concentration whether in thought, vision or knowledge.Sri Aurobindo
Autobiographical Notes
and Other Writings of Historical Interest
Part Two. Letters of Historical Interest
2.Early Letters on Yoga and the Spiritual Life 1911–1928
To People in India, 1914–1926
To N. K. Gogte [2]1
Pondicherry
21 Sept 1914
Dear Sir,
I hope you received duly my card explaining the delay in my answer.
Your questions cover the whole of a very wide field. It is therefore necessary to reply to them with some brevity, touching only on some principal points.
1. What meditation exactly means.
There are two words used in English to express the
Indian idea of Dhyana, “meditation” and “contemplation”. Meditation means
properly the concentration of the mind on a single train of ideas which work out
a single subject. Contemplation means regarding mentally a single object, image,
idea so that the knowledge about the object, image or idea may arise naturally
in the mind by force of the concentration. Both these things are forms of
dhyana; for the principle of dhyana is mental concentration whether in thought, vision or knowledge.
There are other forms of dhyana. There is a passage in which Vivekananda advises you to stand back from your thoughts, let them occur in your mind as they will and simply observe them and see what they are. This may be called concentration in self-observation.
This form leads to another, the emptying of all thought out of the mind so as to leave it a sort of pure vigilant blank on which the divine knowledge may come and imprint itself, undisturbed by the inferior thoughts of the ordinary human mind and with the clearness of a writing in white chalk on a blackboard. You will find that the Gita speaks of this rejection of all mental thought as one of the methods of Yoga and even the method it seems to prefer. This may be called the dhyana of liberation, as it frees the mind from slavery to the mechanical process of thinking and allows it to think or not think as it pleases and when it pleases, or to choose its own thoughts or else to go beyond thought to the pure perception of Truth called in our philosophy Vijnana.
Meditation is the easiest process for the human mind, but the narrowest in its results; contemplation more difficult, but greater; self-observation and liberation from the chains of Thought the most difficult of all, but the widest and greatest in its fruits. One can choose any of them according to one’s bent and capacity. The perfect method is to use them all, each in its own place and for its own object; but this would need a fixed faith and firm patience and a great energy of Will in the self-application to the Yoga.
2. What should be the objects or ideas for meditation?
Whatever is most consonant with your nature and highest
aspirations. But if you ask me for an absolute answer, then I must say that
Brahman is always the best object for meditation or contemplation, and the idea
on which the mind should fix is that of God in all, all in God and all as God.
It does not matter essentially whether it is the Impersonal or the Personal God
or, subjectively, the One Self. But this is the idea I have found the best,
because it is the highest and embraces all other 
truths, whether truths of this world or of the other worlds or beyond all
phenomenal existence,– “All this is the Brahman.”
In the third issue of Arya, at the end of the second instalment of the Analysis of the Isha Upanishad, you will find a description of this vision of the [Brahman]2 which may be of help to you in understanding the idea. (October number now in the Press.)3
3. Conditions internal and external that are most essential for meditation.
There are no essential external conditions, but solitude and seclusion at the time of meditation as well as stillness of the body are helpful, sometimes almost necessary to the beginner. But one should not be bound by external conditions. Once the habit of meditation is formed, it should be made possible to do it in all circumstances, lying, sitting, walking, alone, in company, in silence or in the midst of noise etc.
The first internal condition necessary is concentration of the will against the obstacles to meditation, ie wandering of the mind, forgetfulness, sleep, physical and nervous impatience and restlessness etc.
The second is an increasing purity and calm of the inner consciousness (citta) out of which thought and emotion arise; ie a freedom from all disturbing reactions, such as anger, grief, depression, anxiety about worldly happenings etc. Mental perfection and moral are always closely allied to each other.
Aurobindo Ghose
P.S. The answer to your last question cannot be given so generally; it depends on the path chosen, the personal difficulties, etc.
1 Nothing is known about the recipient of these letters, except that he wrote to Sri Aurobindo after the appearance of the first issue of the Arya asking some questions about meditation. Gogte was perhaps hoping that his question would be answered in “The Question of the Month”, a feature in early issues of the journal. Sri Aurobindo in fact wrote an answer to the question “What exactly is meant by meditation in Yoga? And what should be its objects?” in the October 1914 issue (published in Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, volume 13 of The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, pp. 445–47). This essay bears some resemblance to the answer he sent directly to Gogte.{{1}}21 September 1914. This reply of Sri Aurobindo to Gogte was the first of thousands of “letters on yoga” he would eventually write. Towards the end of the letter, Sri Aurobindo referred to a section at the end of the third instalment of Isha Upanishad, which was published in the Arya in October 1914. He wrote that the heading of this section was “The Vision of the All”. In fact the section is headed “The Vision of the Brahman” both in the Arya and in the book edition of Isha Upanishad (see Isha Upanishad, volume 17 of The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, p. 30). A section that appeared in the November instalment of the Arya is headed “The Vision of the All” (Isha Upanishad, p. 35). A partial copy of Sri Aurobindo’s letter to Gogte was published in the Standard Bearer on 13 March 1921. Another partial text was included in Sri Aurobindo’s Letters on Yoga.
2 MS All. See Note on the Texts, page 586. – Ed.
3 See “The Vision of the Brahman” in Isha Upanishad, volume 17 of The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, p. 30. The passage was first published in the third issue of the Arya, dated October 1914. – Ed.