There are different schools of meditation, different methods
and systems. There are systems which say: “Watch the movement
of your big toe, watch it, watch it, watch it”. There are
others which advocate sitting in a certain posture, breathing
regularly or practising awareness. All this is utterly
mechanical.

Another method gives you a certain word and tells you that if
you go on repeating it, you will have some extraordinary
transcendental experience. It is a form of self-hypnosis. By
repeating ‘Amen’, ‘Om’ or ‘Coca-Cola’ indefinitely, you will
obviously have a certain experience because by repetition the
mind becomes quiet. It is a well-known phenomenon which has
been practised for thousands of years in India; it’s called
mantra yoga. By repetition you can induce the mind to be gentle
and soft, but it is still a petty, shoddy, little mind.