Three paths of meditation

There are three ways by which aspirants try to enter the path of meditation: the sattvic marg, path of truth; the rajasic marg, path of passion and emotion; and the tamasic marg, path of ignorance.

The pure, serene - sattvic - path. On this path, one considers repetition of the name and meditation as a duty and suffers any amount of trouble for its sake; one is fully convinced that all this is just an illusion, so one does only good under all conditions and at all times. One does not crave even the fruit of repeating the name and meditation; one leaves it all to the Lord.

The passionate, restless - rajasic - path. Here, one craves the fruit of one's act at every step. If the fruit is not available, then, gradually, laxity and disgust overpower the spiritual aspirant and repetition of the name and meditation slowly dry up.


The ignorant - tamasic - path. This path is even worse. The Lord will come into the memory only in times of danger, acute suffering or when one is the victim of loss or pain. At such times, the person prays and vows to arrange a puja, offer a particular food or build a temple to the Lord. One will calculate the tribute offered at His feet, the number of prostrations performed and the number of times the shrine was circled - and ask for proportionate awards. For those who adopt this attitude in meditation, the mind and intellect can never be pure....

The very intention of repeating the divine name and meditation is to purify the mind and the intellect. To achieve this, the first path is best: sattvic meditation.