How to Meditate?

"As long as you're listening to what other people tell you is the right way, it is not going to take you where you can hear what is within you and telling you what is the truth. Whenever a person is telling you how to meditate, it's that person's experience. That is one problem on earth. Each person finds a part of the truth and grabs it and then comes back and says, I've found it. I say, Whenever you say, "I found it," you lost it.

God is not something you can find. He's something that goes on and on, and you find more of Him every moment. Even God sometimes surprises Himself. He realizes
something and says, That is great. The joy of knowing God is that you can constantly realize Him more and more, and in deeper levels. If any person says, This is the only way, that means that person lost it right there.

That is that person's experience. So it is very good to listen to other people, what they say and what they recommend, and probably even practice it, if you want and if you have the time. But eventually you come to the conclusion from within yourself and His guidance, of what works best for you and humanity. Otherwise you become lost in the many different suggestions coming from so many different experiences of different people.

How to meditate is really a very individual thing. Some people meditate by driving. They have the best meditation when they are just driving long distances. Some people can meditate by going in a cave. Some people can meditate in their office. Any way that helps them to clear their minds, and eventually reach the Essence which is within them and hear the Word of God, or that silence and oneness and clarity, is meditation. When you are there, you know you are there because everything is clear and everything is crystallized in God.

So how to meditate is an individual thing but in general it is to calm your mind, to concentrate on your breath. Breathing and the rest of the consciousness are connected with each other. And when you learn to control your breath, then you can control your mind.

Mantras are the power words, or energy, or vibrations which have been meditated on by the great yogis or by people who have meditated for a long time, and they eventually realized the vibration of that one state of consciousness. So even different mantras take you to different states of consciousness. It depends on what state of consciousness you want to go, or are prepared to go to. So they are used to help you reach a particular state of consciousness. You might even arrive there without a mantra. But a mantra is a tool. So in essence it is calming your mind and controlling your breath.

After you breathe in, there is a moment of silence. Realize that silence. That is really your essence. That is the important thing in meditating. Then you breathe out, and again there is a silence. "

Actually, the greatest level of consciousness is where there is no sound, because sound is still the manifestation. God in the highest level, which is un-manifested, has no sound, no color, no taste, no anything of the manifested world. He just IS.

A mantra is supposed to take you to that state of silence. So eventually you have to even disregard the mantra, because if you become attached to the mantra you're going to stay with the mantra, a sound in the manifested world.

Another thing the mantra is supposed to do is to bring control to you over your breath. Without the mantra you might not have the same sequence of breathing the mantra, realizing the silent moment, and breathing out.

Mantra is a tool, it is not the end. It is the means to reach somewhere. When you reach there, as I said, eventually you don't need the mantra anymore. You meditate all the time, because breath goes in and out all the time.

It really is not a physical breath. It is something beyond the physical breath. And that is called prana, the life-force in the universe. Prana enters the body not only from your nostrils, it enters from all over the body from the centers where it comes in and goes out. And when you reach there you are in the flow."

Maitreya