The Gradual Stages of Meditation

Divine Life Society Publication: The Meaning of Religion and the Spiritual Attitude in Life by Sri Swami Krishnananda

The gradual stages of meditation are, first of all, an object form physically chosen or psychologically conceived, into which technique we have to be initiated by a Guru.

The higher stage is the recognition of the independence of the perceptual process from the existence of an object. This is vairagya, virakti, dispassion for objects arisen not on account of frustration or hatred for things but on account of the realisation that our perceptual activity of an object is independent of the object itself, so identification of this process with the object is a wrongful method applied. Thus, vairagya is born of understanding and realisation, and not on account of a defeatist attitude in the mind or a frustration of a desire. This gives us an inner fill-up, a further inspiration, an incentive to practise yoga in its positive aspects. This is abhyasa, the counterpart of vairagya. While we are spontaneously dispassionate in respect of objects on account of the realisation of the independence of the perceptual process from the objects, we are spontaneously also inspired to enter the stage of abhyasa or direct practice, which is positive yoga. Abhyasa is superior to vairagya. We do not go on withdrawing ourselves always. We have also to do something positively. Direct meditation is abhyasa, and detachment from all externals is vairagya.

Then our object of meditation becomes subtler and subtler as we proceed higher and higher. It also becomes vaster and vaster in its comprehension. As we go more and more inward, the object of our meditation becomes more and more subtle and also gets expanded in its comprehension and gamut. The more inward we are, the more expanded we also are, and the more subtle we are to that extent.

Lastly, the object of meditation is the Atman itself, which is the upasana which is prescribed in the Upanishads, for example. The upasanas and methods of meditation prescribed in the Upanishads are worships of the Atman universal – Vaishvanara – to which state we have to reach gradually from the location of a physical object to an object psychologically conceived later on.

Next, we have to contemplate on the structure and the activity of the mind itself, which is one of the forms of Buddhist meditation, for example. We meditate on the activity of the mind itself which will help us to be in a position to fix ourselves in our true being, which is ahamgraha upasana, as they call it, or atma-upasana, meditation on the Atman itself. It is not somebody meditating on the Atman, because we ourselves are the Atman. It is Self-imposition of an indescribable character, Self-contemplation, we may call it – Being contemplating Being, thought contemplating itself.

This is the highest form of meditation, to which condition or stage we have to reach gradually by these successive processes of analysis: psychological, moral and spiritual.

Excerpts from: The Gradual Stages of Meditation - The Meaning of Religion and the Spiritual Attitude in Life by Sri Swami Krishnananda