Group Meditations Make You Grow

Spoken By Supreme Master Ching Hai
Group Meditation, Paris, France
August 15, 1995 (Originally in English)

That's why I tell you go to group meditation, because here you have the truest friends. Then if you have problems, or maybe sometimes you make mistakes, because of many friends, they can talk to you, and they love you, encourage you. You will come back again to the correct direction. Having group meditation is just like having an unconditional good friend or a good beloved; and we all grow together, we share together some problems and happiness. This is very good for the human psyche, even not talking about spiritual practice.

So you see why we have to practice now, or why we must go to group meditation; because we are weak. Sometimes we go alone and if someone tempts us, we will fall. But if we go as two, three or four persons together, and if we want to be tempted, our friends say, "No, no! It's no good for you. Come back!" That's why we must have friends to practice together.

In this life everything is like that, even with politics. If a man wants to be president, he must collect a lot of followers who have the same ideal as he has, and who support him. Everyone knows that. Otherwise, do you think one person alone could create a particular movement? Or could one person alone change the whole of a country? There must be a lot of people to support! So, when we blame one person, we have to think more! It is a shared ideal, it is a responsibility of a lot of people, not only one or two men.

So it's the same with every ideal, the same with every goal we reach for, we must have supporting friends in order to go the same way. So when we fall, when we are weak, our friends will help us, or carry us. So, we must have friends. That's why we must have group fellow practitioners to encourage each other, because this is like a big family. When you come in and you meditate together you also share the spiritual energy together, not only the mundane problems; and then everyone just connected together. The stronger ones help the weaker ones, and then we have less weaknesses. Then we can come together at the same level. Everyone is happy. You are cleansed, and you become happier and happier; and you feel lighter and lighter everyday.