Meditation:
Some Reflections
The dictionary meanings of meditation
go as: contemplation, musing, pondering, considering, reflecting, deliberating,
ruminating, brooding and concentrating.
It is also a synonym of reveries,
brown study and thoughtfulness.
The religious results of meditation
are however different from its literal implications.
Ac cording to Gandhiji whatever
object a man meditates upon, he must assuredly sees God through it. However, according to him God has no shape
and no attributes. So why not meditate on Him? If that is impossible, let us
meditate on OMKAR (The syllable OM), or on a figure imagined by ourselves.
True meditation, says Gandhiji,
consists in closing the eyes and ears of the mind to all else except the object of one’s
devotion. Hence, the closing of eyes
during prayer is an aid to such concentration. Man’s conception of God is
naturally limited. Each one has,
therefore, to think of Him as best appears to him, provided that the conception
is pure and uplifting.
English Bishop Jeremy Taylor
(1613-6) holds that meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of
our spirit; and our wandering thoughts in prayer are but the neglects of
meditation and recessions from that duty; according as we neglect meditation,
so are prayers imperfect, ----meditation being the soul of prayer and intention
of our spirit.
Finally let us see how Lord
Buddha replied to a disciple when he
said: “Teach me, O Lord, the meditations to which I must devote myself in order
to let my mind enter into the paradise of the pure land.” The great Lord told
the discipline: There are five
meditations. The first meditation is the
meditation of love in which you must so adjust your heat that you long for the weal
and welfare of all beings, including the happiness of your enemies.
The second meditation is the
meditation of pity, in which you think of all beings in distress, vividly representing in your imagination their
sorrows and anxieties so as to arouse a deep compassion for them in your soul.
The third mediation is the meditation
of joy in which you think of the well-being of others and rejoice with their
rejoicings.
The fourth mediation is the mediation
on impurity, in which you consider the evil consequences of corruption, the
effects of wrongs and evils. How trivial
is often the pleasure of the moment and how fatal are its consequences!
The fifth meditation is the meditation
on serenity, in which you rise above love and hate, tyranny and thralldom,
wealth and want, and regard your own fate with impartial calmness and perfect
tranquility.
-------G. R. KANWAL
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