In moments when the inner lamps are lit
And the life’s cherished guests are left outside
Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.

– Sri Aurobindo

Meditation: Gateway to Corporate Consciousness. The logic behind today’s corporate meditation trend is clear. Meditation increases concentration, boosts intuition, relieves fatigue, juices up creativity and enhances organizational effectiveness.

– Patricia Aburdence
Futurist and Author

The art and science of meditation is one of the greatest discoveries of Indian yoga. This immortal art of the East, when rightly understood and practiced, can be a great help in accelerating human growth. The traditional Indian spirituality laid too heavy an emphasis on meditation as the path for inner spiritual growth. But meditation is not the only path for spiritual development. There are other equally effective paths like for example Karma-Yoga of the Gita. However meditation is a powerful method for accelerating inner growth. So every individual who is seeking for inner growth, whatever may be his professional occupation, must learn the art of meditation.

There are many forms of meditation. The well-known cross-legged and closed-eye posture of the Himalayan yogi is only an outer symbol of meditation. We have to get behind the symbol to the inner forms of meditation. Concentrated focusing of attention on a single point is a form of meditation. A more relaxed flow of thoughts on a single idea is another form of meditation. An alert and objective observation of the inner movements of our mind and the outer world, called as mindfulness in Buddhist yoga, is still another form of meditation.

These methods of meditation can be used for enhancing performance in work and action or for achieving inner peace, relaxation or health or for self-knowledge and spiritual growth. In the ancient India, meditation was used mainly for a more or less lonely spiritual development or salvation of the individual. But in our present age, we have to explore all the possibilities and potentialities of meditation for human growth in the spiritual as well as in the secular realms.

This issue contains articles, which describe various forms of meditative practices that can enhance performance and accelerate human growth. We have included the entire range of methodologies from the preparatory discipline to more advanced practices. And most of the articles are from accomplished masters of meditation like Sri Aurobindo, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Rama, Ramana Maharishi, and J. Krishnamurty. The seeker in the path of meditation has to choose those methods or practices, which are in harmony with his needs, nature, temperament and stage of evolution. This issue contains more than the usual number of eight or nine articles because we want to present it as a life-long reference manual on meditation to our dear readers.