Meditation is like a raindrop; in that drop are all the streams, the great rivers, the seas and the waterfalls; that drop nourishes the earth and man; without it, the earth would be a desert. Without meditation the heart becomes a desert, a wasteland.
A meditative mind is silent. It is the silence when thought – with all its images, its words and perceptions – has entirely ceased.
Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life – perhaps the greatest and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody. That is the beauty of it. It has no technique and therefore no authority. When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy – if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation.
Meditation is to find out whether the brain, with all its activities, all its experience, can be absolutely quiet.
Meditation can take place when you are sitting in a bus or walking in the woods full of light and shadows, or listening to the singing of birds or looking at the face of your wife or child.
Meditation is hard work. It demands the highest form of discipline—not conformity, not imitation, not obedience—but a discipline which comes through constant awareness, not only of things about you outwardly, but also inwardly.
Without laying the foundation of a righteous life, meditation becomes an escape and therefore has no value whatsoever. A righteous life is not the following of social morality, but the freedom from envy, greed and the search for power—which all breed enmity.
He who has never learnt to obey cannot be a good commender!