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Madras, India. Afternoon Discussion
27th November, 1947
It is necessary to understand the true nature of Meditation. As practised by most of us, meditation is an effort to do something of which you have already an outline, thus forcing the mind along a pre-determined channel. Meditation thus becomes a process by which a pre-conceived result is achieved. This process or system involves a routine and a discipline. This, therefore, hampers freedom. Routine makes the mind mechanical and dull similar to our going to the office day in and day out, regularly on time. To discover the truth of Meditation, you have to proceed from oneself and understand the problem. You are all familiar with the effect that routine has on you. It is because most of your life is merely routine, that you are ever in search for relief through going to cinema, losing temper etc.
Again, in following a particular discipline, there is always the implication of authority.
Authority can be imposed either from outside like the Police, the Government, etc; or from inside as in the case of our beliefs or our learning through study, or our past experience. In order to find the Truth of authority we have to follow out the element of authority as it makes it appearance.
(i) by studying the behaviour of persons known to you and who have been following authority. There are the reference books on all kinds of subjects; and if you read them, you will find that the authors who are experts on those subjects, contradict one another. Therefore, after reading all that they have said, you would feel confused.
(ii) by studying yourself under authority. If you analyse your own action you will find that you have followed some authority or other when you have found it profitable to do so. You also have rejected equally good authority when the following of such authority was found to be unprofitable. From this it is clear that you generally get interested in what profits you, and you are not willing to get at the truth of authority. Thus, seeking of profit or craving creates authority.
(iii) By analysing authority. Authority exists outside you in the form of the State with all its various departments, Public Bodies and institutions to which you belong. Inside you it resides in what you have learned or experienced in the past. In both cases - outside you as well as inside you - you accept authority only if you find it agreeable to do so; otherwise you reject the authority.
From the analysis of the above three standpoints, you arrive at the truth that craving, or desire for profit, creates authority. You can see the Truth only when you are able to see the false as false. When this is seen you are released for ever from the false. Meditation is really the thinking out of each thought fully and completely so that you see the Truth of that thought.
[ At this meeting, a distinctive effect was left by every one present in regard to the state of their consciousness. One and a half hours passed away like a few minutes when all the persons present at the meeting followed and completed each thought, without any effort but with awareness. this was real Meditation when "Time" ceased and the "Timeless" came into being. ]