THE INWARD ASPECTS OF MEDITATION

SWAMI KRISHNANANDA
The Divine Life Society
Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India
Website: www.swami-krishnananda.org
Spoken on January 27th, 1973.
Three processes are continuously going on in our consciousness, and they are so much
intertwined with our very being that we cannot see them or recognise them. They are
our personality; they are ourselves. Aptly has it been said that life is becoming
becoming in the sense that it is a process. This process, when it gets identified with life,
ceases to be recognised as such, so that we do not know that we are changing, moving,
transforming ourselves, and are in the flux of becoming. We cannot know that we are
growing every day, decaying every day, and tending towards another condition every
day. The fact that we cannot see or know or have any sort of experience of this
transformation going on within us shows that there is a very intensive form of
identification of our being with process. This situation has led some philosophical
thinkers, especially in the West, to conclude that being is process. There was a great
philosopher who wrote a book called Process and Reality. Process is reality because we
cannot see anything else but process in the world.
We have to contemplate a little as to what this process is in which we have been
involved, and what the intention of this process is. It is an important aspect of our
study because it is a part of the process that goes on in meditation. The process is the
process of meditation itself because spiritual meditation is only an attempt to become
conscious of what is actually happening in nature. While nature does things of her
own accord without our knowing what happens, in the process of meditation we
become conscious and get awakened to natures ways, laws and workings.
All this world process, as I said, is threefold. The first aspect of it is grasping of
material, value and significance from outside oneself in order that one may augment
ones personality, increase the dimension of ones being, and thus feel happier at the
higher level which one has reached. This is one aspect of process: the tendency and the
desire and the insatiable longing to grasp values and material from outside into ones
own personality because of the feeling of a lack, a want, a limitation in ones
personality.
The finitude of our nature becomes the cause of this perpetual surge within us to
long for values outside. This is why we are never satisfied. We always long for things.

We have umpteen desires. There is no end for our desires because there is no end for
significances in the world. The values that the world contains are so many that our
desires can have no end. This is the reason why the finitude of our nature craves for
infinitude of satisfaction. Desire is man, and man is desire. Kama-mayo'yam
purushah: This purusha, this individual, is made up of desire itself, says the
Upanishad, because the finitude of nature cannot be satisfied except by an infinite
addition to it. Unless the infinite is added on to it, its desire is not going to cease. So
this is an infinitude of desire that is arising from the finitude of being.
But this is only one aspect of the activity of nature, one aspect of the process that
we are speaking of. What is that aspect? It is the necessity on the part of every finite
individual to add values into oneself from outside so that the finitude can go on
exceeding its limitations and approximate itself to the infinite as much as possible. We
desire things of the world so that we may tend towards the infinite. How can we
become the infinite by grabbing things from outside? It is because we have an idea,
wrong though it be, that infinitude is quantitative expansion. When we possess more
and more of things, become richer and richer in the things of the world, we seem to be
moving nearer and nearer to the infinitude of things. This is why when desires are
fulfilled we seem to be happier. But it is a foolish kind of happiness because though the
finitude of our nature longs for an infinitude of satisfaction by adding quantities of
material from nature outside, yet, at the same time, it has another urge from within it
which pinches from inside while it feels satisfied from the other side. This is why the
rich people of the world who seem to be adding on quantities to their finitude are
unhappy for another reason. They are happy because they are rich, but they are
unhappy for wanting something else. What is that something else? That is another
aspect of the process, the second aspect.
We are unhappy because we are quantitatively finite, limited to space and
conditioned by the body; therefore, we have an insatiable urge from within ourselves
to grow wider and wider in quantity, in space, in possession and in magnitude. While
this seems to be giving us a satisfaction of having been in a direction of movement
towards the infinitude of things, we are simultaneously sorry at the core of our hearts.
All rich people are also unhappy for reasons they do not know, and this is the reason
for the unhappiness of every person in the world.
The other aspect of our personality is Selfhood. While the infinite is vast expansion
true, accepted, conceded the infinite is also a Self, a peculiar significance which we
cannot understand by a logical analysis. We cannot understand what this Selfhood
could be in anything. To some extent we can understand what is infinitude of
expansion because of our being in a world of space and time, of expanse and duration,
and in extension, but we cannot understand what this peculiar thing called Self is. The
lack of Selfhood in the quantitative addition of multitude is the cause of unhappiness
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of the rich. The wealthy man is unhappy because his Self is gone; it is dead, though he
has a vast possession. While one aspect of the finitude of our nature seems to be happy
on account of its being successful in adding material significance and value from the
outside world, it is unhappy that it is not growing in its Self. The Self is not growing,
though the possessions are growing. Therefore, while we are happy because of the
increase of possessions, we are unhappy because the Self is remaining still a finite
entity only. It does not mean that the Self of the wealthy man has grown much. It is
the same old self though he has grown wealthy in material, in possession, in quantity,
in arithmetical calculation. So there is an urge within us to grow in Selfhood also.
The other aspect of the process of the world, of the universe, of creation as a whole,
is the conversion of the quantitative values into a Selfhood of experience. The quantity
gets transformed into a quality. The vastness of possession should become an intensity
of Selfhood, and only then can there be real happiness. Where the Self is lacking,
where the Self is absent, there is also absence of life. Where the soul is not, life is also
not.
Thus, this process which we are speaking of brings one kind of satisfaction. While
it moves externally in one direction by adding on external material to the finitude of
nature, it also feels the pinch of finitude of the Self from within and vigorously
struggles to transform the magnitude that has been added on to itself into a Selfhood,
which can be done only when material gets converted into the state of consciousness
because Self is consciousness. This is a herculean task, sometimes looking almost
impossible. Matter cannot be converted into spirit, as is our usual experience. The
extension and magnitude of possession cannot easily be transformed into a value of
consciousness. However much we may be rich outwardly, a possession lacks Selfhood,
and how could we convert it into ourselves?
Thus, the second aspect of the process is a spiritual one, while the earlier one was a
temporal urge of finitude. The spiritual urge is always the urge of Selfhood because
Self and spirit mean one and the same thing the Atman, as we know it. The Atman is
the spirit, and it is the urge of the Atman that we call the spiritual nature. It is the Self.
Where the Atman is absent, where the spirit of the Self is absent, quantity remains
merely a lifeless corpse. It is like a huge Kumbhakarna lying down on the field,
without life in it. It may be a huge body, but it has no life. Such would be our life of
possession and status if our Selfhood were wrested from it. We remain puny in our
consciousness, though giants in our possession and social status. Being puny in spirit
and giant in matter is the cause of the unhappiness of the finitude of nature.
There is a perpetual transformation and retransformation going on within and
without, on one side moving outwardly towards the external extension of magnitude,
and on the other side tending inwardly towards the spirit for the intensification of
consciousness and the charging of this magnitude with the Selfhood of consciousness.
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These two processes go on side by side, one overlapping the other and one becoming
indistinguishable from the other as the activity goes on advancing further and further.
But finitude has no limit. The resources of nature also have no limit. So the more
we try to add on Selfhood to the magnitude of nature, nature still seems to be wider
and wider, and there seems to be no end for the resources of things. So there is
another attempt on the part of this increased intensity of consciousness to add on a
larger group of material from outside so that internally and externally there is a desire
to grow higher and higher. We become restless because of this unsuccessful endeavour
on our part. The more we go deep within us, we find ourselves deeper than we have
already recognised. The deeper we go, the deeper still we seem to be; and the farther
we go outwardly into the resources of nature, the vaster nature appears to be. There is
no end for the significance of life, either outwardly or inwardly. Thus, the process of
nature goes on endlessly, achieving no satisfaction in the end because we will never
come to an end of anything, whether we move outwardly or inwardly.
There is a story in the Yoga Vasishtha that the sons of Brahma wanted to know the
limits of the cosmos, and went on peregrinating, travelling, touring. Right from the
time of creation they have been touring to find out how vast this universe is, and they
are touring even now. It has not come to an end because it will never come to an end.
Why? You must have seen the specially placed mirrors kept in museums. There will be
one image, and there will be two mirrors on either side of the image. An infinitude of
images appears on either side. Where is the end of it? There is no end. However far we
may go, it is still further because spatial projection, like the horizon that we see in
front of us, cannot have a limit. The story of the Kumaras measuring the extent of the
universe in the Yoga Vasishtha is only a symbolic illustration of the truth that there is
no limit for things because the Real is unlimited. Thus, we are not going to see the end
of things either by an external movement or by an internal movement. Neither
extroversion nor introversion is to be our methodology of approach.
There is also another Puranic story where the depth or the height of Lord Siva
could not be measured by the deities. Lord Siva appeared as a huge conflagration
which went down into Patala. Nobody could know how deep it went; it went up
beyond the skies to the heavens, and so its height also nobody could measure.
Limitless above and limitless below was that manifestation. These are all religious and
spiritual symbols which tell us that Spirit is infinite, and the Infinite is not a within or
a without, and so any kind of process that we are engaged in either voluntarily or
otherwise is not going to take us to the Infinite because desire of any kind is contrary
to the nature of the spirit.
Whether we wish to be endless outwardly or inwardly, we cannot get rid of the
notion of space because our concept of endlessness is infinitude of extent in space. But
spirit is not space, it is not time, it is not endlessness. The Infinite is not endlessness. It
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is not an uncountable number that we call the Infinite. The Infinite is not the total of a
large group of finites. All things put together everywhere do not make the Infinite, so
that even if you possess the whole universe you cannot be said to be really rich because
the infinite value that the spirit is longing for is not in possession.
There is a calculus of bliss in the Upanishads wherein we are told that the joys of
the higher realms are larger and larger in extent than the lower ones by hundreds
multiplied by one another, the calculus reaching to Prajapati Brahma. We are still not
the end of it because the calculus only gives us a multiplication table: one into hundred
into hundred into hundred. And what is this one? Whatever be the number of times
with which we multiply a unit, qualitatively it does not become different. One fool
multiplied by a hundred fools, then by another hundred fools, are all still fools.
Although they are many in number, qualitatively they are not different. One sheep
multiplied by a hundred sheep or a hundred sheep times a hundred sheep are
sheep only, finally. They do not become wise geniuses merely because they are
multiplied by hundreds. This calculus is only to give a hint as to the existence of
higher forms of happiness. It is not an explanation of the nature of bliss. The spirit
cannot be multiplied, and it cannot be understood by any kind of arithmetical increase
of quantity.
The process of the world is not the spirit; the process is not reality. This is the
reason why the processes of the world do not satisfy us. Thus, in our advance in
spiritual meditation, we seem to be longing for higher and higher joys through
processes of this kind which continue endlessly in the field of nature and her activities
until the spirit gets tired of this pursuit outwardly and turns back upon itself. Until
this takes place, until the time when the spirit returns to itself and sees its own being
rather than the process of becoming, its end is not going to be reached. The end of the
search of the soul is not a mathematical limit that is reached but an indescribable,
incalculable and unthinkable event, if at all we can call it an event, which takes place
within ones own consciousness.
The desire of the soul is to remove desiring. It has no other desire. That this is the
truth of things that the purpose and purport of all activities is to return to the
consciousness which has started the activity of the search we come to know late in
the process of evolution. It does not come to us early. In the beginning we appear to be
very wise, and it is only later on that we come to know that our wisdom was shallow.
There is no compatibility between process and being. While in the beginning,
meditation appears to be an activity of the mind and, thus, a process, later it becomes a
Self-seeking process. It becomes a process of the return of the soul to itself. While
earlier it appears to be a process tending towards externality and expansion, later it
returns to itself, making a complete circle of its activity. We go round and round

throughout the world and finally come back to our own self, not being satisfied with
anything else in the world.
So in the beginning meditation is an external movement. Later it is a movement
towards ones Self. There is an expansive tendency of consciousness earlier, and then
an integrating tendency of consciousness to merge into the Selfhood of itself. But
when it comes back to itself, it does not lose this expanded value that it seems to have
gained outwardly by movement. Nehbhikramanosti pratyavyo na vidyate (Gita
2.40), as the Bhagavadgita tells us: What we have gained through activity is not lost. It
only gets transformed, sublimated.
The expanse, the addition by magnitude, the partial joy of having acquired
possessions which seems to have come to the credit of consciousness by its external
movements, does not actually get destroyed when it returns to itself. It only gets
transformed. The world is not negated in consciousness. The world is transformed
and transfigured into a different substance altogether when consciousness returns to
itself after having scaled the heights of the external nature. This is a very peculiar
psychological transformation that takes place in higher reaches of meditation. The
lower stages do not satisfy us. The higher we go, the still higher seems to be our aim,
objective and goal. So while in this process of going higher and higher we leave behind
everything that is low, it does not mean that we reject what is low. The values that are
lower get transformed and consumed into the fire of the higher experience. It is like
melting gold, removing its dross and taking its essence.
So in the reaches of meditation which are difficult to explain, there is a process of
external advance and an inward integration simultaneously taking place, the one
moving towards the temporal immensity of values outwardly and the other tending
towards the eternity of values wherein the temporal values get transformed and
subsumed so that when we reach God the world is not ignored. It is melted and cast
into the mould of God. It begins to shine in the light of God. The prodigal son returns,
having been educated properly in the wisdom of things and knowing things better
now. So every step in meditation is an advance towards a higher integration, and this
integration is of such a character that while on one side it rejects the insufficiency and
the finitude implied even in the expanded magnitude of things, it absorbs into its
higher nature the values that are embedded in these finitudes of magnitude.
The impossibility of understanding this mystery, the difficulty of knowing what all
this really means, has led philosophers to quarrel among themselves as to whether the
world is real or unreal, some saying it is real, some saying it is unreal. We cannot say
in a slipshod manner whether the world is real or unreal because it is not so simple a
thing as that and it cannot be answered in one moment. Philosophers may quarrel
among themselves, polemics may continue endlessly, but this question will not be

answered as long as the significance of the spiritual advance of the soul is not
understood.
The world is a particular term that we use whose meaning is not clear; therefore,
the very question whether it is real or unreal cannot be answered because the meaning
of the word itself is not clear to us. What do we mean by the world? What is the
world? When we ask the question whether the world is real or unreal, what is the idea
of the world that we have in our mind? This idea is also responsible for the nature of
the answer that will come. Nature has a temporal and also an eternal aspect in us.
While the temporal aspect can be called unreal, the eternal aspect is not unreal. In a
system, in an organism, in a living body there are tendencies to illness together with
the health of the system. While we may say that the tendency to ill health is not
natural, and therefore, it is not real, the aspect of health should be regarded as real
because it is natural.
The eternal values are sometimes designated as sat-chid-ananda, as against nama
and rupa. Asti bhati priyam rupam nama cetyamsapancakam, adyatrayam
brahmarupam jagadrupam tato dvayam (Sarasvati Rahasya Upanisad 23). There are
five aspects in anything and everything. Everything is constituted of five aspects: asti,
bhati, priya, nama and rupa. Asti is existence, bhati is the capacity to shine, and priya
is the capacity to give satisfaction. Nama is name and rupa is form. So everything, it is
said, has these five aspects. Everything exists, everything is known, everything can give
joy, everything has a name and everything has a form.
Now, this name and form is not real. That is what we call the world, really
speaking. The existence-consciousness-joy aspect of the thing is not unreal. It is there.
Everything can give us joy under different circumstances. Joy is present in everything.
Everything is knowledgeable and known. Everything exists. If we abstract the
existence-consciousness-joy aspect of the thing, of anything for the matter of that, and
free it from the limitations of name and form, we get the real world. The word real is
to be underlined. Names and forms are relative to one another, and therefore, being
subject to relativity of transformation change in space, time and cause they cannot
be called reality.
Reality has been defined as uncontradictability. That is reality. When a thing is not
contradicted by any other experience, condition, event, or transformation, it can be
called real. But if there is something else vying with it, creating a tension with it,
setting up a relativity with it and causing a transformation on account of it thus
tending towards a higher condition that condition which is subject to a higher
transformation cannot be called real. Only the substantiality of things, known as
existence, consciousness and joy, is not subject to transformation, while the nameform nexus is subject to change and transformation.

The process of the world, what we call process or transformation, is nothing but
the relativity of name and form undergoing change under different conditions, while
the substance behind this transformation does not undergo change. This difficult
process of transformation is explained in a nutshell in the Sutras of Patanjali. When he
describes dhyana, meditation, and the psychological changes and transformation that
take place in meditation, he mentions these processes in a very subtle form as
parinamas of various kinds nirodha parinama, etc. The consciousness returns to
itself by freeing itself from all these transformations, and rests in itself.
All transformations are ultimately connected with the activities of the mind. In the
beginning they are activities within a small circle finite, very much limited. These
limited activities of the mind are the transformations of what are known as
vishayakara vritti. Vritti is a transformation of the mind. A transformation in respect
of an object or a group of objects is called vishayakara vritti.
This threefold process already described affects the vishayakara vritti also in such a
way that it gets expanded into larger and larger circles of operation until it reaches the
largest form of vritti, called the brahmakara vritti. The totality of magnitude of things
is grasped by a single vritti so that we do not have many minds. There is only one
mind. All minds collaborate into formation of a single mentation. In the deep form of
meditation, the mind assumes a vritti or a transformation known as brahmakara vritti,
a term signifying the totality of vrittis, the highest reach of mental transformation,
beyond which there is nothing.
But brahmakara vritti is not the goal of things. As it is described in the Vedanta
Shastras, it is like the clearing nut, the soap nut, which clears water of its dirt and then
itself settles down, or like the peel of the lemon fruit. It digests the food that we eat, but
itself cannot be digested and will come out. Or as Swami Sivananda Maharaj used to
humorously say, it is like a schoolteacher whose students become big geniuses but he
remains a teacher till his death; or it is like a ladder which enables us to go up but it
itself remains down. The brahmakara vritti takes us to the largest, widest possible
limits of mental perception but itself is extinguished like camphor, burning without
any residue. The brahmakara vritti is the last vritti that the mind reaches, where it is
not the ordinary mind that operates. It is not this asuddha manas, manas ridden with
tamoguna and rajaguna, but the sattvic buddhi in the manas. The brahmakara vritti is
not the vicious mind of raga-dvesha that is taken to its apotheosis. It undergoes a
transformation qualitatively until it reaches the state of omniscience. Knowledge of all
things, power over everything is the character of brahmakara vritti, and having
reached this state of supreme aisvarya, it settles down to the spirit. This is what they
call in one sense Ishvara, Hiranyagarbha, Virat merging into Brahman. These are the
wonders of consciousness, the miracles of the spiritual process of meditation, the
mysteries that we have to pass through when we enter into the path of the spirit.
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We are likely to make a mistake of imagining that the changes and transformations
taking place in meditation will occur only when we are inside the meditation hall, but
it is not so. The activities of the mind are not confined only to the puja room or the
meditation hall. They go on continuously everywhere as long as our mind is in contact
with things, so that anything that happens anywhere, even a monkey jumping on us
on the road outside, can be connected with what is taking place in our spiritual life.
We should not think that these are unconnected with our life. Somebody abusing us,
spitting at us or causing us annoyance on the roadside or in a market is not outside the
evolution of our spirit. It is part of our spiritual activity. We are not to make this
blunder of thinking that spirit is only inside the temple, the church, the puja room or
the meditation hall. The spirit is everywhere. It is in the marketplace, it is in the
bathroom, it is in the war field, it is in the skies, it is under the bowels of the earth;
therefore, wherever we may be in any predicament whatsoever at any time anywhere
in our life it is connected with our spiritual life so that we cannot say that the
outward events of life bear no significance to our spiritual advance.
We have oppositions, temptations, annoyances, difficulties and problems in our
daily life in our houses, in institutions, in offices, in the marketplace, in the shop, and
they are connected with our personal life. The temptations and the oppositions that we
are told about as taking place in the path of the spirit of a seeker in scriptures, etc., do
not take place merely when we are closing our eyes. They will take place in the world
outside in the midday sun because the spiritual life is not only inside our body, and it
is not only a thought that occurs to our mind when we close our eyes in meditation. It
is an event which takes place in nature outwardly and inwardly so that wherever we
are, we are in a meditational field. While we may have been unconscious of it in the
state of ignorance, now we become conscious when we are educated properly in the
knowledge of the spirit.
The people that we see around us are a part of our spiritual evolution. Their
contact with us and our contact with them, the events that take place in these contexts,
the words that we speak, the words that are spoken to us and the changes and
reactions taking place in our own mind during these contacts are all processes of the
spiritual nature of the seeker. We are not seeing people outside. They are only events
that occur outside in our spiritual path. The persons that we see are only events; they
are processes of nature. As we grow wiser and wiser, as we grow more and more
educated, as we have greater insight into the truth of things, we will begin to realise
more and more that the persons and the things and the events of the world outside are
processes. They are not substances, things or solids unconnected with our life.
Then it is that we become stable. Then it is that we will be able to meditate even on
the road. Even when we are speaking to a person, even when we are arguing in a court
we can be meditating because God is not absent in the court. The spirit is there also.
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Even in the operation theatre, even in the legal bar, even in the shop where we
purchase things for our daily use, there we are in a state of meditation because our
personality is entwined with every event in the world. It is inexplicably involved in
every object, every person, every thing. As I mentioned already, we were ignorant of it
earlier; now we are conscious of it. It is not that a new truth has been created today. It
was there even before, even before we were born, but now we are awakening ourselves
to the existence of this fact. We are opening our eyes, getting up from a sleep, as it
were, while earlier we were slumbering and mistaking things.
So wherever we are, we are in the spiritual world. We are in a spiritual seat. All
processes are spiritual processes, and all processes are connected with our personal
life. There is nothing in this world which is unconnected with us, there is nothing in
this world which bears no relation to us, and there is nothing in this world which will
not influence us, positively or negatively; our wisdom consists in entering into the
significance of these relations and transforming them into values that are contributory
to our advance in our meditation.
Ultimately, meditation is a universal process. It is an activity of the spirit taking
place everywhere in nature. It is not a private work of our mind taking place inside our
body only. The mind takes a universal form in meditation, and that is why it can effect
or bring about changes even in outward circumstances on account of the intensity of
meditation. This is why when we speak, words become truth; when we think, thoughts
get materialised when meditation intensifies itself. This is a clear proof that
consciousness is connected with everything in the world. Otherwise, how can it effect
material changes? How can words become true, etc.? How can thoughts get
materialised? Nature and spirit are intertwined. They work in collaboration.
Everywhere, under every circumstance, we are in a period of test. We are put to an
examination, as it were, in every condition in which we are. It is not that we can finish
the business of life and then go inside and enter into the path of the spirit. There is no
finishing the business and entering into the spirit, etc. The business also is a part of the
spirit. It is the spirit itself opposing us. The higher confronts us and seems to oppose
us when we are not able to abide by its law.
The Bhagavadgita warns us about this: the higher Self may look like an enemy of
ourselves. God Himself may be looking like an enemy and an unfriendly element.
Then we are not able to abide by the law of the higher nature. Uddhared
tmantmna ntmnam avasdayet, tmaiva hytmano bandhur tmaiva ripur
tmana; bandhur tmtmanas tasya yentmaivtman jita antmanas tu
atrutve vartettmaiva atruvat (Gita 6.5-6): Our higher nature presses itself
forward as the law of nature, as the power of the spirit, as the justice of God. Our own
higher Self is pressing us forward to abide by law, and what displeases us in the
outward world is our own Self appearing outwardly in nature. We are displeasing our
own Self, not somebody else coming in and confronting us. There is nothing in the
10

world except the Self. Ida sarvam, yad ayam tm (Brihad. 2.4.6), says Yajnavalkya.
An eternal truth is declared. Idam brahma, ida katram, ime lok, ime dev,
immi bhtni, ida sarvam, yad ayam tm: All this is the Self. Within and without
is the ocean of the Self. There is nothing but that. No persons, no things, no humanity,
nothing exists, and therefore, when something opposes us, it is our own higher Self
that is opposing as the lower self. If somebody abuses us, calls us a dog, it is our own
higher Self coming and attacking us for some reason. We cannot understand it
because we have been limited to the body.
Hence, the Self alone exists, ultimately; everywhere it is the activity of the spirit
that is taking place universally, within and without, and the fact that we are
confronting our own selves everywhere, positively and negatively as pleasure and pain,
is a truth that will be revealed to us slowly. This will make us happy. Then we will
really become happy, and not earlier.
You will begin to realise that you are spread out everywhere, and therefore, you are
seeing yourself as the friend and the enemy outside. When you see your friend or your
enemy, you are seeing one aspect of yourself only. One uncomfortable part of yourself,
your enemy, is seen there outside, and a very pleasurable aspect of yourself is seen as
your friend. But both are your own children. Your naughty child outside which is seen
as your enemy cannot be completely ignored. It has to be subsumed, brought back to
yourself.
So we come to this great, grand, stupendous realisation that the Self is this universe
and what we confront is only the Self that seems to be the objects and persons, and we
are pleased and displeased both with our own Self in one form or the other, that the
whole activity of the world is a spiritual activity ultimately. When we come to this
realisation, we shall be transformed into a state of freedom and happiness that knows
no bounds. You will be happy merely because you are existing. Your very existence
will give you happiness. Oh, I am happy because I am. That will be your experience.
I am happy not because I see things or possess things. I am happy because I am.
Look at this: Merely because you are, you are happy.
This realisation of what you are is a wonderful, transformed being. It is the
vastness which comprehends the spirituality and the Selfhood of all things. Materiality
and externality will vanish; persons and things will not be seen. It is here that you will
be able to smile at all things. You will begin to smile at the worst of things because the
worst of things is only a part of you projecting itself outwardly and coming back to
you like a boomerang. Then it is that you will really smile, the smile that comes from
your heart, not merely from your lips. This is the joy of the spirit, the joy of real
insight that we gain in meditation. This is the wisdom which will be opened up as a
wonderful treasure before the seeker of Truth.

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