DISCOURSES Volume II - Avatar Meher Baba Trust

166 DISCOURSESto know about him he also went to have his darshan. The Rajawent near the Yogi and happened to touch him on his back. Thatlight touch was sufficient to bring the Yogi down from hissamadhi, and as soon as he woke up from his trance-meditation heasked the Raja for a thousand rupees.Just as a prisoner, who looks out of the window of hisprison and gazes at the vast expanse of the sky, may get lostin the vision of unlimited space, the aspirant who enters intoAnalysis of trancemeditationtrance-meditation may temporarily forget allhis limitations while immersed in its lightand bliss. But though the prisoner may haveforgotten the prison, he has not escaped from it. In the same waythe aspirant who is absorbed in trance-meditation has lost sight ofthe chains which bind him to the world of Illusion, but he has notreally broken through them. Just as the prisoner again becomesconscious of his bondage as soon as he gazes at his immediate surroundings,so the aspirant becomes conscious of all his failings assoon as he regains normal consciousness. The ascending forms oftrance-meditation may bring to the aspirant increasing occultpowers, but not that unending state of knowledge and bliss whichis continuously accessible in Sahaj Samadhi to the Siddha, whohas attained final emancipation by breaking through the chains ofMaya.Another important difference is that in trance-meditationthe aspirant is usually sustained by some phenomenal objectcapable of exercising irresistible attraction. The lights, colours,Trance-meditationsustained byphenomenal objectsmells and sounds of the subtle sphere play apart in alluring the mind from worldly thingsto which it may have been attached. Thustrance-meditation