Meditation begins in earnest when we realize that we need to change from the inside out.

We generally turn toward God when things are not working out in the world as we want them to, and we seek divine intervention so they will work out better. This is a natural and even desirable motive for approaching God in the initial stages. Krishna as Our Source of Healing

However, that motive doesn’t lead to us feeling a steady need for Krishna. Once the issue is fixed, we go on with our lives. At this stage, our prayers are intermittent, even if they are intermittently intense during our times of need amid external crises.

But as we become more self-aware, we realize that while things in the world need to be fixed, things inside us need even more fixing. When we realize that we cannot do that fixing on our own, we understand there are factors bigger than us at work in our inner world, just as they are in our outer world. It is then that we recognize we need the biggest being to fix things in our heart.

It is at that stage that meditation becomes intense and consistently intense. Why consistently intense? Because we recognize that the things inside us can’t just be fixed once and for all. They will repeatedly keep getting unfixed as we succumb to our impurities and insecurities.

We need the constant presence of the Lord within our heart, actively invoked by us, fixing whatever it is that is wrong.

With time, we understand that to truly fix things—not just in our world but also in ourselves—we need to fix ourselves in Krishna, becoming absorbed in his remembrance. It is for this that we meditate, praying to be engaged in his service, wanting, needing, and working to discern his voice and his will. With this mood, at least during the time of meditation, we block out the noises of the world. 

As we become attuned to his voice and start doing his will by connecting with him during meditation, we develop our spiritual instinct, our devotional sensibility. This way, we can become attuned to his voice even when we are not meditating exclusively on him. It is then that our life becomes spiritualized.

This is what the Bhagavad-gita recommends in 8.7 when it urges us to remember him constantly while doing our roles in this world. We need to have our inner world immersed in him. We need to have our mind and intelligence fixed in him. In other words, we need to be fixed in him. Krishna as Our Source of Healing

Summary:

  • When we connect with Krishna primarily to fix things in our outer world, we don’t feel the need to meditate on him constantly.
  • Only when we recognize the greater need to fix our inner world—and for Krishna to keep fixing the things that repeatedly get unfixed—do we feel the need to meditate intensely and consistently.
  • Such meditation helps us attune to Krishna’s voice, which extends divine guidance beyond meditation into our daily life.

Think it over:

  • When do we not feel the need to meditate on Krishna consistently?
  • When do we start feeling the need for Krishna?
  • How does our connection with Krishna develop during and beyond meditation?

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08.07 Therefore, Arjuna, you should always think of Me in the form of Kṛṣṇa and at the same time carry out your prescribed duty of fighting. With your activities dedicated to Me and your mind and intelligence fixed on Me, you will attain Me without doubt.

 

Krishna as Our Source of Healing