Will the same techniques work for everyone?

We don’t necessarily feel that the same techniques will work well for everyone, so we teach lots of different concentration and meditation techniques.  People usually find a few favourites that they use again and again.  Focusing on an object, for instance a flame; repeating a mantra; following spoken instructions to visualise something happening within us; creating a piece of art to express something; all of these are useful techniques which can form the basis of our concentration or meditation experience.  In total, Sri Chinmoy offered well over a hundred different meditation exercises.

“Each individual has to be given freedom to seek the Truth in his own way. We cannot thrust our truth on others.  Each has to go deep within to the Truth.  Truth is the Goal, but in order to reach the Goal, we can and do adopt different paths, different roads. Different roads allow different individuals to run the fastest.  If others force their freedom upon us, it will be totally valueless for us.  But if we search deep within, our freedom is our revelation, our illumination, our perfection.”

“Each person has his own way of meditating.  What actually happens is that sometimes an individual gets from within himself a kind of meditation.  In other words, the inner being comes forward and tells the individual to pray or meditate in this or that way, that this or that will help.”

– Sri Chinmoy

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