How to practise: hints to the reader

The sequence

"Please select a demand from the contents, according to your needs. Then calm your mind by sitting motionless on a straight-backed chair, with your spine erect."

"Keeping your eyes closed, or uplifted (if open), meditate on the meaning of the demand you've selected until it becomes a part of you. Then saturate that demand with devotion."

As meditation deepens, increase the devotion, "mentally offering the demand as your own heart's outburst." This is the whole technique: understanding first, then feeling, then offering.

Then stop asking

The last step is the one most often skipped: "And then — go about your duties, seeking not to know whether God will grant your demand. Believe absolutely that you've been heard."

Anxious checking is a form of doubt, and doubt is one of the storms that ruins the prayer-plant. Conviction, in this book, is part of the method rather than a reward for it.

"Unceasingly meditate on God. When you really feel Him, you will acquire dominion over all things."

Make the words your own

"Resurrect mere words from the sepulcher of dry, intellectual concepts by the Christ-command of your own deepest perception."

Yogananda disclaims ownership of the demands entirely: "Since these demands were given to me by the Universal Father, they are not my own. I only felt them, and gave them expression through the medium of words."

His blessing goes with them, he says, praying that "they strike an answering note on the living harp strings of your heart."

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A simple and effective daily meditation technique from Ananda Sangha Worldwide.

A Simple Meditation Technique