Meditation - Why do we fail?

Some practice meditation for a period of 15 years and yet they have not made any real progress at all. Why? This is due to lack of earnestness, Vairagya (dispassion), keen longing for liberation and intense, constant Practice. There is always a complaint amongst the aspirants; “I am meditating for the last 12 years. I have not made any improvement. I have no realization.” Why is it so? What is the reason?

They have not plunged themselves in deep meditation into the innermost recesses of their hearts. They have not properly assimilated and saturated the mind with the thoughts of God. They have not done regular, systematic spiritual practice. They have not disciplined the Senses perfectly. They have not collected all the outgoing rays of the mind. They have not made the self-determination; “I will realize this very second.” They have not given the full 100% of the mind, their full mind to God/Soul. They have not kept an increasing flow of Divine Consciousness like the flow of oil.

You will have to note very carefully whether you remain stationary in the spiritual path even after many years of spiritual practice or whether you are progressing. Sometimes, you may go downwards also, if you are not very vigilant and careful, if your Vairagya wanes and if you are slack in meditation. Reaction may set in. Just as the man who foolishly runs after two rabbits will not catch hold of any one of them, so also a meditator who runs after two conflicting thoughts will not get success in any one of the two thoughts. If he has divine thoughts for ten minutes and then worldly conflicting thoughts for the next ten minutes, he will not succeed in anything, in getting at the Divine Consciousness. You must run after one rabbit only with vigor, strength and one-pointedness. You are sure to catch it. You must have only divine thoughts at all times. Then you are sure to realize God/Soul soon.

You must not be too hasty in longing for the fruits at once, when you take to meditation. Haste makes waste. A young lady perambulated an Asvattha tree (Filicus religiosa) 108 times for getting an offspring and immediately touched her abdomen to see whether there was a child or not. It is simply foolishness. She will have to wait for some months. Even so, if those who read works dealing with Soul-Wisdom and who do take delight therein will not be hasty in longing for the fruits at once, but will meditate regularly and gradually upon them, then the mind will, by degrees, be ripened and, in the end, the endless Soul will be reached; and they will get Self-realization. You will have to exert in the beginning to get equilibrium of mind. Later on, you will have a habitual balanced state of mind. So is the case with meditation. After some years of practice, meditation becomes habitual.

Reference

Mind – Its Mysteries and Control by Sri Swami Sivananda