climb up but they do not know how to climb down, and there are also those who can climb up and also climb down. These are the real champion climbers. They climb up and pluck the most delicious fruits and then come down and distribute them.