This meditational technique is not an advertisement in society. It is a healing process that you are trying to undergo inwardly for your own ultimate blessedness, so you are concerned here with yourself and not with anything else. Here is the point where you are required to be totally dispassionate in judging your own self. You should make a list of all your weaknesses also together with your capacities, endowments, and know where you stand. "This is my strength, but this is also my weakness." And, so far as your strength goes - so far, so good. Be happy. God bless you. But as far as your weaknesses are concerned, they have to be got rid of with an intelligent psychoanalytic technique of positive induction of a new understanding which you have to receive either from your Guru or, if God has blessed you with enough understanding, to the strength of your own self. Generally your weaknesses are your desires which, somehow or other, seek fulfilment by hook or crook - by any means, fair and foul. This word 'desire' has a vast connotation. It covers a large area; it touches anything and everything in the world. It is a desire for any blessed thing.

Now, a philosophical analysis has to help you here in understanding how desires arise, why they are there, and what are the means and methods you have to adopt in checking them, rather, sublimating them, and transmuting them into a friendly power rather than a disturbing, annoying, agonising distraction. That which is an impediment to you psychologically, may become your friend. An energy that is moving outwardly in the direction of a distracting sense-object may get transmuted into your own mental force or consciousness force, and when this attunement takes place, your energy gets re-doubled. Here we have explained, perhaps, the sum and substance of what pratyahara means - the coming together of the energy of the senses with the concentrating activity of the mind. When the senses unite with the mind, you have achieved the process of total withdrawal, pratyahara, and the mind gets concentrated.

The place of meditation therefore should be, as far as possible, free from nearness to those objects, persons, and circumstances which may draw your attention, either by like or dislike. So here you are free to choose any particular place for your meditation, under this given condition. A suitable time also is necessary - it is not that you will be able to sit for meditation at any time during the day; and you are here, again, your own judge. The mind should be amenable to this task of concentration of consciousness. It should not be repellent - it should not be revolting for any reason. You should not be hungry, you should not be annoyed, you should not have a commitment to be attended to a few minutes afterwards, you should not have to catch a train in half an hour, or you should not have a court case tomorrow. These things are distractions; they have to be dealt with in their own way - and as long as they are not fulfilled or handled in an intelligent way, your concentration of mind, spiritually, will not be a success.

Spirituality is a positive art - it is not a runaway attitude of consciousness. In spiritual meditation, you are not moving away from the problems of life, you are not shirking your duties, but communing yourself with the substance and the very causative factor of every problem in life, and handling these forces as a master rather than as a slave who runs away from difficulties. A spiritual seeker is not a coward - he is a scientist in the highest sense of the term who tries to understand and control the forces of nature, rather than a person who would like to be ignorant of their existence and close their eyes to them, like an ostrich. Thus the art of spiritual living, which culminates itself in meditation, is the highest positivity of approach to Reality by a human being who is fully integrated for this purpose in a most healthy manner. The time that you choose for meditation should, therefore, be conducive as the place is. I need not dilate upon this theme, because many of you know which time is suitable for you, for what reason, in what place is conducive, etc.

The method of meditation is perhaps more important. Place, time and method - these three are especially to be taken into consideration. The Bhagavadgita succinctly mentions something about the place, time and method - the techniques to be adopted in concentration. The method is the way in which you conduct yourself, the manner in which you place yourself in the context of your relationship with reality - firstly in its most immediate form of manifestation, and later on in any form of its expression. Usually we are seated for the purpose of meditation - we don't stand up or lie down. You know very well why it is not possible for you to meditate by standing; you also know well why it is not a suitable posture to lie down on a bed. So, a 'via-media' technique is prescribed - to be seated, which means to say, to repose or posture in an asana like sukhasana, padmasana etc., with the spine, head and neck erect, as far as possible, because a crouching pose will affect the nervous system and consequently the movement of the prana, and again consequently the very activity of the mind itself. The atmosphere around, the body, the nervous system, the muscles, the mind - all are interconnected; they are not disassociated, isolated aspects. So, you have to be first of all in harmonious condition with your atmosphere, with society, with your daily routine etc., outwardly, and also in a harmony with your muscular system, with the anatomical and the physiological organisation of your personality, which is achieved by being seated in a comfortable posture, as mentioned.

Then, of course, something is mentioned about the breathing process - a little of it is mentioned in the Bhagavadgita, and there are larger details in other yoga texts like Patanjali and Hatha Yoga Pradeepika, etc. As far as you students here are concerned, I would advise that you need not go deep into these technical matters of pranayama as it has been described in the Hatha Yoga Pradeepika, etc., because, for your practical purposes, it would be enough if you breathe normally by a daily practice of consistent and harmonious deep inhalation and exhalation than merely breathe shallow; you don't breathe deep, for various reasons. For fifteen minutes or twenty minutes or even half an hour in the morning and in the evening you may stand up, or even sit down, and throw your arms out by breathing deeply, slowly, gradually, in an open atmosphere, if possible, or in even your own room - opening the doors and windows, breathe deeply and exhale also slowly. This simple, non-technical procedure of gradual, deep, consistent, persistent inhalation and exhalation itself will be sufficient for you. The other technicalities like sukhapurvaka - holding your nostrils etc. - may not be necessary for you at the present moment, though they have their own value.

So the asana should be a seated, consistent posture. If you cannot sit for a long time in one position, with a straight spine, etc., you can, in the beginning stages at least, sit near a wall which is perpendicular to the ground. This is a convenient position, and you will not feel much of an ache in the back because of your leaning on the wall; but it should be perpendicular, not slanting. And then this breathing process gradually, together with the recitation of OM, pranava, if possible with a mild sonorous sound by which systematic, harmonious, calm process of chanting of OM. You will create within yourself a vibration which you will yourself feel as a creeping ant through your nerves. As if a mild electric shock is given to you, you'll feel a sensation through the entire body when you chant OM without any kind of occupation in your mind but with a feeling of devotion to the great ideal before you. This chanting of OM may done every day, for fifteen minutes, before your concentration on the object.

Then, the crucial point comes in - the nature of the object of meditation and the way in which you have to adjust your consciousness to that location and structure of the object of meditation. Here you are face to face with a problem. The earlier stages may look simpler - asana, pranayama and pratyahara even may be regarded in any way, the outer court of yoga. When you come to meditation proper, you are in the inner court. Here, initiation is necessary; mere book reading may not be insufficient. Whatever may be your study, however vast it be, that may not be sufficient because here you are facing a difficulty which cannot easily be explained in textbooks. You may study the biology, the anatomy of a lion, but you will not be able to face it though you are a master of anatomy. You know what the lion is made of, its psychology also is known to you if you have studied a lot about it, but you cannot go near it, in spite of all your knowledge of how its body is made and how it thinks etc. So, likewise, any amount of academic knowledge here may not be adequate to the purpose. A professorial understanding is one thing, and a practical ability to handle the situation is a different thing altogether; like rowing a boat even - you may know the art theoretically, but you cannot row the boat in the water.

So, here comes the necessity for a spiritual initiation by a competent Guru. Any amount of study is not sufficient; and you have to be very honest here, and don't merely pat yourself, imagining that you can stand on your own legs. That is not possible, because you will face such difficulties that you will not even be able to understand them. The initiation process is not merely a teaching which you receive from your Guru, but it is something more. The Guru does not merely give a lecture to you when he initiates you; he also infuses into you an energy of his own will. This is something very important to note; there is a difference between a Guru initiating a disciple and a professor lecturing in a college - there is no connection whatsoever. You are not merely receiving some information from the Guru - you are receiving something deeper, vital and living; and here the will of the Guru may be said to be operating in your own will, and, in a very important sense, the Guru thinks through a disciple. Sometimes this process is called shaktipatha - the descent of Guru's power into the personality of the disciple. Any amount of teaching verbally was not enough for Arjuna. There was a higher need felt later on, and you know what happened and what Sri Krishna had to do.

The art of meditation is the final touch you give to the whole process of spiritual practice. Which object are you going to concentrate upon? Normally, this object is chosen for you by the Guru. Are you going to meditate on God when you are here for meditation? No one can conceive God - ordinarily. But I may remove this fear from your mind by giving you a lesser and easier definition of God, for practical purposes. Whatever God be as He is Himself, whatever the Absolute be as It is in Itself, that need not deter you from embarking upon this fruitful art of meditation. Actually, for the purpose of yoga which is a psychological technique, the object of concentration - which you may consider as your God, of course - is a thing outside which nothing has to be, can be, or ever is. God is something outside which nothing exists - this is a simpler definition of God. You know the story in the Mahabharata, in the Adi Parva, wherein there is described the tournament which Dronacharya conducted for testing the students - the Kauravas and the Pandavas - and he hung a little wooden bird on the branch of a tree and he asked these boys to shoot the eye of the bird. He asked everyone, "Look, what do you see?" Someone said, "I am seeing a tree with many branches, and a bird kept there with a dot on its eye, of blackish colour. The acharya said, "You're unfit, get out! You are seeing so many things." And another said, "I am seeing the bird tied on a branch and also I see the black spot." "No good, get out!" he said, "You are seeing so many things." Then another he stood up and said, "I am seeing the bird." "Oh, no good, go!" It was Arjuna who said, "I am seeing nothing, only the spot; I am seeing only the black spot. I see nothing else," he said. "Here you are, start. Go ahead, attack!" he said. So, the concentration of the mind of Arjuna was so intense that his consciousness got united with that particular spot of concentration and he was not aware even of the bird, let alone the branches and the tree and the many people around.

Now, for the purpose of your spiritual meditation, the God of your meditation is 'that something' which is the whole reality for you. Remember this here again: a God for you is that which is the entire reality - it is a total substance. It is that which includes everything that you want in this world. This is, again, an emotional aspect which you are to infuse into this object, because you cannot concentrate on an object which you cannot love emotionally. Again I mention to you this is not a machine that you are operating, but an organising of your own total being that is surging forth in the direction of the object, and not merely an object. It is a soul-filled ideal. A compilation of whatever is desirable in this world will have to be seen in that object. This object, whatever be that object, is my God, whom I have chosen for the purpose of my meditation; it is not merely something among many other things that I have taken. When you love a thing whole-heartedly, it is not any more one thing among many things - it is the only thing. Intense lovers see the total reality in their objects, and no other objects exist there - that only exists, and you die for it. Unless the whole of reality is concentrated in that object, you cannot concentrate on it, you cannot love it - so love and concentration go together. You cannot concentrate on a thing for which there you have no love; and it is not a mere ordinary love. It is a love where the passion of the spirit gets roused to such an extent that it is inundated by itself and it sees itself wholly in the object.

So, the object of your meditation should have a double characteristic. One: outside which nothing can be, nothing has to be - it is the only thing before you. Secondly: it is the object of your emotional satisfaction. "I love it, and I cannot love anything else. It is the dearest object for me. I will die for it." And all lovers die for their objects, because they see the total reality there and nothing else exists for them. This is your God. Now, a psychologically conceived totality of reality becomes a necessity in the earlier stages, though the ontological reality is far off from you. As these subjects will be dealt with by our Professor Yavdekar, I don't touch upon these things. There is a distinction between ontological reality and psychologically-conceived infinite, which also is an essentiality in the earlier stages, for the purpose of spiritual meditation.