Positive Results of Meditation - Dr. M W Lewis

What positive results can we expect from meditation? It seems to me that one of the greatest blessings is a steadily increasing peace, poise, and calmness. This is especially noticeable when we give meditation preference over our other activities, and practice it with regularity, fullest attention, and devotion. To perform right actions in our lives—that is, to act according to the Divine Will—it is of paramount importance that we attain the great calmness that comes only from meditation, for it is only in calmness that the silent, never-failing guidance of the soul, whispered through intuition, can be heard.

We find also that pain and trouble cease to cause us so much annoyance. Not that pain and trouble necessarily leave us! But through meditation we realize our real selves as beyond these things, and therefore unaffected by them. The underlying principle of this is that the desires of the heart can be permanently and completely satisfied only by turning our attention inward toward the soul, the source of all happiness—for the soul is Bliss Itself. When our desires for outward things are not fulfilled, we experience pain and sorrow because of that unfulfillment. But when we realize the soul, we find we have everything. We have the source of all contentment, and are therefore unaffected by the fulfillment or unfulfillment of our desires.

© "Dr. M W Lewis : The Life Story of one of the Earliest American Disciples of Paramahansa Yogananda" published by Self-Realization Fellowship, 3880 San Rafael Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90065-3298, USA. Website: www.yogananda-srf.org. Reprinted with permission.

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