In a way, we already know how to meditate. You may not think that. “Oh, I don't know how to sit and cross my legs and make my mind blank.” But making your mind blank is only one possible goal of meditation. There are many potential goals of meditation and many ways of meditating, but they all involve the mind and focusing the mind on something.
So in the Gita, what does Shri Krishna say we should focus our mind upon? He says:
मन: संयम्य मच्चित्तो युक्त आसीत मत्पर: |
(Manaḥ sanyamya mach-chitto yukt āsīt mat-paraḥ.) Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 6, Verse 14
So he says here, “You're trying to focus your mind on something.” So He recommends sit (asit). Brahma Sutra says the same thing, “Try to sit quietly without too much fidgeting and moving around. Get yourself settled comfortably and think about something.” Okay, what should we think about? Shri Krishna says, “It's very simple: ‘mat-chittaha"‘. ‘Chitt’ means your heart, your mind. He says, “Mat-chittaha. Arjun, think of Me.”
See, we already got one big question answered. What does Gita say we should meditate upon? Shri Krishna Himself. He says, “Attach your mind to Me. Engross your heart in remembering Me.” And He adds one other thing. He says, “mat-parah.” There has to be an emotional component to the meditation according to Krishna's instructions in the Gita. ‘Mat-parah’ is one little word. ‘Mat’ again means ‘in Me’. And ‘parah’ is a little word that means a lot. It means to love Him. Feel that He is my everything. He is giving me life and my whole life is for Him. Having that deep feeling of attachment and that we belong to Krishna and He is ours. That's ‘mat-parah’ and He's the goal of my very existence.
An expanded version of ‘mat-parah’ is ‘mat-parayan’. ‘Kisi ke parayan hon’. So Shri Krishna is saying, “We should love Him, we should feel related to Him, and then think of Him.” So ‘mat-chittah’, “Engross your heart, engross your mind in thinking of Me.”
What benefit do you think that could have? If our mind has the ability to take on the qualities of the one that it dwells upon, if we are dwelling upon Shri Krishna, what's one benefit? Well, Sri Krishna is the ultimate embodiment of perfect goodness, unlimited goodness. So whatever good qualities you could want, “I want to be compassionate. I want to be forgiving. I want to be energetic. I want to be focused.” Whatever are all the good qualities we call ‘daivi gun’ (Divine qualities).
God is the ultimate limit of goodness. So if we attach our mind to Him through meditation, we'll get those qualities automatically. And the negative qualities of the mind like anger, jealousy, greed, restlessness, these will all reduce.
