Meditation by Annie Besant
The Path of Discipleship, Chapter II, “Control of Mind. Meditation. Building of Character”
Meditation is the deliberate and formal training of the mind in concentration and in fixity of thought. You are to do it every day, because if you do it every day you are helped by what is called the automatism of the body and mind. That which you do daily becomes a habit; that which is done daily is done without an effort after a time; that which is hard to begin with becomes easy by practice. Now meditation may be taken partly as devotional and partly as intellectual, and the wise man who is training himself for discipleship will meditate in both ways. He will concentrate his mind, fix his thought, on the divine ideal, on the Teacher whom, unknown at present, he still ultimately hopes to find; and keeping before him this perfect ideal, he will fix his lower mind on that ideal in the hour of meditation, and will aspire upwards towards it with fixed and unswerving thought. As the mind grows, this will become easier and easier; as he keeps this ideal before the mind in meditation he will begin to reflect it, to grow a little like it. That is one of the creative powers of the mind--the man becomes that upon which he reflects; and if he reflects daily on the perfect ideal of humanity he will begin to grow towards that perfect ideal himself. Then he will gradually find that as he fixes the mind steadily on this ideal, as he aspires upwards towards it, and longs to come into contact with it, he will find during this time of meditation that the lower mind will become peaceful, that the lower mind will sink into quietude, that the outside world will fade away from consciousness, and that the deeper consciousness will shine as it were from within--the higher consciousness, that of the individual himself, realizing and knowing what he is. For as the lower mind is thus quieted, as its restlessness is conquered, it becomes like a still lake of water which is unruffled by any wind, unmoved by any currents. That lake is like a mirror; on that mirror-like surface, unruffled, tranquil, the sun which is in heaven shines down, reflecting itself in the quiet water; so also the higher consciousness reflects itself in the mirror of the tranquillized lower mind. And then the man knows, no longer by authority but of his own knowledge, that he is more than the mind which he has realized as intellect, that his consciousness is greater than the passing consciousness of the mind; then it becomes possible for him to begin to identify himself with the higher, and if only for a moment to catch a glimpse of the majesty of the Self. For remember how in the great Scriptures you are always taught that you yourself are the higher and not the lower. What means the saying that we read in the Chhandogyopanishad and elsewhere, the proclamation: “Thou art Brahman”, “Thou art That”? So the Buddhists repeat also: “Thou art Buddha”. That will never be a fact of consciousness to you, however much you may intellectually realize it, until by meditation you have made the lower mind the mirror in which the higher may be reflected; then, in a further stage of meditation you yourself will consciously become the higher, and then you will know what every great Teacher has meant by that famous phrase, which has in it the assertion of the inherent divinity of man.
When this is done daily, is practised by meditation followed day after day, month after month, year after year, it gradually permeates all the life and becomes constant instead of partial. First, confined to the time of meditation; then spreading over into the life led in the world. You may say: How can I be conscious of that when I am busy in the outer world? How can I keep consciousness of the higher when the lower is in full activity? Do you not know how, bowing before the altar you may use your body to offer flowers, whilst the mind is concentrated on the Deity Himself? The outer activity of the body is there, yet your thought is not on the flowers that you are offering but on the Object of the offering; the hands perform their duty and offer their flowers perfectly, although the mind is fixing its thoughts on the Divine itself. And so in the outer world of man, you may offer the flowers of duty in a life of constant activities, of daily work; you may offer these flowers with the body and with the mind, fulfilling to the utmost your duty in the outer world, but you yourselves will be fixed ever in meditation and in worship. Once learn to separate your higher consciousness from your lower, yourself from your mind, and your will gradually acquire the power of carrying on mental activities without losing the real “I” in them; the mind working perfectly at its appropriate duties while the Self remains at a loftier height. You will never leave the inner sanctuary, however much the outer life is busy in the world of men. In this way the man is preparing himself for discipleship.
There is another stage which we must just glance at, that which I call the intellectual side of meditation, concerned with the gradual and conscious building of character. Again I turn to the great treatise of Karma-Yoga, the teachings of Shri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. If you turn to the 16th discourse you may find the long list of qualities there given which a man must develop in himself so that he may be born with them in the future. They are called “the divine properties”, and Arjuna is told: “Thou art born with divine properties, O Pandava”. Now in order that you may be born with them in future births you must make them in the birth that is; if you are to bring them back with you into life you must gradually create them in lives as they come one after another, and the man of the world who wants to know how to build his character can do nothing better than take this list of qualities, the divine properties which are wanted in discipleship, and build them one by one in his daily life by a conjoint process of meditation and action. Purity for instance is one of them. How shall a man build himself into purity? By, in his morning meditation, taking purity as part of the subject on which he thinks, realizing what it means. No impurity of thought must ever touch him; no impurity of action must ever stain him, he must be pure in the threefold thread of action, word and thought. That is the threefold cord of duty, as I once reminded you, and is that which the Brahmanas threefold thread is intended to represent. In the morning he thinks of purity as a thing that is desirable, that he must accomplish; and when he goes out into the world he carries the memory of his meditation with him. He watches his actions; he allows no impure action to stain his body; he commits no impure action all through the day, for he steadily watches every action that no touch of impurity may soil it. He watches his words. He speaks no word that is impure; he makes no reference in his talk to an unclean subject; he never permits his tongue to be soiled by making an unclean suggestion. Every word of his is pure, so that he would dare to speak it in the presence of his Master, whose eye sees every lightest stain of impurity which the ordinary mortal eye would miss. He will watch every word that it may be the purest that he can utter, and he will never foul himself or others by a single word or phrase coarse with impure suggestion. His thought will be pure. He will never allow an unclean thought to come into his mind, or if it comes into his mind it will at once be cast out; the moment the thought comes he will cast it out; and as he knows that it could not come into his mind unless there was in his mind something to attract it, he purifies his own mind, so that no unclean thought of any one else may be able to gain entrance. Thus he watches on this one point through the whole of his day. And then again he will take truth in his morning meditation; he will think of truth, its value in the world, its value in society, its value in his own character; and when he goes out into the world of men he will never commit an action that will give a false impression, he will never speak a word that conveys a false idea. Not only will he not lie, but he will not even be inaccurate, because that also is speaking a falsehood. To be inaccurate in recounting what you have seen is to speak untruth. All exaggeration and painting up of a story, everything that is not perfectly consistent with fact, so far as he knows it, everything which has any shade of untruthfulness, may not be used by him who would become a disciple. And so in thought again he must be true. Every thought must be as true as he can make it, with no shadow of falsehood to pollute his mind. So with compassion. He will meditate on compassion in the morning and during the day he will seek to practise it; he will show all kindness to people around him; he will do all service to family and friends and neighbours. Wherever he sees want he will try to relieve it; wherever he sees sorrow he will try to comfort it; wherever he sees misery he will strive to lighten it. He will live compassion as well as think it, and so make it part of his character. So with fortitude. He will think of the nobility of the strong man, the man whom no outer circumstances can depress or elate, the man who is not joyful over success nor miserable over failure, who is not at the mercy of circumstances, sad today because things are troublesome and joyful tomorrow because things are easy. He will try to be himself, always balanced and strong; as he goes out into the world he will practise; if trouble comes he will think of the Eternal where no trouble is; if loss of money comes, he will think of the wealth of wisdom that cannot be taken away from him; if a friend be snatched by death, he will consider that no living soul can die and that the body that dies is only the garment which is thrown aside when it is out-worn, and another taken, and that his friend shall be found again. And so with all the other virtues of self-restraint, of peaceableness, of fearlessness--all these things he will think of and practise. Not all at once. No man living in the world would be able to give sufficient time to meditate on each of these every day; but take them one by one, and build them into your character. Work on steadily: do not be afraid of giving time to it; do not be afraid of giving trouble to it. Everything that you build you are building for eternity, and you may well be patient in time when eternity spreads before you. Everything you gain, you gain for evermore. Meditation alone or practice alone is insufficient for the building of the character. Both must go together; both must form part of the daily life, and in this way a noble character is made.
Meditation is the deliberate and formal training of the mind in concentration and in fixity of thought. You are to do it every day, because if you do it every day you are helped by what is called the automatism of the body and mind. That which you do daily becomes a habit; that which is done daily is done without an effort after a time; that which is hard to begin with becomes easy by practice. Now meditation may be taken partly as devotional and partly as intellectual, and the wise man who is training himself for discipleship will meditate in both ways. He will concentrate his mind, fix his thought, on the divine ideal, on the Teacher whom, unknown at present, he still ultimately hopes to find; and keeping before him this perfect ideal, he will fix his lower mind on that ideal in the hour of meditation, and will aspire upwards towards it with fixed and unswerving thought. As the mind grows, this will become easier and easier; as he keeps this ideal before the mind in meditation he will begin to reflect it, to grow a little like it. That is one of the creative powers of the mind--the man becomes that upon which he reflects; and if he reflects daily on the perfect ideal of humanity he will begin to grow towards that perfect ideal himself. Then he will gradually find that as he fixes the mind steadily on this ideal, as he aspires upwards towards it, and longs to come into contact with it, he will find during this time of meditation that the lower mind will become peaceful, that the lower mind will sink into quietude, that the outside world will fade away from consciousness, and that the deeper consciousness will shine as it were from within--the higher consciousness, that of the individual himself, realizing and knowing what he is. For as the lower mind is thus quieted, as its restlessness is conquered, it becomes like a still lake of water which is unruffled by any wind, unmoved by any currents. That lake is like a mirror; on that mirror-like surface, unruffled, tranquil, the sun which is in heaven shines down, reflecting itself in the quiet water; so also the higher consciousness reflects itself in the mirror of the tranquillized lower mind. And then the man knows, no longer by authority but of his own knowledge, that he is more than the mind which he has realized as intellect, that his consciousness is greater than the passing consciousness of the mind; then it becomes possible for him to begin to identify himself with the higher, and if only for a moment to catch a glimpse of the majesty of the Self. For remember how in the great Scriptures you are always taught that you yourself are the higher and not the lower. What means the saying that we read in the Chhandogyopanishad and elsewhere, the proclamation: “Thou art Brahman”, “Thou art That”? So the Buddhists repeat also: “Thou art Buddha”. That will never be a fact of consciousness to you, however much you may intellectually realize it, until by meditation you have made the lower mind the mirror in which the higher may be reflected; then, in a further stage of meditation you yourself will consciously become the higher, and then you will know what every great Teacher has meant by that famous phrase, which has in it the assertion of the inherent divinity of man.
When this is done daily, is practised by meditation followed day after day, month after month, year after year, it gradually permeates all the life and becomes constant instead of partial. First, confined to the time of meditation; then spreading over into the life led in the world. You may say: How can I be conscious of that when I am busy in the outer world? How can I keep consciousness of the higher when the lower is in full activity? Do you not know how, bowing before the altar you may use your body to offer flowers, whilst the mind is concentrated on the Deity Himself? The outer activity of the body is there, yet your thought is not on the flowers that you are offering but on the Object of the offering; the hands perform their duty and offer their flowers perfectly, although the mind is fixing its thoughts on the Divine itself. And so in the outer world of man, you may offer the flowers of duty in a life of constant activities, of daily work; you may offer these flowers with the body and with the mind, fulfilling to the utmost your duty in the outer world, but you yourselves will be fixed ever in meditation and in worship. Once learn to separate your higher consciousness from your lower, yourself from your mind, and your will gradually acquire the power of carrying on mental activities without losing the real “I” in them; the mind working perfectly at its appropriate duties while the Self remains at a loftier height. You will never leave the inner sanctuary, however much the outer life is busy in the world of men. In this way the man is preparing himself for discipleship.
There is another stage which we must just glance at, that which I call the intellectual side of meditation, concerned with the gradual and conscious building of character. Again I turn to the great treatise of Karma-Yoga, the teachings of Shri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. If you turn to the 16th discourse you may find the long list of qualities there given which a man must develop in himself so that he may be born with them in the future. They are called “the divine properties”, and Arjuna is told: “Thou art born with divine properties, O Pandava”. Now in order that you may be born with them in future births you must make them in the birth that is; if you are to bring them back with you into life you must gradually create them in lives as they come one after another, and the man of the world who wants to know how to build his character can do nothing better than take this list of qualities, the divine properties which are wanted in discipleship, and build them one by one in his daily life by a conjoint process of meditation and action. Purity for instance is one of them. How shall a man build himself into purity? By, in his morning meditation, taking purity as part of the subject on which he thinks, realizing what it means. No impurity of thought must ever touch him; no impurity of action must ever stain him, he must be pure in the threefold thread of action, word and thought. That is the threefold cord of duty, as I once reminded you, and is that which the Brahmanas threefold thread is intended to represent. In the morning he thinks of purity as a thing that is desirable, that he must accomplish; and when he goes out into the world he carries the memory of his meditation with him. He watches his actions; he allows no impure action to stain his body; he commits no impure action all through the day, for he steadily watches every action that no touch of impurity may soil it. He watches his words. He speaks no word that is impure; he makes no reference in his talk to an unclean subject; he never permits his tongue to be soiled by making an unclean suggestion. Every word of his is pure, so that he would dare to speak it in the presence of his Master, whose eye sees every lightest stain of impurity which the ordinary mortal eye would miss. He will watch every word that it may be the purest that he can utter, and he will never foul himself or others by a single word or phrase coarse with impure suggestion. His thought will be pure. He will never allow an unclean thought to come into his mind, or if it comes into his mind it will at once be cast out; the moment the thought comes he will cast it out; and as he knows that it could not come into his mind unless there was in his mind something to attract it, he purifies his own mind, so that no unclean thought of any one else may be able to gain entrance. Thus he watches on this one point through the whole of his day. And then again he will take truth in his morning meditation; he will think of truth, its value in the world, its value in society, its value in his own character; and when he goes out into the world of men he will never commit an action that will give a false impression, he will never speak a word that conveys a false idea. Not only will he not lie, but he will not even be inaccurate, because that also is speaking a falsehood. To be inaccurate in recounting what you have seen is to speak untruth. All exaggeration and painting up of a story, everything that is not perfectly consistent with fact, so far as he knows it, everything which has any shade of untruthfulness, may not be used by him who would become a disciple. And so in thought again he must be true. Every thought must be as true as he can make it, with no shadow of falsehood to pollute his mind. So with compassion. He will meditate on compassion in the morning and during the day he will seek to practise it; he will show all kindness to people around him; he will do all service to family and friends and neighbours. Wherever he sees want he will try to relieve it; wherever he sees sorrow he will try to comfort it; wherever he sees misery he will strive to lighten it. He will live compassion as well as think it, and so make it part of his character. So with fortitude. He will think of the nobility of the strong man, the man whom no outer circumstances can depress or elate, the man who is not joyful over success nor miserable over failure, who is not at the mercy of circumstances, sad today because things are troublesome and joyful tomorrow because things are easy. He will try to be himself, always balanced and strong; as he goes out into the world he will practise; if trouble comes he will think of the Eternal where no trouble is; if loss of money comes, he will think of the wealth of wisdom that cannot be taken away from him; if a friend be snatched by death, he will consider that no living soul can die and that the body that dies is only the garment which is thrown aside when it is out-worn, and another taken, and that his friend shall be found again. And so with all the other virtues of self-restraint, of peaceableness, of fearlessness--all these things he will think of and practise. Not all at once. No man living in the world would be able to give sufficient time to meditate on each of these every day; but take them one by one, and build them into your character. Work on steadily: do not be afraid of giving time to it; do not be afraid of giving trouble to it. Everything that you build you are building for eternity, and you may well be patient in time when eternity spreads before you. Everything you gain, you gain for evermore. Meditation alone or practice alone is insufficient for the building of the character. Both must go together; both must form part of the daily life, and in this way a noble character is made.
