With doubt in the mind, how will there be concentration? You oscillate here and there, go to different teachers and ask a hundred questions and finally no answer is satisfying. Then the previous difficulties will start once again. Physical illness may again creep in and dullness of spirit also will show its head. They will take possession of you because this is the proper moment to catch you - when you are unguarded and you are in a dubious situation.

What do you do at this time? Never make the mistake of changing your instructor or Guru. Do not have doubts. There are a hundred guides in this country and you need not go to each one separately to ask different questions because the concentration gets diluted by diverting it in different directions and listening to hundred types of advice. This must be avoided. Be clear in your mind.

"Everything is clear to me - inwardly, outwardly, socially, everywhere. Everything is perspicacious, like a mirror. All things are shining before me. I have no problems." Until this clarity arises, it is no use taking further steps ahead. Else, you may retrace the steps already taken.

Then another difficulty arises: heedlessness, carelessness. "Tomorrow I shall do it." If you take diet every day, the body will grow and become healthy. If you eat once in three days only, the body will resent the process of eating. Even if you eat a little every day, it must be continuous, like the intake of medicines, which have to be taken at the proper time and in the proper quantity. The meditational process should be carried on every day. If you miss it for one day, the thread may be broken. Now you are a very busy person and have no time: "I am a travelling train inspector; the whole night I am moving in the carriage. How will I do meditation in the night?" You are not travelling all the twenty-four hours of the day. Some respite you have, of course. Even if you are working in the office, you have some time of rest. There is something you can slice off even in the midst of busy duties.

It is to be remembered that the value of meditation does not so much depend on the length of time that you take in sitting for it, but in the quality or the intensity of feeling operating at that moment. Quantity alone is not important enough. Though lengthened period has some effect, quality is more vital. If you have time enough, sit for a long time.

But if you are not provided with the facility of sitting for a long time, ardently feel it, like a gopi who was not allowed to move towards Sri Krishna because her husband locked the door of the house. The others were running, but that one who was closed inside and could not go out reached the Almighty even before the others reached Krishna in the forest. These others took perhaps an hour to reach Krishna somewhere away, but before that time, that seeker who was inside the house had attained the Lord already. Quality, and not quantity is what is to be taken care of always.

When you are drowning, dying - what do you do at that time? Will you keep a timepiece and count the number of days and hours? The entire soul then will rise up into a total action. Quality is that which you feel when you are sure you will perish this moment, and you have then to think only one thought, the only thought possible, the all-consuming total thought.

"Heedlessness is death," said sage Sanatkumara to Dhritarashtra. You should not be careless about that which is your blessedness. Are you going to be callous about your own welfare? Who can afford that? So, be cautious, keeping this in mind always as a treasure trove that you are holding in your mind. None can afford to be heedless and careless about spiritual practice. Never feel lethargic, despondent or melancholy.

After some time of meditation, another difficulty will arise. These terrible things called sense organs who appeared as your friends will now begin to act as enemies. Neglected friends are worse than open foes. One should be cautious about motivated friends. As long as you are behaving with them in the manner required, they are perfectly all right, very good indeed; but ignore them, and see what happens then. They can be more dangerous than those who paid you scant regard.

Are the sense organs your friends? "How beautiful!" says the eye. "How melodious!" says the ear. "How tasty!" says the tongue. "How soft!" says the touch. "How fragrant!" says the nose. You have been getting on with them as your lifelong friends. Now you say that you will not listen to them, you do not want to see, hear, touch, taste. If you behave like that, see what they do to you. They will rise up in a consensus and present illusions of satisfaction before your eyes. These impulsions can come in any form. Attraction is one form; repulsion is another.

Some of these presentations before the mind, created by the over-activity of the sense organs (positively on the one hand and negatively on the other hand), are briefly described in the sixth chapter of a poem called the 'Light of Asia' of Edwin Arnold, describing how Buddha had to face certain grand presentations - majestic, attractive, impossible to avoid seeing, deliciousness of every kind connected with every sense organ. When all the senses offer you what you want, jointly, in all abundance, what do you do?

Previously, one sense organ was acting at one time and you were caught by that particular sense only. Now, like the members in a divided family, each one is fighting with the other. One Brahmani sultan would not like another sultan, but they were all joined together in attacking the Vijayanagara empire as they wanted to uproot it completely. This is a piece from the medieval history of India.

Yudhishthira says somewhere, "Between ourselves, they are a hundred and we are five. But against others, we are one hundred and five." The senses say that in normal times they will not do any harm to you. The eye will take care of you and tell you that beautiful things are there; the ear will stay away somewhere. But you have now abandoned befriending the senses and so they all will join and attack you concentratedly and every blessed thing will be there in front of you to pull you away. All the music, beauty, taste, delicacy, all the softness, all the aesthetic presentation will be in front of you. The whole world will dance with the music of celestials. Nobody on earth can resist all that. The meditation will go to dogs in a second when beauty of every sort begins to rain in torrents from all sides.

Such an intense form of presentation may not be the circumstance of a seeker who goes slowly; but if you are bent upon doing something and go with great earnestness, this kind of consequential reaction should be expected. The world of beauty will be in front of you sometimes. But if you are strong enough to resist it, there is another kind of activity to which the sense organs can resort. Death. They will finish you today itself. "You are going to die," they will pronounce. "Do not be under the impression that you are safe. We will end you." When temptation fails, threat follows as thunder.

This kind of thing will be experienced after a long period of protracted meditation. You will not see all these things in the beginning or even for a few years, because mostly the meditation is mild, diluted, not strong enough. You cannot expect all these experiences at once. Intense meditation alone can evoke intensely strong presentations, milder attempts produce relatively subdued response.

There are other difficulties. You will begin to feel that you have the vision of God. But it may be mirage water (you are seeing something shining and you mistake it for water in a desert). Something agitating, disturbing, some colours, sounds, shapes, may be mistaken for a divinity seen in front. The shape can as well be the shape of your own desires and it may present itself as your most worthwhile aim in life. At that time you cannot make a choice. You are not going to be a judge at that time. Immediately you must then run to your master and speak out your experience. Was it God whom you saw, or was there a disturbance caused by sensory turmoil and mental anguish?

Your master who is competent enough to solve your problems will tell you what is actually happening to you because a Guru, a teacher, is supposed to know every detail of the mental operations of a disciple. Any unusual occurrence of a psychological nature will be known to him when it erupts in the mind of a student. You cannot solve the problem yourself. You cannot be your own doctor at that time. You must listen to sagely advice. When a vision is seen, you do not know what actually is there. The pressure exerted upon the pranas, sometimes, will present colours. You may even hear sounds due to the operation of the pranic forces inside. Go to the Guru at that time.

There are other difficulties of a similar nature like missing the point of concentration. You have been concentrating on some particular ideal, on some location; you miss it. However much you may go on striking at that point, you will not get at it. Often we find that we cannot pass a thread through the needle's eye; however much we try, it will slip outside. Finally, with great difficulty, you succeed, but not suddenly, abruptly. You cannot even drive a nail on the wall without striking in different places.

You miss the point of concentration and struggle again and again. You will find that you cannot remember a familiar face. "What did I think yesterday? What was the point of concentration? What was I meditating upon?" You go on thinking it again and again and you find that you have missed the point completely. Another picture will present itself afterwards, not the one with which you started.

Then something more is there, yet: oscillation of the mind. Even if you get at the point, like a mercury ball it will not remain in one place. It will move like a pendulum, and will not fix itself at one focussed point. These are some of the mentioned kinds of problems that may arise in the process of meditation, all worth keeping in mind.

There is nothing equal to a guide. Do not be under the impression that you are intellectual and rationalistic enough to understand all the difficulties that may be ahead of you. No one can know all the future. Even after travelling one mile you will not know what is there ahead of you. Only a good guide will know where you are, how far you have proceeded and what is ahead.

Daily svadhyaya (sacred study), daily japa sadhana (recitation of the divine name), chanting the name of God, or the formula of the mantra which you have chosen, resorting daily to the Guru, attending satsanga (holy company) of saints and sages, being with them, listening to their discourses - all these will produce a cumulative effect of strength and security in your mind so that the problems mentioned will gradually diminish in their intensity and fade out completely later on. Sometimes everything may look dark in front of you. Two or three hours before sunrise, it is pitch-dark. It will be so dark at about half past three or four in the morning that it will look darker than it was at midnight. But the day is to break shortly.

Great sorrow sometimes befalls a person a few hours before illumination. "This is the last day of mine. All that I have done is a waste. I am croaking and perishing. I have achieved nothing, after all. This is all that I have gained after so much effort for years of sitting and brooding. I go with this grief in my heart!" Such was the feeling a little before the bursting of the light of illumination, even in the case of Buddha, as is the feeling of darkness a little before sunrise.

All great things happen like miracles. Very good things, and very bad things do not happen with previous notice. Suddenly you are on velvet, or suddenly you are inside a pit.

Today you are an emperor, tomorrow you are a beggar. Suddenly you are anointed with coronation, costumes, as a king of the land. Tomorrow you are thrown into the dust as an unwanted waste, for reasons history knows. Spiritual tragedy and spiritual blessedness also are such extremes.

God (in some way at least) is an extreme form of reality and, therefore, the presentation of God before the seeker also may take place in extremely unthough-of and unexpected ways. You will not know that it has come because you never expected that it should come in that way. God need not come necessarily in the way you expect Him to come. He may come in the way that is necessary for Him to present Himself for your welfare. The occasion decides the nature of the manifestation.

Yoga practice itself is a miracle. The affection that Yoga has for you, they say, is equal to hundred mothers' love. You love Yoga but Yoga also loves you. You may wonder what is the meaning of Yoga loving you: Yoga is a kind of practice; does practice love me?

Yoga does not mean only practice. It is something different also. It is the energy of the whole cosmos wanting to befriend you, come to you, take care of you, possess you, unite itself with you, inundate you and 'be' you. That is the Great Yoga. The world loves you more than you love it, and God loves you more than you love Him. You may move slowly towards the Goal, but it comes often with a great force. When the ocean rushes into the river, it will come with a greater energy and push than the force with which the river enters the ocean.

All these are interesting things, beautiful things to hear, like an epic story which will delight your heart, that you are on the right path. You are going to be blessed because you are honest and sincere and true to yourself. The great saying of a poet is: "To Thine own Self Be True." Then you will Be True to everything else, also.