his object of devotion is Sri Krishna; picture Him in any scene of His earthly life, as in the battle of Kurukshetra.  Imagine the armies arrayed for battle on both sides; imagine Arjuna on the floor of the chariot, despondent, despairing; then come to Sri Krishna, the Charioteer, the Friend and Teacher.  Then, fixing your mind on the central figure, let your heart go out to Him with onepointed devotion.  Resting on Him, poise yourself in silence and, as before, wait for what may come.

This is what is called “meditation with seed”.  The central figure, or the last link in reasoning, that is “the seed”.  You have gradually made the vagrant mind steady by this process of slow and gradual curbing, and at last you are fixed on the central thought, or the central figure, and there you are poised.  Now let even that go.  Drop the central thought, the idea, the seed of meditation.  Let everything go.  But keep the mind in the position gained, the highest point reached, vigorous and alert.  This is meditation without a seed.  Remain poised, and wait in the silence and the void.  You are in the “cloud,” before described, and pass through the condition before sketched.  Suddenly there will be a change, a change unmistakable, stupendous, incredible.  In that silence, as said, a Voice shall be heard.  In that void, a Form shall reveal itself.  In that empty sky, a Sun shall rise, and in the light of that Sun you shall realise your own identity with it, and know that that which is empty to the eye of sense is full to the eye of Spirit, that that which is silence to the ear of sense is full of music to the ear of Spirit.

Along such lines you can learn to bring into control your mind, to discipline your vagrant thought, and thus to reach illumination.  One word of warning.  You cannot do this, while you are trying meditation with a seed. until you are able to cling to your seed definitely for a considerable time, and maintain throughout an alert attention.  It is the emptiness of alert expectation. not the emptiness of impending sleep.  If your mind be not in that condition, its mere emptiness is dangerous.  It leads to mediumship, to possession, to obsession.  You can wisely aim at emptiness, only when you have so disciplined the mind that it can hold for a considerable time to a single point and remain alert when that point is dropped.

The question is sometimes asked:  “Suppose that I do this and succeed in becoming unconscious of the body; suppose that I do rise into a higher region; is it quite sure that I shall come back again to the body?  Having left the body, shall I be certain to return?” The idea of non-return makes a man nervous.  Even if he says that matter is nothing and Spirit is everything, he yet does not like to lose touch with his body and, losing that touch, by sheer fear, he drops back to the earth after having taken so much trouble to leave it.  You should, however, have no such fear.  That which will draw you back again is the trace of your past, which remains under all these conditions.