AM USING THE TERM CONTEMPLATION to describe the level just before meditation. Contemplation is not synonymous with meditation, nor is it a technique. We do not contemplate on something—that is meditation. According to Patanjali’s Raja Yoga Treatise, contemplation is the sixth step on the Eightfold Path, meditation being the seventh, and Superconsciousness the eighth and highest. The Sanskrit words for these levels are: dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. Contemplation is ascending into the astral plane, where your energy is more subtle and your inner potentials open. From contemplating on many points, you sort out and slowly come to one—this is meditation.
      To be able to meditate it is essential to prepare yourself, to bring your heart and mind to a condition of purity and simplicity, where your mind is fixed on truth, not cluttered, distracted or dissipated, and you are established in peace. Then meditation comes automatically. The injunction to simplify your life, to make it concentrated and precise, is to prepare the way, to bring the mind to a relaxed position so you can truly meditate. Using techniques for technique’s sake will yield nothing unless you join it with your inner Being. Your whole life—relationships, work and home—has everything to do with meditation; you cannot separate them. Your whole existence has to be involved. Meditation is inmost and sacred. It is a very high level, just preceding Enlightenment.

 

      Contemplation and meditation have the force and power to concentrate and seek out the inner secrets of creation and reveal them to you, bringing you to revelation. Before that, you were trying to know many things but knowledge was not unfolding from within. Many people think of contemplation as an abstract idea and those who contemplate as useless and impractical. Actually, it is quite the reverse. The contemplative life has an intelligence of its own. It has such a high level of joy, its own level of existence, that it is as clear and practical as the world we know, if not much more so. When through higher contemplation various faculties open, that is perfectly all right, a part of the process. If you are meditating or contemplating and clairvoyance opens within you, there is nothing wrong with it, but if you are trying to cultivate clairvoyance in order to see what is happening in your neighbor’s house, you are going to waste it. If you are trying to achieve power in order to rule or boost your prestige, naturally you are doomed.
      In the contemplative life, you employ higher communication where there is no need to express in so many words; still, you will understand and be understood. What is the benefit of this? You use less energy and understand more; you are nearer to the truth. You achieve greater satisfaction with less effort. Your needs are few. You begin to hear celestial music and see astral colors previously hidden from you. You see the beauty in everything. Your sense of enjoyment and sensitivity to vibrations deepen; satisfaction is more refined. Some things lose their meaning, no doubt, but a higher meaning is revealed.