Japa and Meditation - Swami Vivekananda

• Do not spend your energy in talking, but meditate in silence; and do not let the rush of the outside world disturb you. When your mind is in the highest state, you are unconscious of it. Accumulate power in silence and become a dynamo of spirituality.


• Meditation is the one thing. Meditate! the greatest thing is meditation. It is the nearest approach to spiritual life -- the mind meditating. It is the one moment in our daily life that we are not at all material -- the Soul thinking of Itself, free from all matter -- this marvellous touch of the Soul!


• There is the whirl of change. Permanence is nowhere except in yourself. There is the infinite joy, unchanging. Meditation is the gate that opens that to us. Prayers, ceremonials, and all the other forms of worship are simply kindergartens of meditation.


• Within there is the lion -- the eternally pure, illumined, and ever free Atman; and directly one realises Him through meditation and concentration, this world of Maya vanishes.


• The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation (Dhyana). In meditation we divest ourselves of all material conditions and feel our divine nature. We do not depend upon any external help in meditation.