To many the word yoga means a series of physical exercises stretching and tying our bodies into impossible knots. But these physical postures are only one aspect of yoga, known as asanas. The physical postures of yoga are practiced for their health benefits, and because they help to prepare the body for meditation. Yoga is both a philosophy of life and a system of spiritual practice. The word yoga actually means union between the individual self and Infinite Consciousness. Meditation is the most important practice in the yoga system and is the means by which this merger or union is achieved. So yoga is a system or science that enables an individual to develop physically, mentally and spiritually, and meditation is the practice that makes the mental and spiritual development possible.

Evidence of the existence of religion dates back more than 40,000 years. Early religions were animistic, believing that the forces of nature were beings or Gods, and later pantheistic, worshiping many deities, and assigning divinity to the invisible but powerful forces of nature that held sway over people’s lives. These gods were feared and were appeased through prayer or sacrifice. As society evolved, people gradually realised that there must be a single guiding power behind all these forces of nature, and monotheistic religions emerged – the belief in only one God. But the relationship was still based on fear, flattery, appeasement and attempts to persuade God to grant favours to individuals. Some religious prayer still reflects this today.

Philosophically, praying to God requesting something or asking God to do something, even for someone else, is illogical. According to all the theistic scriptures of the world, God is an all-knowing (omniscient) and infinitely benevolent being (“God is love”), who already knows if somebody’s mother is sick, or someone is unhappy, and surely cares enough to do whatever is necessary to help them. Any concerns, or ideas we have originate with God anyway, so telling God how to run the universe seems inappropriate, to say the least.

In yoga philosophy it is said that since Infinite Consciousness has given us everything, we should not ask that Entity for anything. But if we have to ask for something, we should ask only for more love for God, which is known as devotion.

Prayer can take various forms. What I’ve described above is known as intercessory prayer – asking for God’s intervention in our affairs. More developed forms of prayer include prayers of gratitude, worshipful prayer, contemplative prayer and meditative prayer. These can help to bring the worshipper closer to God through cultivating devotion, the feeling of attraction towards the Infinite Consciousness. But as long as it is based on a dualistic conception of God, meaning that human beings and God are kept inherently separate, prayer cannot be considered meditation. Spiritual meditation places no limit on our realization. It is a non-dualistic practice, and its goal is to merge our inner “I” feeling with the Infinite Consciousness.

I think it very likely that all of the great spiritual teachers practiced some kind of spiritual meditation and initiated their closest disciples into this practice. This was their treasured “inner teaching”. Often however, with the passing of time, this esoteric part of their teachings was lost or watered down, their later followers were left with only their outer teachings about morality and philosophy. But the key to realising what these enlightened individuals realized has always been, and will always remain, spiritual meditation.

Ananda Marga spiritual meditation maintains a tradition of being taught free of charge and it is available to all, regardless of a person’s economic status. Meditation is a subtle spiritual practice and no monetary value should be attached to it. To attach monetary value to meditation taints and degrades it.

Nevertheless, there is a price. To get results from meditation you have to put something into it – your own valuable time and effort.

Spirituality is that which concerns Infinite Consciousness.

First let me make it clear that “spirituality” should not be confused with “spiritualism”, which is concerned with mediums, communicating with the dead etc. Spirituality concerns Infinite consciousness – the same ultimate Truth that was realized by the great spiritual teachers throughout history such as Buddha, Jesus, and Krsna. According to spirituality, the goal of life is to merge the individual mind into Infinite Consciousness, and the way to attain this is by practicing spiritual meditation.

The central idea of spirituality – that Infinite Consciousness is the ultimate reality – is common to most oriental and some occidental forms of mysticism. It is not so remarkable that this idea is widely accepted by mystics and philosophers, but in the last century many scientists have pointed out parallels between quantum theory and the mystical view of reality described in the ancient texts of Taoism, Buddhism and yoga.

Not only Albert Einstein but virtually all his contemporaries including Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrodinger and Max Planck, in fact most of the pioneers of modern physics testified to a belief in mysticism. When Heisenberg (discoverer of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) went to India and met with Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel prize-winning poet and a great yogi, he was enormously relieved to find someone who didn’t think his ideas were crazy. The ancient yoga philosophy seemed to be saying much the same thing about reality as the emerging Quantum Theory. This has been the subject of much discussion and many publications, particularly since the 1960s. This topic, though fascinating, is beyond the scope of this book. I will refer you to some of those publications for a detailed explanation.

“The unending endeavour to bridge the gap between the finite and the infinite is mysticism.”

Shrii Shrii Anandamurti

“The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is at the root of all true science. Someone to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, is my idea of God.”

Albert Einstein

The founders of all the great religions taught spirituality, yet religion and spirituality are not the same. When my own spiritual master was asked if he was trying to start a new religion he replied:

“I am not interested in religion. I am interested in human beings and the goal of human beings, and how to bridge the gap between the two.”

Many religions may make the same claim, but the reality is that all too often the spirituality taught by the founder of those religions has been lost, or obscured by dogma and ritual. There are profound differences between the teachings of Christ and the practices of mainstream Christianity, between what Krsna taught and Hinduism, between the teachings of the Buddha and Buddhism. Over time, divisions have developed within religions, which have sometimes led to persecution and even war. When you look at the darkest periods of religious history, it is hard to believe that people could depart so far from the exalted teachings of their great preceptors. The original message was spiritual, but to varying degrees that spirit has been diluted or lost through mistranslation and misinterpretation, through the loss of spiritual meditation practices, through the attempts of less evolved individuals to cloak spiritual concepts in dogma, and through religions becoming religious and political institutions.

Within all the major religions there are mystical traditions that include many of the features of spirituality, but these are the exception rather than the rule. They do not represent mainstream religion, and in many cases have even been branded as heresy, and the propagation of such teachings has all too often been rewarded with persecution.

What we are left with in our various religions is a somewhat confusing blend of truth and dogma. If we wish to sift out the spiritual elements it is important to understand the real differences between spirituality and religious dogma. With the passing of time, these differences within mainstream religion have become increasingly distinct:

a. Spirituality is theistic, and has a highly developed and rational concept of God or Infinite Consciousness. Religious dogma can be theistic, as in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, or atheistic, such as Buddhism, Shintoism, and perhaps even communism. Dogmatic Religions generally have either a poorly developed and irrational concept of God, or no concept of God at all.

b. Spirituality is non-dualistic, and states that the purpose of human life is to merge one’s self (or sense of “I”) into Infinite Consciousness. Theistic religions tend to be dualistic, propounding a fundamental separation between God and the world and the belief that the purpose of human life is to enter into a relationship with God and go to heaven after one dies.

c. Spirituality is practical, and can be experienced and realized by practicing spiritual meditation. The focus is inward, taking the practitioner towards a personal realization. Religions on the other hand, emphasize faith and belief, and though they teach people different types of prayer, most of the actual practice is externally focused, involving rituals, festivals and ceremonies.

d. Spirituality is a lifestyle choice, and is integrated into every aspect of a person’s existence. Much Religion is ritualistic, and is generally a compartmentalized part of a person’s life, practiced primarily in temples and churches.

Religion can only serve its proper purpose of liberating the faithful from ignorance and spiritual darkness, to the degree that it remains true to its original spirituality.

In spiritual meditation our mind is directed towards a spiritual idea. The simplest way to conceive of this is to think of infinite love, peace and happiness, or an entity embodying that. We may call it God, but the name is not important. What is important is to remember that this infinite love is within us and surrounding us.

If we pause to consider, it becomes apparent that every experience we have ever had took place within our minds. If we want lasting happiness or love, what better place to look than at the source of these feelings?

Spiritual meditation is concentration on a spiritual idea, an idea associated with Infinite Consciousness, an idea that is greater than our selves. As we contemplate this vast and beautiful idea, our mind is transformed into pure consciousness that has no boundary.

So spiritual meditation is the effort to merge our sense of “I” into Infinite Consciousness.

It could be. It rather depends what you would be doing if you weren’t meditating. If the answer is “watching television”, by all means, meditate. But if it means you are neglecting your family, or using it as an excuse to avoid doing something for others, that is another matter.

While it is no doubt true that the minds of some people could do with a good wash, I have to say that meditation is not a form of brainwashing. Usually when people express concern about brainwashing, they are afraid of losing control of their minds and being manipulated.

Meditation actually helps to protect us against having our minds manipulated by strengthening our willpower and making us more self-aware.

If you’re seriously concerned about other people manipulating your mind for their own purposes, I suggest that the first thing you do is switch off your television, a device which is used to great effect by advertising companies, amongst others, to influence people’s behaviour.

Tantric meditation was first developed by the tribes of South India 10-15,000 years ago, as an expression of their natural desire to understand their own consciousness. About 7000 years ago it was further developed by Shiva, the great yogi of ancient India. This practice has since spread and been absorbed into different mystical traditions, including yoga, Taoism, Sufism, Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. Similar practices have also emerged in indigenous cultures.

Meditation practices were introduced into Europe at the time of the ancient Greeks, some of whom travelled to the East and learned from Indian yogis and philosophers. Alexander the Great, a student of Aristotle, brought a yogi back with him from India to be his spiritual advisor. The great Greek mystic and social reformer, Apollonius, found wisdom in the East and was greatly revered for his spiritual power. He was an advocate of universal religion and propagated the idea of internal rather than external worship. Refusing to champion one popular cult against another, he declared that he “was concerned with the spirit rather than the form of religion.”

The early Judaic and ancient Egyptian religions were heavily influenced by oriental mysticism, and many people believe that Jesus may have practiced and taught a form of yogic meditation that he learned in India during the 18 years of his life that are unaccounted for in the Bible.

After the collapse of the western half of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, when most of the libraries of Europe were burned, yogic meditation practices died out in the West. Later both indigenous and Christian mysticism were actively suppressed, particularly during the dark period of the Inquisition. Europe became something of a spiritual desert, focusing its attention on intellectual and technological development, militarism, trade, exploration and conquest. Religious institutions started to take a greater interest in politics than in spirituality.

But in the 1890s a spiritual renaissance began in Western civilization with the reintroduction of oriental practices by Swami Vivekananda, the dearest disciple of the great Indian saint, Sri Ramakrsna. Vivekananda was the first modern yogic master to come to the West at the beginning of the twentieth Century. This period saw the emergence of the Theosophists and Rudolf Steiner’s school of anthroposophy as well as a growing interest in Eastern mysticism amongst European intellectuals like Carl Jung, Aldous Huxley, and Herman Hesse. After Swami Vivekananda others followed, and in the 1960s, interest in eastern spirituality exploded in Europe and America, quickly spreading across the globe, even as far as New Zealand. The most refined expression of this merging of cultures may be found in the writings of the great Indian mystic and philosopher Shrii Shrii Anandamurti, who was the first spiritual preceptor to create a harmonious blending of occidental rationality and oriental mysticism. He was the founder of the modern spiritual movement, Ananda Marga, meaning The Path of Bliss.

Although spiritual meditation originated in southern India in ancient times, its influence can be found in many spiritual traditions. Today it continues to address a universal human need.

The nature of the object or idea you choose to concentrate on in meditation will dictate the outcome. Meditation can be done for spiritual growth, or for relaxation and stress reduction, or even for some other reason, such as success in a sport or a career. The distinguishing feature of all spiritual meditation techniques, as taught in the great spiritual traditions, is that the technique has at its heart the idea of Infinite Consciousness – it is the contemplation of the infinite.

In Tantric meditation the practitioner learns a personal technique through a process of initiation and is taught a mantra which is repeated mentally. He or she is taught how to withdraw the mind from the external world and how to concentrate internally. The primary goal of Tantric meditation is to merge the individual consciousness into Infinite Consciousness. This is the type of meditation taught in the modern Tantric school of Ananda Marga.

I may be biased – none but an enlightened soul is perfectly objective. I think the technique I am practicing is the best, at least for me – otherwise I’d be doing something else. At the same time, it seems obvious that there are many paths to enlightenment – otherwise how could people from different traditions have attained self-realization? I try to keep an open mind, and from my study of a wide variety of teachings I have understood that there are common psychological and spiritual principles that can be used in spiritual practice. The extent to which these principles are understood and applied will determine the effectiveness of a technique in taking us forward on the path of spiritual progress.

For example, it is a widely accepted tenet of psychology that “as you think, so you become.” If this principle is applied in spiritual meditation, it means we should concentrate on the idea of infinite consciousness. But if we have been taught since childhood to feel guilty, or afraid of God, this will make it more difficult to practice. If, on the other hand, we are taught that we are children of the Divine, and that our true nature is perfect and loving, then the feeling of bliss in meditation comes far more naturally.

It is not necessary to learn all techniques in order to grasp how they work. In any event it would not be possible in one lifetime – it is hard enough to master even one.

This is something you have to decide for yourself. If you come across a practice that makes sense to you, and feels right, I suggest you try it. If you then experience that it is bringing the kind of changes you feel you need, keep doing it. If you experience difficulties, be patient. Don’t be too hasty to switch to another technique. You may face the same problem again, and be forced to realise that the problem was with you, not with the technique. If, after giving it your best shot, it still doesn’t seem to be working, try something else. But don’t keep shopping around forever – you should try to find a technique you’re happy with and stick with it. Remember those holes we were digging for water? If you keep starting new holes you’re going to get pretty thirsty.

The word “Guru” means “dispeller of darkness”, and really refers to the Infinite Consciousness acting as teacher and guide to individual souls. So since Infinite Consciousness is omnipresent, the real Guru is within us already.

When an individual has attained self-realization, they are often referred to as a Guru, because the Infinite Consciousness within them is able to act and speak without the distortions of ego. So they are able to play the role of a perfect teacher and guide to others.

In the Bhagavad Giita, Arjuna asked his Guru, Krsna, whether it was possible to attain enlightenment through the guidance of the Divine, inner Guru, without the assistance of a Guru in physical form. Krsna told him that it is not essential to have a physical Guru, but if you do not, it will probably take you about 10,000 times as long to attain enlightenment.

Thirty years ago, I wanted to learn meditation but I didn’t know how to begin. I read some books on the subject, and with what wisdom I could glean from their pages I began to practice. Which means I wasn’t teaching myself – I was learning from those authors. Indirectly, they were my first teachers, even though they were no longer alive. Soon I realised that I needed clearer guidance and I began searching for a living teacher.

The fact that you’re reading this book indicates that you want information about meditation. All of the knowledge in this book comes, directly or indirectly, from a Guru. Practically all of the spiritual books of the world derive their ideas from great spiritual teachers – Gurus. If they don’t, they should. They are the pioneers on the spiritual path who go before us and light the way to guide we who follow. And those who, for whatever reason, do not follow, miss out on a golden opportunity.

Some people are afraid that having a Guru means you have to follow someone blindly. This is a misconception. My Guru often quoted an old scripture that says that if a child says something rational we should accept it, and if God himself says something irrational we should discard it like a straw. Genuine spirituality does not deny rationality.

And what is the rational course when seeking self-knowledge? When we are entering the mysterious realm of consciousness, the most rational course is to take the advice of a guide who knows the territory well.

If you do not have the chance to meet personally with a real Guru (and they are few and far between) do not despair. It is possible to learn from a Guru through their writings, through learning of their inspiring example, and directly from people they have appointed to pass on their teachings and techniques. And through meditation it is possible to establish a personal relationship with the inner Guru, who is ultimately the only Guru anyway.

We recommend that beginners spend at least 15 minutes twice a day in meditation. Later this can be increased to two half hour sessions. This will give a good result, though some people choose to meditate for longer periods and experience even greater benefit as a result. How much you get out of your meditation is directly related to what you put into it.

Clearly not. Buddha was a monk, but Shiva – regarded by many as the father of yoga – had three wives. (This was not unusual 7,000 years ago). Swami Vivekananda was a monk, but my own Guru, Shrii Shrii Anandamurti, was married. And many great spiritualists were women, such as St Theresa of Avila (a nun) and Anandamayi Ma (who was married).

Anandamarga gives equal status to both monks and householders, and, as such, is a revolutionary movement in the world of yoga and meditation.