Swami Vishwananda tells you today:

What I would like to talk about with you today is meditation and thought. Lots of people meditate. Meditation is very good. Once you start the spiritual path, the first thing they tell you is to sit down and meditate. But you can’t meditate twenty-four hours. It’s quite difficult, isn’t it? For some yogis it is possible – but even they, after some time, do take a rest. Some yogis can stay in samadhi for days. For years! But after that they have to take a rest. I met a yogi in India who is about two hundred years old; even more than that. Of course, among all the yogis, the raj yogi Mahavatar Babaji is more than five thousand years old. Raj yogi means the king of all yogis, but even he walks around with people. So, we can’t meditate always – especially here in the West. But there is a substitute for it – the thought. The mind that God has placed in humans is very powerful. You can create or you can destroy with it. It’s up to each one of you how to control the thoughts. So the first thing in spirituality, the first, and the best thing you can do, is to control the thought. The more the thought is negative, it reflects outside. Very often these negative thoughts are about one’s own self, thinking “How bad I am, how negative I am.” You know you are negative, but you enjoy it. (Laughing) But why enjoy it? Why like it? First, we have to change the thoughts about ourselves. Then we can change the thoughts towards other people. As long as we judge ourselves, we only look at the negative part of our own self.

Thought is very easy to control. You don’t need to sit down to control it. When the thought is passing through your mind, you know about the thought. You know whether it is positive or negative. So if it is positive, it will be constructive – feed it, then let it grow! But when it is negative, try not to feed it. Then you say to yourself, “This is not me.” And let go of it. When you let go of the thought, you will see how beautiful your own life is, and how great this life is that God has given us. Also in your meditation will be easier. For the powerful thoughts are the positivism in human beings. Through thoughts, whatever you wish for yourself, whatever you think about, you will receive it.