What is Meditation?
Meditation is an all-inclusive attention. It is the movement of such total attention.
All relationships get revolutionised once you arrive at the totality of attention. Relationships are no more related to the ego which ceases to function. There are no more movements motivated by an idea or thought. They have no outward or inward direction of material or spiritual attainment. They are as natural and effortless as your breathing. Meditation is thus the total silence of mind in action. Such silence implies a tremendous intensity and depth in which the consciousness operates. As long as an action springs out of the mind it is a partial action and therefore cannot be either intense or deep. All mental activity is shallow and does not need much energy. It is a passive activity of following the groove of sensation-interpretation-reaction.
Discriminative perception and intuitive perception is on a slightly deeper level, but it is still related to the I-consciousness. It is still a refined and subtle capacity of the “I”. In other words it implies the existence of duality. The movement of silence is basically in non-duality. The I-consciousness simply does not function. Every divisive element withers away. Total energy, which is the root of consciousness, moves within itself.
The word 'moves' is employed to denote the dynamic and creative aspect of the pure 'is-ness'. In reality there is no space or time in which that energy could move. Even the concept of movement is related to our present perception, which is the result of the I-consciousness functioning through the sense organs.
How does one begin?
One has to understand that total life is involved in meditation. The physical and the psychological are equally involved in it. Unless one is willing to undergo radical changes in both fields, one should not think of living the meditative way.
One has to begin with scrutinising everything that one does in relation to his body and mind. This investigation has to be simultaneous.
Acquaintance with one's body is the first step. Friendship with the body is the second.
You provide the needs of the body in a friendly way. But you do not pamper the body. You do not get attached to the body. You do not allow the body to dictate terms to you.
Diet
Correct diet implies the right quality and quantity as well as the frequency of intake.
Eating should be related to appetite. It should not cause any excitement, or emotional disturbance. It should be gone through peacefully and happily. One has to be very alert to see that everything one eats is fully digested. The body should not be burdened with undigested food. The cleanliness of all the internal organs is one of the most important factors of meditation.
Physique
Persons suffering from physical troubles will find it difficult to sustain the depth of meditation or total awareness.
One has to be very alert to see that the nervous and the muscular system are supple and healthy. Rigidity means dis-ease. No part of the body should be allowed to degenerate into rigidity. By proper exercises one can keep every fibre of the physical organism in health. Health is beauty.
Sleep
One has to see that one sleeps profoundly for at least six hours at a stretch. Minimum six hours sleep in summer and eight hours in winter is necessary for a human being.
The best time to sleep is two hours before midnight and the hours after midnight.
Self-Education I
Meditation requires an all-round education. Grown-up persons find it rather difficult to learn by themselves. They find it easy to be compelled into following certain patterns, methods or techniques. In other words they want some authority. Meditation on the other hand implies self-education. It implies first-hand discovery of the meaning of life. A person wants to discover, learns from everything and everyone, without depending upon anything and anyone.
Self-education thus requires:
- The alert sensitivity of a child;
- The humility of a research scholar, who tries to learn and discover without imposing his subjective attitudes and reactions on the process of research;
- The sense of responsibility to live up to what he learns, irrespective of the consequences. Truth is for living. One who tries to propagate or organise truth, obviously steps out of the rhythm of totality.
When one is willing to educate oneself he should find out what are priorities in his life. Discovering the order of priority and allotting one’s time and energy in proportion to that order is vitally necessary.
Generally we waste energy in unessential secondary things. This criminal waste leaves us tired and troubled at the end of the day. An overtired and emotionally disturbed person cannot sleep profoundly. The sacred night is wasted and you begin the next day with a sluggish body and a lethargic mind.
One has to see that one does not waste the precious energy unwarrantedly. The energy that is built-in in childhood and youth is our capital. It should be conserved and used with care and concern.
Every movement of body, mind and speech consumes energy. Every thought, emotion and ideation consumes vital energy. Every spoken word consumes vital energy.
Self-education begins by watching how we are using the energy and learning how not to waste it through:
Excitement Self-pity
Haste Fear
Worry Gossip
Envy Attitude of judging others
Ambition
Self-Education II
The next step is to learn to do everything with accuracy and precision. That is the scientific way of action. When one does things with precision one naturally does them in the most beautiful and efficient way. Beauty and efficiency flow out of accuracy. Efficient action implies minimum energy and time-consumption.
The art and science of action can be learnt if one is alert and watchful.
After learning the art of accuracy, one should focus one's attention to see that one does the necessary things at the necessary time. Postponement of action is the seed of anxiety, fear and worry. Right action at the right moment saves a lot of mental exertion.
The habit of postponing physical action gets crystallised and distorts perception. The same habit becomes a psychological attitude. Postponement of decisions, laziness in responses to situations and other neurotic tendencies grow in the soil of postponement. Postponement in responses leaves a residue in the subconscious. The objective challenge degenerates into a subjective problem. That creates tensions and conflicts. Man is mostly reckless in youth. He thinks it a privilege to behave impulsively and thoughtlessly in youth. In middle age he becomes slow, sluggish and conformist. In old age he loses constructive interest in life. Thus man never really lives. He postpones living. He always avoids meeting the present moment.
Meditation is meeting eternity in the present moment. It is resolving every problem as it comes. It is resolving every tension as it creeps in. It is facing the challenges of life in a non-fearful way.
Meditation is relaxation in action. Only that person can act out of his total being, who acts in relaxation. Tensions, fears and worries create inhibitions. A person who lives in constant conflict and tension starts seeking relaxation outside his daily life. He seeks silence outside his skin. He seeks perfection outside his daily relationships. We should be vigilant not to become victims of such unholy temptations. To penetrate through the daily routine and relationships; to understand them and to undergo a transformation through that understanding is the creative way of meditation.
This is why we call it Total All-Inclusive Attention.
Self-Education III
It is not easy to be totally aware. It is not easy to look at anything in a total way. We are not used to it. No one has taught us the way of effortless awareness.
We do not know how to live in emptiness. Every moment of our waking hours, is filled with ego-centred activities. I would suggest that a person interested in meditation spend some time every day in complete silence. One has to begin with abstention of physical and psychological action. In the beginning one should try to follow the rhythm of breathing. The support of the rhythm can be used to divert attention from 'thought-memory-response-process.'
A calmness prevails when the attention is turned inwards. A relaxation is experienced when the thought-process comes to an end.
The first impact of such experience of emptiness is mostly bewildering. Every other second the mind wants to imagine that something is happening. It wants to feel that it is getting some experience. The mind feels strangled when silence starts operating on it.
One has to watch the movements of the mind without trying to control or suppress it. One has to go through the phase of suffocation, embarrassment and void. It is an unavoidable experience of loneliness through which everyone has to go once in his life.
Self-Education IV
If one can go through the physical exercises as well as the hour of silence in the morning, one begins the day in the right manner. One begins the day in a calm, peaceful and serene way. Daily life is the only life we know. It has to be lived sanely, healthily and richly.
Within few weeks one finds that one is able to discharge daily routine in a peaceful way. Challenges come. Hardships impede. One responds out of awareness.
It is necessary to point out that with the growth of sanity, peace and poise, many latent psychic powers begin to unfold. Occult powers begin to manifest. Clairaudience, clairvoyance, telepathy, healing-touch, premonition of events, magnetism and such other powers begin to manifest without any conscious effort on the part of the individual. To get entangled in the powers and to exploit them for any purpose whatsoever damages everything. One has to observe them and let them pass by. To get conditioned by psychic powers will be silly and futile.
On the other hand, daily plunge into deep silence may make returning to daily work rather unpleasant, if it is not taken in the proper way.
Let not the mind get absorbed with the silence. If one is experiencing silence through the mind, one is on the wrong track. It is still a partial action.
The realm of silence opens only when the experiencer ceases to be. So whenever coming back to daily work is found difficult, one must realise that one had not been in silence at all. One was playing with absence of activity. Whenever one feels dazed and exhausted after the hour of silence, one was not in silence at all.
A spontaneous cessation of mental activity releases an absolutely new and dynamic energy. Silence increases the sensitivity of the total being. It refreshes the nervous system in an astounding way. As you come out totally replenished when you have had profound and innocent sleep, So do you come out totally renewed when you have had ceased to function through the ego in the hour of silence.
Self-Education V
The observation of the breathing rhythm is suggested as a support to those who cannot arrive at the spontaneous stillness of total mind without some support. But to depend upon the support for a long period is undesirable and unwarranted. One has to discover for oneself whether one is learning self-reliance through the support or not. Simple observation of the breathing rhythm culminates into silence or total awareness within a few weeks. Secondly the hour of silence should enable one to live in awareness throughout the day.
In the beginning one experiences a change in the quality of life as an impact of the hour of silence. Later on that changed quality becomes a regular dimension of life. One arrives at a stage thereafter, in which allotting an hour becomes unnecessary. Or rather all the 24 hours of the day become the 'hour of silence'.
In the new dimension of life one uses the mind when it is unavoidable. One does not live in the 'ocean of thought' anymore. One lives in an immeasurably deep silence. One uses speech only when one finds it inevitable. Misuse of speech consumes as much vital force as is consumed in the misuse of sexual force.
One eats only when it is necessary to keep the body in health. One eats only what keeps the body and mind in health and beauty. Misuse of the palate is responsible for most of the physical ailments.
One responds to situations with poise and peace. One responds to human beings with affection and friendship. Emotional reactions do not twist and distort the responses anymore. The response is rooted not in the mind but in the total being. The family responsibilities and social commitments are discharged easily and gracefully. They are no more expressions of vanity or self-pity. They are like inhaling and exhaling the breath - natural, effortless and nourishing.
Thus meditation is complete abandonment in every relationship. It is the dynamic movement of total silence of the ego. It is movement of uninhibited freedom. It is movement of unqualified relaxation.
Through self-education and vigilance it is possible for a serious and earnest person to grow into the maturity of meditation.