Why is meditation so difficult?

[YinYang]

Why is meditation so difficult?

3 sources which may aid you in your quest:

Initiation by Elizabeth Haich

Raja-Yoga by Swami Vivekananda

The Secret of the Golden Flower by Thomas Cleary

Initiation by Elizabeth Haich was mentioned briefly in the Ra material:

Questioner: I have a book, Initiation, in which the woman describes initiation. Are you familiar with the contents of this book?

Ra: I am Ra. This is correct. We scan your mind.

Questioner: Jim has read the entire book. I have only read part of it, but I was wondering if the teachings in the book with respect to balancing were your teachings, Ra’s teachings?

Ra: I am Ra. This is basically correct with distortions that may be seen when this material is collated with the material we have offered.

In Initiation, Elizabeth Haich writes:

Right here on earth people can reach this fulfilment, this salvation, this state of eternal bliss - or as Orientals call it, Nirvana. The door is open for every person when he finds the key.

This key is yoga!

Our friend's Indian doctor went on to explain that every human act or activity which is done with concentration is actually yoga, as the only way we have of reaching the great goal is through concentration.
In studying yoga systematically, however, we learn techniques for developing and improving our powers of concentration, and these are methods which have been perfected through thousands of years. There are various paths in yoga: physical, mental, and spiritual exercises in concentration.

These exercises develop the highest abilities of the human being, opening up his spiritual eyes, his spiritual ears, and teaching him to be master of himself ... master of creative forces ... master of the forces of fate. The pathway to happiness is opened up, or to express it another way, the path to self-realization - to God!

The highest and at the same time the most difficult yoga path is that of Raja Yoga. Raja means 'king', and if we translate the term literally, we find that this yoga path is known as 'regal yoga' or 'majestic yoga'. It is the shortest path, but at the same time the steepest and bumpiest. It is the pathway Jesus taught in the Bible. With patience and perseverance, however, one reaches the goal.

In Raja-Yoga, Swami Vivekananda writes:

In the first place I will ask you to analyse all the various religions of the world. You will find that these are divided into two classes, those with a book, and those without a book. Those with a book are the strongest, and have the largest number of followers. Those without books have mostly died out, and the few new ones have very small followings. Yet, in all of them we find one consensus of opinion, that the truths they teach are the results of the experiences of particular persons.

The Christian asks you to believe in his religion, to believe in Christ, and to believe in Him as the incarnation of God, to believe in a God, in a soul, and in a better state of that soul. If I ask him for reasons he says, " No, it is my belief." But if you go to the fountain head of Christianity you will find that it is based upon experience. Christ said He saw God; the disciples said they felt God ; and so forth.

Similarly, in Buddhism, it is Buddha’s experience. He experienced certain truths, saw them, came in contact with them, and preached them to the world. So with the Hindus in their book the writers, who are called Rishis, or sages, declare they have experienced certain truths, and these they preach.

Thus it is clear that all the religions of the world have been built upon that one universal and adamantine foundation of all our knowledge direct experience. The teachers all saw God ; they all saw their own souls, they saw their eternity, they saw their future, and what they saw they preached. Only there is this difference, that in most of these religions, especially in modern times, a peculiar claim is put before us, and that claim is that these experiences are impossible at the present day; they were only possible with a few men, who were the first founders of the religions that subsequently bore their names.

At the present time these experiences have become obsolete, and therefore we have now to take religion on belief. This I entirely deny. If there has been one case of experience in this world in any particular branch of knowledge it absolutely follows that this experience has been possible millions of times before, and will be repeated eternally. Uniformity is the rigorous law of nature; what once happened can happen always. The teachers of the science of Yoga, therefore, declare that religion is not only based upon the experience of ancient times, but that no man can be religious until he has the same perceptions himself.

Yoga is the science which teaches us how to get these perceptions. It is useless to talk about religion until one has felt it. Why is there so much disturbance, so much fighting and quarrelling in the name of God? There has been more bloodshed in the name of God than for any other cause, and the reason is that people never went to the fountain head; they were content only to give a mental assent to the customs of their forefathers, and wanted others to do the same.

What right has a man to say he has a soul if he does not feel it, or that there is a God if he does not see Him? If there is a God we must see Him, if there is a soul we must perceive it; otherwise it is better not to believe. It is better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite. The modern idea, on the one hand, with the "learned," is that religion and meta physics, and all search after a Supreme Being, is futile; on the other hand, with the semi-educated, the idea seems to be that these things really have no basis, that their only value consists in the fact that they are strong motive powers for doing good to the world. If men believe in a God, they may become good, and moral, and so make good citizens. We cannot blame them for holding such ideas, seeing that all the teaching these men get is simply to believe in an eternal rigmarole of words, without any substance behind them. They are asked to live upon words; can they do it? If they could, I should not have the least regard for human nature. Man wants truth, wants to experience truth for himself, to grasp it, to realise it, to feel it within his heart of hearts; then alone, declare the Vedas, will all doubts vanish, all darkness be scattered, and all crookedness be made straight. " Ye children of immortality, even those who live in the highest sphere, the way is found; there is a way out of all this darkness, and that is by perceiving Him Who is beyond all darkness, and there is no other way."

And lastly, Ra’s words:

Many use the trunk and roots of mind as if that portion of mind were a badly used, prostituted entity. Then this entity gains from this great storehouse that which is rough, prostituted, and without great virtue. Those who turn to the deep mind, seeing it in the guise of the maiden, go forth to court it. The courtship has nothing of plunder in its semblance and may be protracted, yet the treasure gained by such careful courtship is great.