Excerpts Chapter 15
THE MEDITATION BOOK:
LISTENING TO THE INNER VOICE
Experiencing God’s Will through meditation
Peace
Only acceptance – acceptance of God’s Will can give us true peace of mind. By accepting God’s Will as our own, very own, we can get peace. Then only is our life normal. In God’s Eye there is no such thing as possession and renunciation. In God’s Eye there is only one thing: acceptance. In our heart, in our life, there is only one truth, one prayer, which is the ultimate prayer that the Saviour Christ has taught us: “Let Thy Will be done.” Millions and billions and trillions of prayers have been written from time immemorial, but no prayer can equal this one: “Let Thy Will be done.” When we accept God’s Will as our own, at every moment peace looms large in our life of wisdom, in our life of aspiration, in our life of dedication.
How do we know if something is God’s Will or is not God’s Will? We can easily know. When we do something that is God’s Will, we feel a kind of inner joy or satisfaction before we even do it. And while doing or completing the thing, we also get joy. Then comes the paramount question, whether we can be equally happy if our action is fruitful or fruitless. In the ordinary life we are happy only when success dawns. When we see victory at the end of our journey, only then are we happy and delighted. But if we can have the same kind of happiness, joy and satisfaction whether we succeed or fail, and if we can cheerfully offer the result of our actions at the Feet of our Beloved Supreme, then only can we know that what we have done is God’s Will. Otherwise, when there is success we feel that what we did was God’s Will, and when there is failure we say that what we did was the will of a hostile force. Or when we succeed we say it is because of our will, and when we fail we say it is because God does not care for us.
The answers to our questions through our meditation
Question: Can we answer our own questions through our daily meditation?
Sri Chinmoy: Any question you have can be answered during your meditation or at the end of your meditation. If you go deep within, you are bound to get an answer. But when you get an answer, please try to determine whether it is coming from the soul, the heart or the mind. If it comes from the heart or the soul, then you will get a sense of relief, a sense of peace. You will see that no contradictory thought is following the answer. But if the answer does not come from the heart or the soul, then the mind will come to the fore and contradict the idea you have received.
Which message we get during meditation is the right one?
Question: How can we tell which message we hear during meditation is the right one?
Sri Chinmoy: During meditation our heart gets the real realisation of Truth. Absolute realisation is something different, something far beyond this kind of awareness; but let us use the term “realisation” to describe the experience of the heart. After we stop meditating, our mind immediately tells us something else. It says, “No, this message cannot be right.” The mind has its own realisation, which it thinks is better and more profitable than the realisation of the heart. But it may be that the realisation which seems to be the less profitable of the two is actually the higher realisation.
The heart always offers the same message. When we sit down to meditate in the morning, it gives one message. In the evening when we meditate, we will again get the same message from the heart. But in the case of the mind, one moment it says one thing and the next moment, as soon as we turn our head, it says something else. One moment the mind will say, “He is a good man. Last night he appreciated me in front of some people.” But the next moment our mind remembers the past. Even though the past is now irrelevant, the mind remembers it. Then it says, “He is a rascal. He lied to me twenty years ago.” So let us always listen to the dictates of the heart.