What is the aim of life? It is to see God and become one with God. If God is, then we must see Him! That is our sole aim. There are different ways of seeing God, called yogas. Some try to see God through meditation and concentration on the Absolute within. That too is a very long process. And this process of concentration does not help you to rip open the veil that separates you from the Beloved and allow you to see God within.
There are many yogis all over the world. Many of them try to gain bliss through extraneous means and become drug addicts. Many of them become addicted to smoking hemp [marijuana]. After one or two puffs they get a feeling of elation; then gradually the effect wears off. Different types of yogis try to see God through different means, and naturally they get different experiences. But these are in fact only different kinds of hallucinations.
There are many fakes who dupe people and advertise their so-called experiences, although they are nothing but hallucinations. People flock around them to have some experience also, and thus they have their own circle of followers. They pass around a pipe of drugged [hashish or opium] tobacco, and when their followers smoke the pipe, they begin to have [drug-induced] “experiences” too!
One in a million, through intense concentration, does see God within himself. Then for him nothing exists anymore; he sits absorbed within. Even a yogi who is genuine and who gets absorbed in this real experience cannot reach the Goal, the aim of his life, unaided by the Perfect Master.
It is all made so complicated, and books on yoga have made it still more complicated.
No amount of reading and understanding can lead to God-realization. You must be made to see God. When you get that conviction through sight by the grace of a Perfect Master, you are ready for Union with God.
-www.lordmeher.org, p4842
Nov, 1962; East-West Gathering, Guruprasad