Nowadays, meditation is done like breakfast is taken. Some people meditate to fulfill their wishes, some meditate for peace of mind. Some meditate to acquire supernatural powers, some meditate to influence others, and some people meditate for salvation. With these aims, however, one stays on the level of mind and cannot reach the plane of consciousness. There are thousand ways of meditation, which will not take us anywhere.
The subject meditation is directly connected with the purpose of human life, the development of the consciousness – the soul or spirit in man. The highest aim of life is self-realization and God-realization. But who meditates out of yearning and love for God? Before we even think of meditation, we must understand the purpose of human life and make a clear-cut decision about our true aim.
"The macrocosm is in the microcosm." Whatever exists in the physical plane, in the astral plane or in the causal plane, and above in the conscious planes, that exists in the human body. Whatever God has created exists in the manbody and can be experienced within. It is said: "Whatever is written in the holy scriptures exists in the manbody, but whatever exists in the manbody does not exist in all the holy scriptures of the world." This is why Christ and all Masters said: "Tap inside".
All people say: "Here is the seat of the soul, meditate over here!" – between and behind the two eye-brows. But it is a big problem that nobody really knows where the seat of the soul or the Single Eye is. What happens at the time of death? Our attention, the outer expression of the soul or consciousness, withdraws from the lower extremities, and transcending the throat ganglion, it goes to the root of the two eye-brows. From there it takes upward-trend, then it takes inward-trend, and where the eyes are crossing, there is the seat of the soul. To say, "Here is the seat of the soul" is easy, but to reach there and to locate it there is very difficult, because just very close to the seat of the soul, a little bit below, there is the seat of the mind and below there is the seat of the intellect.
What do most people do when they meditate? First, they have to overcome the intellect. Maybe they can overcome it, but they cannot overcome the mind. When we create a wish, our mind at once identifies with it. Mind in this physical body is astral. Everyone has wishes upon wishes, and our mind identifies with them. So when we create a wish to see something, at once our mind identifies with it and will give us the light over there. Mind will show the light at once, whereas the experience taught by Christ and all the competent Masters starts from the darkness and then leads to the holy light.
This body is not five-fold, it is eight-fold. Five folds (the five elements) have to finish with the body when we leave it at the time of death, and three folds will not leave us: intellect, mind and ego. Those three are also matter and reach up to the causal plane. Physical, astral, and causal plane are all matter. There is no reality in them, these are the barriers for the spirit to go up. The planes of consciousness or spirit, the true home of our soul, is far above.
