WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

Meditation, Concentration and Contemplation
24 August 1955

(Another child) Mother, here it is said: "One can relax and meditate instead of concentrating."

It's not I who have said it! (Laughter) Good. So? The difference between meditating and concentrating?

Yes, Mother, because when one meditates, isn't there a concentration of the consciousness?

Meditation!

There are all kinds of different meditations! What people usually call meditation is, for example, choosing a subject or an idea and following its development or trying to understand what it means. There is a concentration but not as complete a concentration as in concentration proper, where nothing should exist except the point on which one concentrates. Meditation is a more relaxed movement, less tense than concentration.

When one is trying to understand a problem which comes up, a psychological problem or a circumstantial one, and he sits down and looks at and sees all the possibilities, compares them, studies them, this is a form of meditation; and one does it spontaneously when the thing comes up. When one is facing a decision to be taken, for instance, and doesn't know which one to take, well, ordinarily one reflects, consults his reason, compares all the possibilities and makes his choice... more or less. Well, this is a form of meditation.

Now, there is the form of meditation which consists in a concentration on an idea and concentrating one's attention upon it to the extent that that alone exists; then this is the equivalent of a concentration, but instead of being total it is only mental.

Total concentration implies a concentration also of all the movements of the vital and physical. The method of gazing at a point is a very well-known one. So it is even physical, you see, one's eyes are fixed on this point, and one does not move any more... nothing more... one sees nothing, doesn't move his sight from that point, and the result usually is that one ends up by becoming that point. And I knew someone who used to say that one had to pass beyond the point, become this point, to the extent of passing to the other side, crossing the point, and that then one opened to higher regions. But it is true that if one succeeds in concentrating totally on a point, there is a moment when the identification is absolute, and there is no more any separation between the one who is concentrating and the thing upon which he is concentrated. There is a complete identification. One can't distinguish between himself and the point. This is a total concentration, while meditation is a particular concentration of the thought, a partial one.

The opening, Sweet Mother, for not thinking at all!

Not thinking at all is not easy; but if one wants a perfect concentration it is essential that there are no thoughts any more.

Is there a relation, Sweet Mother, between concentration and contemplation?

There can always be a relation between everything, but usually one means by contemplation a kind of opening upwards. It is rather a state of passive opening upwards. It is a fairly passive form of aspiration. One makes this movement rather like something opening, opening in an aspiration; but if the contemplation is sufficiently total, it becomes a concentration. Yet it is not necessarily a concentration.

When it is a concentration, then the part which concentrates... concentration is limited or rather...

A concentration is essentially a limiting. One can't concentrate on several points at once, it is no longer a concentration.

No, I mean during a contemplation.

No, you just said that it is a limited concentration; a concentration is necessarily limited.