Meditation

Serve, love, give, purify, meditate, and realize

Arjuna said: What is the description of one of steady wisdom who is established in deep absorption, O Keshava? How does the person of stable insight speak? How does such a one sit? How does such a one move?

The sacred syllable Om is the bow; the soul (atman) is the arrow; Brahman is declared to be the target. With unwavering alertness it must be pierced—one must become one with it, as the arrow becomes one with its mark.

Better than practice is knowledge; better than knowledge is meditation; better than meditation is the renunciation of the fruits of action — from such renunciation, peace immediately follows.

Fix your mind on me alone; let your understanding dwell in me. You shall live in me hereafter — of this there is no doubt.

Keep your mind fixed on Me, be My devotee, be My worshipper, bow down to Me — yoked thus, with Me as the supreme goal, you shall come to Me.

When this one withdraws the senses completely from sense-objects, as a tortoise draws all its limbs inward — then the wisdom of such a person is firmly established.

Making one's own body the lower fire-stick and Om the upper fire-stick, through the constant practice of the friction of meditation, one sees the hidden divine.

That goal which all the Vedas declare, which all austerities proclaim, which seekers enter brahmacharya to reach — that goal I declare to you in brief: it is OM.

When the five senses are stilled together with the mind, and the intellect does not stir — that, they say, is the highest state.

It cannot be grasped by the eye, nor by speech, nor by other senses, nor by austerity, nor by ritual action. Through the grace of spiritual wisdom, one with a purified being—meditating—comes to behold that partless reality.

Taking the Upanishad as the great bow, placing on it the arrow sharpened by meditation, drawing it with the mind absorbed in the nature of that Reality—O dear one, pierce that very imperishable Brahman as the target.

That which is radiant, smaller than the smallest, in which all worlds and their inhabitants are held—that is the imperishable Brahman, that is the life-breath, that is speech and mind; it is truth, it is immortality. O dear one, that is the target you must pierce—know it!

Dwelling in solitude, eating lightly, with speech, body, and mind restrained, ever absorbed in the yoga of meditation, established in detachment —

Some perceive the Self within themselves through meditation; others through the yoga of knowledge; yet others through the yoga of action.

Whenever the restless, unsteady mind wanders away — from each and every such direction one should rein it back and bring it under the sovereignty of the self alone.

As a lamp placed in a windless spot does not flicker — that is the remembered image of the yogi with a controlled mind who is engaged in the practice of the yoga of the self.

As oil is in sesame seeds, as butter is in curds, as water is in flowing streams, as fire is in fire-sticks — so the Self is perceived in the self by one who seeks it through truth and austerity.

This very syllable is Brahman; this very syllable is the highest. Knowing this syllable, whatever one desires is theirs.

Where the nerves converge like the spokes of a wheel at its hub—there he moves within, manifesting in many ways. Meditate on the Self as Om: may you cross safely to the shore beyond darkness.