Exercises in Receptivity

1. A receptive place

One way to get immediate receptivity is to repeat the word "Supreme" in silence over and over again, as fast as possible. First select one place in your body—let us say your third eye—and concentrate there while repeating "Supreme" as fast as possible. Then select another spot and do the same thing. It is better to go from the top downward than from the bottom upward. The place you concentrate on does not have to be a psychic centre. It can be any place you want. If you can do this in seven different places in your body, at one particular place you are bound to find yourself receptive.

2. A child's cry

To create receptivity when you do not have it, try to make yourself feel that you are only three years old—a mere baby. You have no mother, no father, nobody at all to protect you, and you are alone in a forest on a very dark night. All around you is darkness. Death is dancing right in front of you, and nobody is there to help you. Then what will you do? You will cry to God from the very depths of your heart, with absolute sincerity. When that kind of inner cry comes, the Supreme is bound to open your heart and make you receptive.

3. Depend on God

You can increase your receptivity if you feel that you are extremely helpless without the Supreme, and that with the Supreme, you are everything. This idea, this truth you can write on the tablet of your heart. Try to feel that your inner existence and your outer existence entirely depend on the Supreme. If you feel that your entire existence is meaningless and useless if He is not within you to guide you, to mould you, to shape you, and at the same time to fulfil Himself in you and through you, then your receptivity will expand. Try to feel that you are the chosen child of the Supreme just because He is utilising you, but if you are utilising yourself with your own ego and pride, then you are thousands of miles away from Him. The moment you are away from Him, you are nothing; but the moment you are one with Him with your dedication, devotion and surrender, you are everything. When you feel that you are one with Him, automatically your receptivity expands.

4. Inner joy

Another way to expand your receptivity during your meditation is to try to consciously feel inner joy. If you cannot feel inner joy immediately, then try to imagine for a few seconds or a few minutes that you have it. This will not be false. Your imagination will intensify your aspiration and help you to bring forward true inner joy in the course of time. The very nature of inner joy is expansion. When you expand, your receptivity will automatically increase, like a vessel that keeps getting larger.

- from Meditation, Man-Perfection in God-Satisfaction by Sri Chinmoy.