Answer:

If your spontaneous response was “a water bottle,” look at it more closely, and at greater length. Try studying it, or something like it, intensively for five to fifteen minutes a day. If you are able to do this, enjoy the challenge, and find it fruitful, you might find samyama meditation of interest. It may have particular attraction for the artistically or musically inclined (the object in question can be aural as well as visual, but it is better to begin with the visual). Samyama meditation is discussed in Book III. 1 – 55: Vibhuti Pada of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. The Prabhavananda/Isherwood translation and commentary, How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali (Mentor) is a good introduction to this text. Adapted for a Judeo-Christian audience, this particular rendering often translates the term Purusha, which refers to an advanced state of consciousness, as “God.” It is strongly recommended that you read the entire text through slowly and systematically, from beginning to end.