Question: If we look at your meditation technique itself, can you explain a bit about it?

Sri Chinmoy: We do not have any set technique or method. Everybody knows that in the beginning, when you start meditating, you should make the mind calm, quiet and tranquil so that you can have a very peaceful meditation. Then I tell my students: try to meditate the way you feel is best. If you like a flower, the fragrance of the flower, the beauty of the flower, then try to imagine the flower inside you. Petal by petal your life is blossoming, the way petal by petal a flower blossoms. Your whole life is blossoming like a flower.

Or, if you are inspired by a flame, try to imagine a burning flame inside you, rising up and illumining the inner darkness. If you feel the necessity of climbing up the Everest, that is, the highest in the spiritual life, then envision the flame within you climbing up high, higher, highest.

Then again, I tell my students, it is a matter of joy. If you get joy from the flower, then do it; if you get joy from the flame, then meditate on the flame; if you get joy looking at my picture, then do it. Anything that gives you joy while praying and meditating you should do. If you want to look into the vast sky or at the sea, or if you want to be at the foot of a tree and derive peace from the tree itself, then meditate at the foot of a tree. If you want to meditate on the power aspect of life, then look at the sun and meditate. And if you want to have mildness, softness, tenderness in your life, then you can meditate on the moon. I tell the individual, while meditating keep in mind the thing you like best in your life.