Meditation is different from reflective reasoning. Reasoning is satisfied if it merely achieves a clear conception of things, whereas meditation seeks a direct perception of them. Reasoning is a function of the head, while meditation is a function of the heart, the abode of God. Rational conviction alone can never put an end to doubt and has no power to transform us. It cannot correct the imbalance between passion and reason, desire and dispassion. It cannot uproot our worldly propensities, the seeds of which can be destroyed only through meditation. Meditation integrates our countless discordant urges into the central goal of life, Self-Realization. Our desires, instincts, and impulses, like various musical instruments in an orchestra, are brought together in a grand symphony of unified rhythm and melody.

Meditation is more than contemplation. Contemplation is thinking about the Divine, but meditation is the spontaneous flow of the mind toward It. The contemplative state may be compared to a bee buzzing around a flower, about to alight on it and sip the nectar from it. The state of meditation is reached when the bee is already seated on the flower and has begun to taste the sweetness of the nectar.


Swami Adiswarananda

Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center

New York

hi, Daniel,

it's absolutely true (I'm guessing this original quote came from Yogananda). knowledge is worthless unless it yields divine experience.

I live in California, in the USA, and encounter many people who have read many many books on spirituality and think they are experts about god and spiritual matters because they've read so many books and can quote the different saints. having a roomful of students who are convinced they are already experts is a real challenge!!!!!!!!!! *grinning*

to me, it's like the difference between reading a book about swimming, and actually swimming. so many people are interested in spirituality, yet they sit on the side of the pool, watching the other people splashing in the water, and are reading their nice books about what swimming feels like! this is a kind of soul crime, to me -- the only way to know about the process of swimming is to jump in the water. and so what, if you're not an expert when you first get in!!?

there is NO substitute for direct experience. we have to know god directly, taste the divine fragrance ourselves. THEN everything else follows.

my own master in India often talks about other saints, who are happy to sit in front of their students and eat a beautiful mango, all the time telling the students how sweet and fresh and tasty the mango is! (but not letting the students actually taste it themselves.) this is not at all fair -- !!!! a real teacher will give the mango to the students, so they really understand what it is.

Jesus was such a master. Ramakrishna was such a master. Shirdi Sai Baba was such a master. Yogananda was such a master.

the problem, of course, is that spirituality -- really tasting the mango and understanding its nature -- is challenging. not everyone wants to go that route, on the surface level.

but at the deep level, I believe every soul is longing for direct experience of itself as god.

Alx