Quotes related to Meditation The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
Mathew 6:22 (King James Version)Nanak! in the deep silence of the soul, there is a perpetual light with no sunrise and no sunset.
Guru Granth SahibAllah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The similitude of His light is as a niche wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass... whose oil would almost glow forth(of itself) though no fire touched it. Light upon light. Allah guideth unto His light whom He will.
Quran 24.35The All-pervading Music is going on everywhere, in the heart of all, the Divine Music flows.
Jalaluddin RumiTurn thy attention to the All-absorbing Sun within, Accepting its influence be then absorbed in the Sun, And it shall in its own likeness make thee All-luminous.
Rig VedaFrom the lotus-like light...peals of thunder resound.
Buddhist mantraThy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
Psalms 119:105The limit of happiness is the presence of God, which completely fills the whole soul with His whole incorporeal and eternal light.
Philo of Alexandria
For the man who has realized the inner life every act is his meditation; if he is walking in the street it is his meditation; if he is working as a carpenter, as a goldsmith or in any other trade or business, that is his meditation. It does not matter if he is looking at heaven or at the earth, he is looking at the object that he worships. East or west or north or south, upon all sides is his God. In form, in principle, nothing restricts him. He may know things and yet may not speak; for if a man who lives the inner life were to speak of his experiences it would confuse many minds. The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan - The Inner Life - The Realization of the Inner Life
The fourth grade of attainment of the inner life is meditation. If one has unlearned all that one has learned, if one has a teacher, and if one has received the knowledge of the inner life, still meditation is a thing which is most necessary, which in the Sufi words is called Ryazat. In the first place meditation is done mechanically, at an hour which one has fixed upon as the hour for devotion or concentration. The next step is to think of that idea of meditation at other times during the day. And the third stage is continuing meditation throughout the day and night. Then one has attained to the right meditation. If a person does meditation only for fifteen minutes in the evening and then forgets altogether about it all day, he does the same thing as going to church on Sunday and the other days of the week forgetting all about it.
Intellectual training no doubt has its use in the achievement of the inner life, but the principal thing is meditation. That is the real training. The study of one year and the meditation of one day are equal. By this meditation is meant the right kind of meditation. If a person closes his eyes and sits doing nothing, he may just as well go to sleep. Meditation is not only an exercise to be practiced; in meditation the soul is charged with new light and life, with inspiration and vigor; in meditation there is every kind of blessing.
Some become tired of meditation, but that does not mean that they meditate, they become tired before having arrived at a stage where they really experience the effect of meditation, ]rice those who become weary of practicing the violin. They are tired because they have not yet played the violin; if once they played, they would never be weary. The difficulty is in playing the violin, and the difficulty is having patience with one's own playing.
Patience is required in meditation; a person gets fired because he is accustomed to activity throughout the day. His nerves are all inclined to go on and on in that activity which is not really for his benefit, and yet it is giving him the inclination to go on; and when he sits with his eyes closed he feels uncomfortable, for the mind which has been active all day becomes restive, just like a horse after having had a long run. Then if you want that horse to stand still, it is restive. It cannot stand still, because every nerve has been active, and it becomes almost impossible to keep that horse still.
And so it is with man. Once I was with a man who was in the habit of meditating, and while we were sitting near the fire and talking about things he went into the silence, and I had to sit quiet until he opened his eyes. I asked him, 'It is beautiful, is it not?' and he said, 'It is never enough.' Those who experience the joy of meditation, for them there is nothing in this world which is more interesting and enjoyable. They experience the inner peace and the joy that cannot be explained in words; they touch perfection, or the spirit of light, of life and of love, all is there. The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan - The Inner Life - The Attainment of the Inner Life
The mystics of all ages have loved music most. In almost all the circles of the inner cult, in whatever part of the world they are, music seems to be the center of their cult, or ceremony, or ritual. Those who attain to that perfect peace which is called nirvana, or in the language of the Hindus samadhi, do so more easily through music. Therefore the Sufis, especially those of the Chishti school of ancient times, have taken music as a source of their meditation. And by meditating thus they derive much more benefit from it than those who meditate without the help of music.
The effect that they experience is the unfoldment of the soul, the opening of the intuitive faculties. Their heart, so to speak, opens to all the beauty that is within and without, uplifting them and at the same time bringing them that perfection for which every soul yearns. The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan - The Myticism of Sound and Music - Music - Music
Since both color and sound are perceived differently and we have different senses through which to perceive them, we have distinguished between visible and audible things. But in reality those who meditate, who concentrate, those who go within themselves, who trace the origin of life - they begin to see that behind these outer five senses there is one sense hidden, and this sense is capable of doing all that which we seem to do or experience.
We distinguish five external senses because we know the five organs of sense. In reality there is one sense. It is that sense which, through these five different organs, experiences life and distinguishes life in five different forms. And so all that is audible and all that is visible is one and the same. The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan - The Myticism of Sound and Music - Music - The Spiritual Significance of Sound and Color
Question: Could you please explain what you mean by listening to music spiritually? Can one listen to common music spiritually, such as tunes played on a street organ? Answer: But we do not sit and meditate in the street! Do we? Besides, there is a technical stage. As a person develops in technique and in appreciation of better music, so he feels disturbed by a lower grade of music. But then there is a spiritual way which has nothing to do with technique: it is to tune oneself to the music, and therefore the spiritual person does not care about its grade. No doubt, the better the music the more helpful it is, the higher the music the better. At the same time you must remember that there are Lamas in Tibet who do their concentration and meditation by moving a kind of rattle, the sound of which is not especially melodious. They cultivate thereby that sense of perception which raises a person by the help of vibrations to the higher spheres. There is nothing better to use than music as a means for the upliftment of the soul. The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan - The Myticism of Sound and Music - Music - The Psychological Influence of Music
What is wonderful about music is that it helps man to concentrate or meditate independently of thought. Therefore music seems to be the bridge over the gulf between the form and the formless. If there is anything intelligent, effective, and at the same time formless, it is music. Poetry suggests form, line and color suggest form, but music suggests no form.
Music also produces that resonance which vibrates through the whole being. It lifts the thought above the denseness of matter; it almost turns matter into spirit, into its original condition, through the harmony of vibrations touching every atom of one's whole being. The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan - The Myticism of Sound and Music - Music - Spiritual Attainment by the Aid of Music