Meditation is a state of whole being, whole life, neither exclusively of mind and its movements, nor brain and its cerebral activities nor the body and its activities. It is not contemplation, reflection, concentration, sensual, non-sensual, occult or transcendental. It is not the result of some mental activity. It can not be brought about by any intellectual gymnastics, emotional stimulations, drugs or any chemical tricks. It is not the result of psycho-physical activity.

One can contemplate or concentrate about certain things. One can collect information, select or reject some and arrive at certain conclusions. One can deduce many theories, express thoughts. It sharpens the brain but all these are not meditation.

When all mental activities fade away, when there is no desire to force the mind, to suppress or repress it or even to drug it, but then meditation pervades - the vast field of consciousness - where it is related to every movement in personal and collective life.

Meditation is related to the way one gets, move, walk, talk, read, study, eat, drink, put on or put off clothes or shoes, the way one gesticulate or articulate throughout the day. So it is related to the total life.

Meditation or DHYAN is a state of being on which there is effortless and choice less awareness of what life is within and around. There is no mental activity as such but a state of being. It is a way of living in dynamic attention, in dynamic awareness of what life is. It is inhibited, unconditional movement of individual consciousness in harmony with the universal life. It is a non-cerebral movement, a movement of that part of brain which inhibited by conditioning through education, culture, civilization and socio-economic contents of life. It cannot be a means to an end.

Meditation is the transcendence of the conditioned brain where I-Consciousness, e.g., the experiencer and experiences comes to an end; where the boundaries of time & space; in which the I-Consciousness moves from moment to moment; fade away into nothingness, where duality comes to an end; the fragmentary subject-object relationship with life subsides completely.

Every word is associated with emotions, sentiments, philosophy etc. Now the 'meditation' is also associated with many things. Meditation means "to meditate about", "to meditate upon". So it implies a mental or cerebral activity in which there is a relationship of subject and object. I read a philosophy, find out variety of objects and meditate upon that. In that sense meditation means to focus one's attention exclusively on a pre-determined point for a given time and it would involve conscious effort to sustain attention, to focus attention on that point. Such a mental activity is called concentration and not meditation. What DHARNA implies is same as that of concentration.

Concentration can relax the nerves, soothe the troubled psyche, create a chemical balance in the body and stimulate the latent powers of mind and non-sensual experiences. Such a development does not lead to the radical transformation of the duality of life.

Concentration may stimulate powers, experiences; make a person powerful and those who are troubled, those who are fired of sensual pleasures, those who live in economic & political security, to obtain non-sensual pleasures, to acquire transcendental powers and so on. It is a game in the psychic world, and the spirit of adventure creates an inner compulsion to seek these experiences. There is nothing wrong about it provided one is clear about the purpose. Concentration has nothing to do with religion, spirituality, the discovery of truth, meditation, liberation and nirvana. It is absolutely in the opposite direction strengthening the I-Consciousness, heightening the I-Consciousness, widening the sphere of cerebral penetration.

There should be a flame of enquiry to learn, to see, to find out the inhibitions of motives, intentions and ambitions wither away. There must be a motiveless state in the beginning of discovery. The genuine enquiry eliminates all inhibitions, emotions and conditioning and creates pliability of humility & tenderness. Fearlessness results out of this. This tenderness releases latent energies - muscular, nervous, glandular, cerebral and non-cerebral - which were blocked up due to the rigidity of I-Consciousness. To be in a state of enquiry is to be in the state of bliss because the enquiry is going to explode into realization. There should not be emotional, intellectual attraction to this enquiry, no fascination or excitement.

Unless one has an urge to find out what is beyond time & space, what is beyond mind, what is beyond conditioned brain, what is beyond experiencer and act of experiencing, what is beyond act of observation and observer, the thought and thing, what is beyond symbols, what is beyond cerebral ways of behavior, unless there is innate passion to find out to discover for oneself, one will not be equipped to live the meditative way. It is therefore absolutely necessary to have the pure, smokeless flame of enquiry, which is the urge to find out, to discover, to learn for self and not for any extraneous purpose, but as a fulfillment in it self, to find out what the meaning of life is, for the fun of it, for the joy of it.

So this state of genuine enquiry is the state of chemical poise and nervous relaxation from one's physical and biological mechanism. Meditation requires that a person is healthy and sound in body & mind. For that various aspects of Hath Yoga are useful.

The second step is the acquaintance of the movement of the mind. Physical movement is not a problem but a cerebral movement can be an obstacle. So one has to understand what the mind is, anatomy of mind, how a thought moves, how reflexes comes. How they control one's perceptions, how they govern one's relationships with other.

And for all that one has to learn what observation is? No interpretation, no analysis, no comparison, no judgment, but to have the awareness of the movement of mind. There is no resistance. It breeds friction that results in reaction, e.g., annoyance, irritation, and the state of observation is lost. These resistances become experiences and experience acts as a defense mechanism as memory. Thus the brain is conditioned and the state of virgin observation is lost.

One has to learn to observe the thoughts as they come. One should sit everyday for sometime keeping the spine and neck erect and observe the movement of thoughts. Day by day one has to re-educate oneself as how to observe. There are times when experiencer steps in and the state of observation is lost.

When sitting and observing, neither accurately nor inaccurately, dual mental activity is held in abeyance, neither the doer nor the experiencer. Then this state begins to permeate the working hours and hectic physical activity, sleep and dreams. We are not aware in a manner but we are attentive to our motives, experiences.

Awareness and attention comes. We are constantly aware, constantly attentive. If this is not so then we are not observing. Time comes when we are aware throughout day and night. All the experiences and knowledge of total humanity is contained in the individual consciousness. When this awareness is maintained, those experiences, knowledge, past impressions comes on the surface, hidden powers of psyche begin to manifest, e.g., clairvoyance etc. Then all these start diminishing gradually and one enter into silence where there is no I-Consciousness.