Understand Meaning of Visions During Meditation

Dear Ruth,

Some people at times have visions during meditation. These visions during meditation are usually not a sign of genuine exalted consciousness unless during the experience the sense of the ego-self is forgotten.  In an exalted level of consciousness, called superconsciousness by Yogananda, there is profound calmness, peace, joy, or another divine quality that accompanies the experience. The meditator who enters this state recognizes that it is entirely different from the usual levels of consciousness and feels profoundly uplifted and changed by the experience. Indeed this level of consciousness requires that all of our energy be focused at the spiritual eye or 3rd eye and that this chakra be open.

The third eye, located at the point between the eyebrows, is the positive pole of the ajna chakra. The negative pole is the medulla oblongata, through which cosmic energy feeds the entire body.  Yogananda’s Whispers from Eternity includes a “prayer demand” for the “Opening of the Spiritual Eye to find God in Everything.”

Swami Kriyananda said this about the third eye in Rays of the One Light:

“The spiritual eye, when beheld clearly, is circular in shape, even as the eyes of the body are behind their eyelids. The spiritual eye is seen as a ring of golden light surrounding a field of intense, deep blue. In the center of that light shines a brilliant, silvery white star.

When the deeply meditating devotee is able to enter the golden light, he pierces the veil of space that separates the material universe from the astral universe. He beholds heaven and its angels. With even deeper meditation, he is able actually to enter those heavenly realms.

Meditating still more deeply, he enters the blue field. Here, he experiences an even subtler level of divine manifestation – the causal world, as it is known, where the thoughts were formed out of which heaven and earth were projected.”

In The Promise of Immortality, Kriyananda said a person meditating deeply can become aware of inner energy increasing as a halo of light about the head. “This light shines with a variety of colors depending on a person’s state of consciousness,” he said. “The brighter the light, the more spiritually refined the consciousness.”

You will have to assess the quality of your consciousness when you see this halo for yourself. My guess is that it probably is not part of a fully superconscious experience for you or you would not need to ask this question. In any case, whatever we may see in meditation we must not be distracted by and involved in. It will only feed the pride of the ego. The right attitude for the meditator is devotion and self-offering of all that we are to the Divine. Humbly and calmly offer up all of your experiences during meditation to the Divine Presence. This act of offering all that we are – all of our energy, all of our concentration to the point between the eyebrows, the 3rd eye, will take us much closer to our goal of Self-Realization than any phenomena such as seeing visions during meditation. The fruits of our meditation practice are most evident in our daily experience of increased calmness and centeredness during activity, a decrease in desires for things of this world, an increase in kindness and self-giving, and learning to accept even-mindedly whatever experiences life sends you.

Many blessings to you in your meditation practice,
Nayaswami Mukti