... the Upanishads speak of jyotir brahma, the Light that is Brahman. Very often the sadhak feels a flow of Light upon him or around him or a flow of Light invading his centres or even his whole being and body, penetrating and illumining every cell and in that Light there grows the spiritual consciousness and one becomes open to all or many of its workings and realisations. Appositely I have a review of a book of Ramdas (of the Vision) before me in which is described such an experience got by the repetition of the Rama mantra, but, if I understand rightly, after a long and rigorous self-discipline. "The mantra having stopped automatically, he beheld a small circular light before his mental vision. This yielded him thrills of delight. This experience having continued for some days, he felt a dazzling light like lightning, flashing before his eyes, which ultimately permeated and absorbed him. Now an inexpressible transport of bliss filled every pore of his physical frame." It does not always come like that—very often it comes by stages or at long intervals, at first, working on the consciousness till it is ready. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/bhakti-yoga-and-vaishnavism#p48</ref>
=The Qualities Needed=
…As for the way out of the impasse, I know only of the quieting of the mind which makes meditation effective, purification of the heart which brings the divine touch and in time the divine presence, humility before the Divine which liberates from egoism and the pride of the mind and of the vital, the pride that imposes its own reasonings on the ways of the spirit and the pride that refuses or is unable to surrender, sustained persistence in the call within and reliance on the Grace above. Meditation, japa, prayer or aspiration from the heart can all succeed, if they are attended by these or even some of these things. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/purity#p11</ref>
==Grace==
In truth, I believe only in the Grace. My mantra and all the rest seem to me only little tricks to try to win over your Grace. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/december-24-1958#p6</ref>
==Joy In Japa==
I don't think you understood very well what Mother was trying to tell you. First of all she did not say that prayers or meditation either were no good—how could she when both count for so much in Yoga? What she said was that the prayer must well up from the heart on a crest of emotion or aspiration, the Japa or meditation come in a live push carrying the joy or the light of the thing in it. If done mechanically and merely as a thing that ought to be done (stern grim duty!), it must tend towards want of interest and dryness and so be ineffective. ….. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/combining-work-meditation-and-bhakti#p49</ref>
==Cleaving to the Divine==
I may stress one point, however, that there need not be only one way to realisation of the Divine. If one does not succeed or has not yet succeeded in reaching him, feeling him or seeing him by the established process of meditation or by other processes like japa, yet one may have made progress towards it by the frequent welling up of bhakti in the heart or a constantly greater enlargement of it in the consciousness or by work for the Divine and dedication in service. The attitude must be, "The Divine has promised himself to me if I cleave to him always; that I will never cease to do whatever may come."<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-central-processes-of-the-sadhana#p23</ref>
==Beyond The Word==
A means of contact that you make more and more effective, first through the sincerity of the concentration, of the aspiration, then through habit, through use, while taking care when you use the mantra always to remain in contact with That which is beyond it. And it makes a kind of concentration, as if the word were being charged with force, increasingly charged like a battery, but a battery that can take an indefinite charge. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/06/february-19-1965#p8</ref>
== Quietness Of Mind, Bhakti==
I am sorry the old reaction to the japa has recurred. Perhaps the mind is doing it too much as a means for a result. The japa is usually successful only on one of two conditions,—if it is repeated with a sense of its significance, a dwelling of something in the mind on the nature, power, beauty, attraction of the Godhead it signifies and is to bring into the consciousness, that is the mental way,—or if it comes up from the heart or rings in it with a certain sense or feeling of bhakti making it alive, that is the emotional way. Either the mind or the vital has to give it support or sustenance. But if it makes the mind dry and the vital restless, it must be missing that support and sustenance. There is of course a third way, the reliance on the power of the mantra or name in itself, but then one has to go on till that power has sufficiently impressed its vibrations on the inner being to make it at a given moment suddenly open to the Presence or the Touch. But if there is a struggling or insistence for the result, then this effect which needs a quiet receptivity in the mind is impeded. That is why I insisted so much on mental quietude and on not too much straining or effort—to give time to allow the psychic and the mind to develop the necessary condition of receptivity—a receptivity as natural as when one receives an inspiration for poetry and music. It is also why I do not want you to discontinue your poetry—it helps and does not hinder the preparation because it is a means of developing the right position of receptivity and bringing out the bhakti which is there in the inner being. To spend all the energy on japa or meditation is a strain which even those who are accustomed to successful meditation find it difficult to do—unless in periods when there is an uninterrupted flow of experiences from above. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/mantra-and-japa#p38</ref>
==Consecration Of Thoughts==
There is also the consecration of the thoughts to the Divine. In its inception this is the attempt to fix the mind on the object of adoration,—for naturally the restless human mind is occupied with other objects and, even when it is directed upwards, constantly drawn away by the world,—so that in the end it habitually thinks of him and all else is only secondary and thought of only in relation to him. This is done often with the aid of a physical image or, more intimately and characteristically, of a mantra or a divine name through which the divine being is realised. There are supposed by those who systematise to be three stages of the seeking through the devotion of the mind, first, the constant hearing of the divine name, qualities and all that has been attached to them, secondly, the constant thinking on them or on the divine being or personality, thirdly, the settling and fixing of the mind on the object; and by this comes the full realisation. And by these, too, there comes when the accompanying feeling or the concentration is very intense, the Samadhi, the ecstatic trance in which the consciousness passes away from outer objects. But all this is really incidental; the one thing essential is the intense devotion of the thought in the mind to the object of adoration. Although it seems akin to the contemplation of the way of knowledge, it differs from that in its spirit. It is in its real nature not a still, but an ecstatic contemplation; it seeks not to pass into the being of the Divine, but to bring the Divine into ourselves and to lose ourselves in the deep ecstasy of his presence or of his possession; and its bliss is not the peace of unity, but the ecstasy of union. Here, too, there may be the separative self-consecration which ends in the giving up of all other thought of life for the possession of this ecstasy, eternal afterwards in planes beyond, or the comprehensive consecration in which all the thoughts are full of the Divine and even in the occupations of life every thought remembers him. As in the other Yogas, so in this, one comes to see the Divine everywhere and in all and to pour out the realisation of the Divine in all one's inner activities and outward actions. But all is supported here by the primary force of the emotional union: for it is by love that the entire self-consecration and the entire possession is accomplished, and thought and action become shapes and figures of the divine love which possesses the spirit and its members. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-way-of-devotion#p5</ref>
==Surrender==
Then, while doing japa or walking or meditating or whatever, suddenly the flame flares up and... (you have really had enough of it; it disgusts you, you want it to change, you really want the change) and you say to the Lord, "I can't do it on my own." (You very sincerely know you can't do it; you have tried and tried and tried and have achieved exactly nothing—you can't do it.) "Well then, I offer it to You—You do it." Just like that. And all at once you see the thing fading away. It is simply wonderful. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/03/may-31-1962#p13</ref>
<center>~</center>
Perfect surrender in all the states of being. That comes progressively, it comes through years of repetition, but that's what the word must represent when it is said: total self-giving to... this Supreme, who naturally is beyond all conception. Perfect surrender, that is, spontaneous surrender, which requires neither effort nor anything—a surrender that must be perfectly spontaneous. This, too, is something that is attained little by little; that's why I said that the mantra is progressive, in the sense that it grows more and more perfect.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/06/february-19-1965#p18</ref>
===Cells Surrender===
Most of the time, it's a sort of laziness, something unwilling to make an effort, to make a resolve: it prefers to leave the responsibility to others. In English I would call it the remnant, the residue of the Inconscient. It's a sort of spinelessness (gesture of groveling) which accepts a general, impersonal law: you paddle about in illness. And in response to that, there is inside, every minute, the sense of the true attitude, which in the cells is expressed with great simplicity: "There is the Lord, who is the all-powerful Master." Something like that. "It depends entirely on Him. If a surrender is to be made, it's to Him." I make sentences, but for the cells it's not sentences. It's a tiny little movement that expresses itself by repeating the mantra; then the mantra is full—full of force—and there is instantly the surrender: "May Your Will be done," and a tranquillity—a luminous tranquillity. And one sees that there was absolutely no imperative need to be ill or for the disequilibrium to occur. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/09/june-15-1968#p17</ref>
=Aspiration=