Generally speaking, meditation is not a habit that most human beings develop to any great extent. From time to time, of course, when a difficulty arises, when someone is faced with a particularly knotty problem or is in a very painful situation, he will become pensive and more thoughtful because he has to find a way out of his problems. But this cannot really be qualified as meditation; it is simply an instinctive, natural response to danger or disaster. When a man finds himself in danger he instinctively reaches for help by turning his gaze inwards; he even begins to pray, to ask for help from the Being that he had neglected when things were going well for him. He remembers that when he was a child his parents told him that this Supreme Being was all-powerful, omniscient and all-loving, so now that he has problems his instinct is to turn back to Him and, with the utmost humility in the presence of such extraordinary power, to ask Him for help. Yes, but the thing is that this only happens in extreme circumstances: in moments of danger, war, illness or death.

In the ordinary way, when people are perfectly happy and content, they have no desire to pray or meditate; they don’t think it is necessary; they don’t see the use of it. When everything is going well, people see no reason to wander off into the vague, nebulous world of meditation. It is when things go wrong, when they are unhappy or in great difficulty and they realize that concrete, material solutions are inadequate, that they turn inwards and look for help and solutions to their problems in the world above. That is all well and good, but the help they are looking for from Heaven would be far more readily forthcoming if they had not waited for a ‘special occasion’ before asking for it, if they had already acquired the habit of daily meditation. Without the practice of meditation, it is not possible either to know oneself or to acquire self-governance or to develop spiritual qualities and virtues. In fact, if human beings have such a weak inner life and such lack of depth in their feelings and desires, it is because they fail to recognize the primordial importance of meditation.

Of course, there is no point in trying to pretend that meditation is easy: it is not. It is very difficult. As long as one is wholly absorbed in mundane occupations or a prisoner of one’s own passions, meditation is impossible. Some degree of inner freedom is necessary before one’s thoughts can reach up towards the Almighty. I have seen people who have meditated regularly for years, and who were wasting their time or even becoming unbalanced, because they had not realized – or did not want to realize that certain conditions have to be filled before one can meditate. It is impossible to meditate if one is not inwardly free. So many people continue with their shady deals, cheat and steal, drink and fornicate, and then they go off and ‘meditate’! Well, this is just not possible! The nature of their activities makes meditation impossible for it ties their thoughts down to the lower levels.

I know that it is becoming more and more fashionable to meditate nowadays, but I am afraid that this does not make me very happy, for all I see are quantities of poor creatures rushing into something they don’t understand. How can you meditate if you do not have a high ideal to free you from your moods and licentious habits and raise you above mere physical pleasures and appetites and lead you to Heaven? You cannot meditate until you have overcome certain weaknesses and understood certain truths. In fact, not only can you not do so but it is even dangerous to try.

A lot of people close their eyes, strike a pose and appear to be meditating, but what is really going on inside? The Lord only knows where they are! If you could see into their heads you would probably find that they were asleep! Is that meditation? You can even go and see public demonstrations of meditation! It is perfectly ridiculous. How can anyone possibly meditate in public? Or if he could, it would mean that he was so advanced, so free of all ties, that he was capable of meditating anywhere and at any time because his spirit was ceaselessly in communication with the Divine World. But this kind of love for the sublime world above supposes a very exceptional level of evolution which is not the case of those who give public demonstrations of how to meditate!

If you want an accurate idea of how most people meditate, look at a car: a cat can sit for hours in front of a mouse-hole, meditating on how to catch a mouse! Well, that is what most human beings do: they meditate about how to catch a two-legged ‘mouse’!

Meditation is not quite so simple as many people think. You have to be very advanced to meditate and, above all, you must have an immense love of the Divine World. If this is the case, then your thoughts are already focused, and you can begin to meditate without any special effort, almost in spite of yourself: your mind is so free that it sets out on its own, as it were, to do its work.

People have sometimes said to me: ‘I’ve been trying to meditate for years, but my brain always seems to get stuck and I never get anywhere.’ Why is this? The reason is that they have not understood that the different moments of one’s life are not disconnected and cut off from each other in water-tight compartments. Each moment is connected to all those that have gone before and which we lump together and call ‘the past’ they don’t realize that their past can weigh them down and hinder them and, as they are sincerely anxious to meditate, they insist and do violence to their brain with the result that it seizes up and refuses to function. It never seems to occur to them that if they want to meditate, they are going to have to get their brain and their whole organism ready for this sort of work. In other words they are going to have to tidy up their lives. Suppose you have been quarreling with someone: the next morning, when you are trying to meditate, it all comes back to you and you go over the whole quarrel in your mind, remembering all the insults you gave and received and planning what you will say to him when you meet again. So much for your meditation! Instead of flying up into Divine regions, you have spent your time going over and over the past, unable to shut out the endless stream of people and events that comes crowding into your mind. And the same thing repeats itself year after year: no wonder your meditations don’t seem to get any results.

Man is capable of becoming all-powerful, but only if he knows a certain number of truths and, in particular, the truth that every moment of our lives is connected to all those that have gone before. This is what Jesus meant when he said that we should not worry about the morrow. Yes, because if you live as you should today, the morrow will find you free: you will be in a position to dispose of yourself at Will and concentrate your thoughts on whatever you please because yesterday’s affairs are all in order. Whereas if you live a disordered life, every day will find you hobbled by the loose ends of the day before, and you will have to race about in all directions trying to set things straight and remedy your past mistakes, instead of being free to work in the present and create the future.

An enlightened disciple who wants to meditate, therefore, prepares himself in advance by purifying himself and disengaging himself from all kinds of useless preoccupations. He tries to develop to the highest possible degree his desire to improve and perfect himself in order to help others and be an example, a model, a true son of God. In accordance with Jesus’ instructions to his disciples, he is animated by the sublime desire to do the Will of God in everything. But wishing and wanting alone will not enable us to carry out the precepts Jesus gave us: we also need a certain amount of knowledge. A great many people want to live according to these precepts but without success, because they do not know how to set about it. If you have left the tap water running or the gas turned on, or forgotten the baby in the bath, it will come back to you in a flash just as you are about to meditate and….. that will be the end of your meditation!

Prepare yourself in advance, therefore, and when you are free in body, mind and feelings, when you have finally escaped from the prison of your everyday life, you can begin to rise within yourself. You can begin to feel that other life, a life that is so new, vast, broad and deep that you feel yourself expanding in it and drawn out of yourself into another, higher region. And this higher region, in reality, is within you. Yes, this divine life flows within you, and in experiencing it you experience a few moments of true life. In this way the Divine world begins to awaken within you, and once this has happened, you can never forget it; henceforth you have the conviction that the soul is a reality, that the Divine world exists and that countless creatures inhabit it. Why this firm conviction? Because you have managed to set in motion forces that were previously unknown to you, forces that are tremendously powerful and beneficial whereas, before this, you were in the grip of hostile, corrosive forces which were gradually destroying you.

This has always been known and taught by Initiates. Meditation is a psychological and Philosophical question; it is an act of cosmic dimensions of the greatest importance. Once a disciple has tasted the sweetness of this higher world his convictions are strengthened and he can feel that his faculties begin to obey him. When he wants to set his mind to work it obeys him, and when he wants it to stop, it stops; it is as though the cells of his whole being had decided to conform. If he has not reached this mastery, it will take him hours and hours to find inner peace and quiet because his cells continue their restless movements and refuse to listen to him. They say: ‘If you think you can scare us you are making a big mistake! We can’t take you seriously and we’re certainly not afraid of you. We have no respect for you because you have shown how stupid and ignorant you are!’ and they go on doing exactly as they please. You all know what I am talking about, don’t you? And then, on other days, you find that your cells obey you because, knowingly or unknowingly, you have reached a higher level and released higher forces and, in doing so, have gained greater authority over your cells which recognize a hierarchical authority and are ready to obey their master.

After all, isn’t this true in every area of life? In businesses and government or in the armed forces, every individual strives to move up and hierarchical ladder and become manager, chairman of the board, chief of staff or general because, when he reaches the top and, especially, when he sports all his ribbons and medals, he knows that others will respect and obey him. Even if a man is a complete idiot or tyrant it makes no difference for it is his rank that commands obedience. And where do you suppose that this sense of hierarchy comes from? It is not a human intervention, for human beings invent nothing. Through intuition, instinct or trial and error, they simply discover what already exists in nature, and hierarchy is something that exists throughout nature. In the heavens (stars and constellations), on earth (rivers, mountains, trees and animals) and even in man, everything is ordered hierarchically.

And since this is so, since it is common knowledge that someone who wants to be a leader and impose his Will on others has to be at least one step above him, whey should it be difficult to understand that in spiritual things too, we have to be a step above our own inhabitants if we want them to obey us? The principle and the practical applications are the same on all levels. And this is precisely the aim of an Initiate: to win the obedience of his own inner world. He is not interested in being obeyed by mountains, stars, animals or men; he is only interested in achieving self-dominance, in being the master of his own physical body, of his own thoughts and feelings, and he works constantly to this end.

Spiritual exercises such as meditation enable man to free himself progressively from these fetters, this prison, the chains that keep him in perpetual bondage to the subterranean world. So many have been caught and held captive! Lacking the light, they let themselves slide lower and lower, until they were deep in this fearful world. Call it Hell, call it the Devil, it makes no difference; it is a very real world in which many are inextricably lost simply because they did not choose to use the means of salvation taught by Initiatic Science. They thought they were being very intelligent whereas, in fact, they were simply being stubborn and proud – and look where they are now!

The only way to escape from torment and anguish is to meditate. But, as I have already said, in order to meditate one first has to settle a certain number of questions. When the mother of a large family wants to make a cake, for instance, she waits until the children are in bed and asleep before she begins; she cannot get anything done while they are all around her, clinging onto her skirts and clamoring for attention. And we have to do the same: we have their large family within us, all those noise, high-spirited children, and we must make them quiet so as to be free to do our work, and then, once it is done, we can go back to them and share the cake!

If we want to meditate we have to understand the nature of psychic work. One must never try to rush the brain, for example, and force it to concentrate from one moment to the next, for this does violence to the cells of the nervous system with the result that they seize up and we get a headache! The first thing to do is to relax, to remain passive, as it were, while, at the same time, keeping an eye on the gradual pacification of our sells. Naturally, it takes practice to be able to do this quite quickly, but eventually you will find that it only takes a few moments. To begin with, therefore, you must use gentleness, peace and love and, above all, avoid any form of violence. This is the secret of a good meditation. And once you feel that your nervous system is well disposed and that your ‘batteries’ have been recharged (for this passive attitude gives the body an opportunity to replenish its supplies of energy), then you can focus your thoughts on the topic of your choice.

If you want to do your work every day without tiring; if you want to be active, dynamic, willing and ready to undertake important work every day, you must learn how to use your brain correctly. This is very important. From now on, therefore, if you want to keep up your spiritual activities for a long time, you must be very careful about this: never rush at a subject of meditation all at once. Even if it is something very dear to your heart, a subject you are very attached to, don’t dash at it, otherwise there will be a violent reaction. Begin work quietly and gently, therefore. Immerse yourself in the ocean of cosmic harmony and draw strength from it, and when you feel that your energies have been renewed, you can go ahead with your spiritual work and put your whole being into it. Yes, the intellect is not the only faculty concerned when it comes to spiritual work: your whole body and every single cell of your body should be involved.

During the first few minutes, therefore, try not to think. Simply glance into yourself to see that everything is functioning smoothly and pay attention, only, to your breathing. Breathe regularly, don’t think, allow yourself simply to feel, to be aware that you are breathing. You will notice that your regular breathing induces a harmonious rhythm in your thoughts and feelings and in your whole body, and this is very beneficial.

Some of you may say: ‘As far as I’m concerned, I don’t know what meditation is and I don’t want to know. I’m willing to make sacrifices; I’m ready to be charitable and do good to others, and that’s enough!’ No, that is not enough, for our actions can transgress certain laws, complicate things and even be very destructive if we do not begin by meditating. Why should we meditate? Because only meditation clears our vision and allows us to see reality as it is, to see who to help, and how and when to help them, and so on.

You can meditate on all kinds of subjects: health, beauty, wealth, intelligence, power, glory, the Angels, the Archangels and the Heavenly Hierarchies. All of these subjects are good, but the best of all is to meditate on God Himself in order to be steeped in His Love, Light and strength, in order to live for a brief moment in His eternity – and always to meditate in order to serve God, to do His Will and be one with Him. No meditation is more beneficial or more powerful than this. Any other kind of meditation is motivated by some form of self-interest: hopes of financial advantage, the will to use occult forces for personal enrichment or to gain power over others. Initiates understand that what is most advantageous for them is, precisely, not to seek their own personal advantage, but to seek to become servants of God. All the rest is tainted with black magic and witchcraft. And this means that, without realizing it, most occultists dabble in witchcraft because they use these invisible forces to gain wealth and power or to enthrall woman and not for the service of God. So, you see, there are many different shades and degrees of meditation!

Obviously, one has to begin meditating on subjects that are not too remote or difficult. Human beings are made in such a way that it is not natural to them to exist in an abstract environment. They need to hang on to things that are visible and tangible; to things that are close to them and that they are love. It is very easy, for instance, to concentrate on food when one has not eaten for a long time. It takes no special effort to be like that cat we were talking about which concentrated so hard on the mouse. We don’t need to try: it just happens, all by itself. And think of how a young man concentrates on the girl he loves: for hours and even days on end, simply because he loves her. And here, too, there is no need for any special effort, but what a meditation! He can’t tear himself away!

So begin by meditating on something that gives you pleasure, something you enjoy. Later, you can go on to other things, but begin with something you really like, something that attracts you (of course is must be something spiritual, not just anything). In this way, by beginning with subjects that are already congenial to you, you will develop your own means and methods of work and, later on, you can leave these subjects and fly higher, to more distant, more abstract regions. It is obvious that if you begin by trying to meditate on space, time and eternity, you will not get very far! Later on, you will be capable of fixing your thoughts on such things as the void, the depths of nothingness and so on, but begin with something easier and then, gradually, you will get to these more abstract subjects.

However, I must repeat what I said earlier: the most sublime meditation is to be in communion with God, to submit to Him, to want to serve Him and be nothing more than an instrument in His hands. When you melt into the Lord in this way, all the Divine qualities, all His power, Love and Wisdom, all His immensity floods into you and, one day, you will become a Divinity. When they hear this, some people will object: ‘What pride to think that you can become a Divinity!’ And to that I can only reply…. ‘Read the Gospels. Didn’t Jesus say “Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect?” There is no ideal higher then this and it was Jesus himself who gave it to us, but Christians have forgotten that. A great many of them think that it is sufficient to go and Light a candle in church, from time to time, and, for the rest, to look after one’s own little chicken-run, in order to be good Christians. What an idea! As though the Kingdom of God would ever be any nearer if everybody behaved like that! Oh, those poor Christians, they adhere strictly to the principle that one must not ask too much of human beings for fear of falling into the sin of pride! Well, what I am telling you is exactly the opposite: we must harbor the highest possible ideal in our hearts, souls and spirits, the high ideal of becoming a totally compliant instrument in the hands of God, so that God Himself may think, feel and act through us. If you hold this ideal you will be abandoning yourself to the Will of Wisdom and Light, you will be putting yourself totally at the service of omniscient Light so that it may guide you in all your ways.

But man is also on Earth and what is he here for? Jesus said (you see, I always refer to what Jesus said, for he said it all! What would be the point of inventing anything else?) – so, Jesus said: ‘Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.’ On Earth as in Heaven’ means that the Earth must reflect Heaven. And the ‘Earth’ is our own, personal earth, the earth of our physical body. And this means that once we have worked to reach the summit we must then bring the summit down into the organization of our physical body. Immortality is on high, Light is on high, harmony, peace, beauty and all subtle realities are on high. And everything that exists on high must be brought down and be incarnate here below, on the physical level. Ask to become a servant of God, therefore, and, at the same time, work at the formation of that other body within you that we call the Body of Light, the Body of Glory, the Immortal Body, the Body of Christ. The Gospels speak of this body, too, but Christians have never paid must attention to it. The truth of the matter is that they are not really interested in understanding the Gospels in depth: they are anything but real Christians!

You will, perhaps, say that to want to tend the Earth is not a very glorious ideal, whereas Hindus….Yes, I know: Hindus and Buddhists are only interested in escaping from this earth of sorrow, suffering and strife. That is their philosophy, but it is not the philosophy of Christ. Christ’s philosophy is to bring Heaven down to Earth, to bring about the Kingdom of God and Hig Righteousness on Earth. This is the Kingdom that Jesus was working for, and he asked his disciples to work for it also. So that is what we have to do: work for the coming of the Kingdom of God on Earth and, to begin with, in our own physical bodies. This is the true philosophy. I am not interested in what others may have understood.

‘Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.’ Yes, but where are the laborers for this work? Men have other philosophies in their heads, and this means that they will have to keep coming back to Earth until they manage to turn it into a Garden of Eden. When they have done this, they will go to another planet, leaving the Earth to the animals which also have to evolve. This surprises you, doesn’t it? You see, men have been sent to Earth to work as laborers on a building site, but they are not interested in their work; they are only interested in having a good time. You must not neglect your duty in that way: every day you must work to transform the earth into a Paradise. If you do this the Lord will commend you, saying: ‘Well done. You have been good and faithful servants and worked well in my fields. Now it is time for you to enter into the Joy and Glory of my Kingdom.’ In the Gospels, too, Jesus speaks of laborers who are sent out to work in the fields. Well, it is we who are those laborers. And where are the fields in which we are working? And what have we planted?

You are certainly familiar, also, with the parable of the talents. The idea is the same. The unprofitable servant who was punished because he had buried his talents represents all those who don’t work, who are only interested in making money, having a good time and making the earth a more comfortable place for themselves. This has nothing to do with Christ’s philosophy. We have been sent to Earth with a specific task, and when we have done it, the Lord will give us all the rest; the whole universe will be ours. This is why it saddens me to see the conception that so many occultists and so many spiritual and mystical people have of life on this Earth. They marry and have children, eat and drink and make merry exactly like the most ignorant of men. What are they doing about the work for which they have been sent to earth? Exactly nothing! And this applies to you, too: take a close look into yourselves and you will see that what you do bears no relation to Christ’s philosophy.

There! What I have given you today are the two best subjects for meditation: how to devote yourself entirely to the service of the Godhead, and how to go about bring Heaven down to Earth as a concrete, physical reality. The whole meaning of life is contained in these two activities. All other activities have certain significance, of course, but no other activity has this divine significance. God has created man in his own image; He has created man so that he shall come to resemble Him. And if you don’t believe this, go and ask Him! All my life I have sought the very best, and I have found it. But to have found it is no reason to sit back and twiddle your thumbs. Quite the contrary: now is the time to set to work, because that which has been ‘found’ must now be translated into concrete reality here, on Earth, just as it already exists in Heaven. The fact that many things do already exist here, on Earth, on the mental level, is not sufficient. They must also be made to exist on the physical level, and it is this that is long and difficult.

There is a great deal more that could be said about this, but that is enough for today. It is essential that you understand the importance of meditation, and above all, that you understand that if your meditations are to bear fruit you must watch over your thoughts, feelings and actions, in other words, over your whole way of life. Begin by meditating on simple, easy subjects and gradually, you can go on to more sublime things and, one day, all your work will be focused on becoming an instrument in the hands of God in order to accomplish His Kingdom on Earth. There is nothing more Diving or more glorious than this. This is the perfect fulfillment of Divine law, the perfection of wisdom.

Never forget that it is by your meditations that you allow your inner Self to express itself and reach its full flowering. This is the means by which you can release this mysterious, subtle being so that it can gaze on all that exists in infinite space and then reproduce it on the physical plane. Of course, we are practically never conscious of the realities that this being gazes on, but if we continue to do these exercises regularly and often, little by little, they will reach out consciousness and constitute an inner treasure that will always be with us.

You must learn to enjoy meditation. Meditation must become a need in you, in your minds, hearts and Wills. It must become a pleasure without which life is insipid and meaningless. You should look forward impatiently to those moments when you can, at last, immerse yourself in Eternity and drink the Elixir of Immortal Life, and I see no sign of this joyful impatience in you! You should be like a drunkard who thinks of nothing but his wind and, when the time comes for your meditation, your reaction should be: ‘At last! My soul, my spirit, my heart are free to embrace the whole universe for a few moments: Free to come face to face with Immensity!’

OMRAAM MIKHAEL AIVANHOV
The Powers of Thought